China s Tianwen-1 to perform orbital maneuvers ahead of Mars landing shanghaisun.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from shanghaisun.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Carrying high hopes of stargazers from around the world, Tianwen-1, China s first Mars probe, is expected to soon arrive in the scope of Mars and carry out an orbital insertion, which is a key yet challenging maneuver to conclude its seven-month instellar cruise to the Red Planet.
Three countries are due to reach Mars in the next two weeks
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Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
A small fleet of spacecraft from the United Arab Emirates, China, and the United States will reach Mars this month after launching from Earth last year. The march to the Red Planet marks a marathon of firsts: it’s the UAE’s first foray into deep space, China’s first independent attempt to land on Mars, and NASA’s first shot at deploying a Martian helicopter.
The rare convoy of Mars-bound spacecraft launched off Earth in a slim, roughly two-month window last summer when Earth and Mars lined up just right in their orbits around the Sun. This planetary alignment only happens once every two years, and three countries took advantage of it in 2020, just as outer space reemerged as a playground for scientific discovery and displays of national power.
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An illustration depicts the Perseverance rover operating on Mars (NASA/JPL-Caltech)
Space exploration is expected to ramp up further in 2021, and Mars promises to be a hot destination. Spacecrafts from three programs â Mars 2020 (US), Tianwen-1 (China), and Hope Probe (the United Arab Emirates or UAE) â are expected to enter the planetâs orbit in February, hoping to start new chapters of exploration there. Hereâs what is known so far about each mission.
Mars 2020
Seven minutes of harrowing descent to the Red Planet is in the not-so-distant future for NASAâs Mars 2020 mission. Launched on July 30, 2020, the missionâs Perseverance rover is scheduled to land on the surface of Mars on February 18, 2021.