Why in News?

China successfully launched its first Mars probe- Tianwen-1- recently atop the Long March-5 rocket from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site on the coast of southern China’s island province of Hainan.

About China’s first Mars mission

• Tianwen-1 or Quest for Heavenly Truth 1 is China’s first fully homegrown Mars mission.

• Tianwen-1 consists of an orbiter and a lander/rover duo, a combination of craft that had never before launched together toward the Red Planet.
• The orbiter will remain in the orbit for scientific operations and to relay signals while the lander-rover combination makes an autonomous descent and landing.
• The lander/rover pair will touch down on the Martian surface somewhere within Utopia Planitia, a large plain in the planet’s Northern Hemisphere.
• The mission will conduct scientific investigations into the planet’s soil, geological structure, environment, atmosphere and water.

More in the News

1. The US, Russia, India and the EU have succeeded in sending missions to Mars regarded as the most complex space mission.
2. India became the first Asian country to have successfully launched its Mars orbiter mission Mangalyaan which entered the orbit of the red planet in 2014.
3. India also became the first country to have entered the Martian orbit in its first attempt.
4. China in recent years has emerged as a major space power with manned space missions (Shenzhou) and landing a rover in the dark side of the moon (Chang’e-4).
5. It is currently building a space station of its own, named Tiangong.

References:

1. https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/china-launches-first-mars-mission/article32171852.ece
2. https://www.space.com/china-tianwen-1-mars-mission-launch.html#:~:text=Tianwen%2D1%20is%20China’s%20first%20fully%20homegrown%20Mars%20mission.&text=The%20Tianwen%2D1%20mission%20launched,a.m.%20EDT%20(0441%20GMT).