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<\/p>\nThe Tianwen-1 Orbiter, Lander, and Rover departed for Mars at 00:41 EDT (04:41 UTC) on Thursday, 23 July 2020 from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Center in Wenchang, Hainan, People\u2019s Republic of China.<\/p>\n
The flight is the first China-led mission to another planet and seeks to be the first successful Chinese Mars endeavour. Liftoff of the mission will mark the first time a flight to another planet departs from Chinese soil.<\/p>\n
The road to Tianwen-1<\/b><\/p>\n
The mission follows the failed Fobos-Grunt flight, a joint partnership between China and Russia, which included the Yinghuo-1 craft that was to be China\u2019s first Mars orbiter.<\/p>\n
The mission came to an end after Fobos-Grunt itself failed to perform the Trans Mars Injection burn to send itself on its way to Mars from Earth parking orbit. The entire mission reentered and burned up in Earth\u2019s atmosphere in January 2012.<\/p>\n
After that, Chinese authorities began an independent Mars program, and Tianwen-1 was formally approved for flight in 2016 as a three-pronged approach that included an Orbiter, Lander, and Rover.<\/p>\n
The three-parts will launch as an integrated stack and remain together through Mars orbit insertion and the first two months of orbital operations at the Red Planet. <\/p>\n
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Artist\u2019s impression of the three spacecraft China will send to Mars. ( Credit: Nature Astronomy, CNSA)<\/p>\n
The Lander will then descend to the Martian surface and, if successful, deploy a Rover shortly thereafter.<\/p>\n
Aerospace industry analysis (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});<\/p>\n All three elements of the craft were developed by the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation while the overall mission is managed by the National Space Science Center in Beijing.<\/p>\n In order to get the craft to Mars, China will make use of their Chang Zheng 5 (Long March 5) carrier rocket, the nation\u2019s heavy-lift vehicle which had a less-than-stellar debut.<\/p>\n Its first mission resulted in the YZ-2 optional third stage and satellite being placed into an incorrect orbit; however, the YZ-2 stage was able to correct the issue and place the payload into the desired orbit. The mission was declared a success by Chinese officials, matching what other launch providers around the world would do under similar circumstances.<\/p>\n The second flight encountered an outright failure in July 2017, grounding the rocket for over two and a half years as major upgrades and enhancements were made \u2014 including a completely redesigned core stage YF-77 engine, to which engineers traced the failure.<\/p>\n A successful return to flight mission followed on 27 December 2019, and saw the rocket take the Shijian-20 communications satellite into its intended Geostationary Transfer Orbit.<\/p>\n The fourth flight of the Chang Zheng 5 followed on 5 May 2020; the rocket successfully launched China\u2019s future deep space crew capsule on a multi-day Earth orbit test flight. <\/p>\n<\/p>\nSee Also<\/h4>\n
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