China has pushed forward its timeline for a Mars mission with confidence. The mission’s main designer, Liu Jizhong, declared earlier this week that the new deadline is 2028.
Prior to this, China had planned to set foot on the red planet in the early 2030s via a spaceship. China is now trying to outpace the US in the race to Mars as a result of the new deadline. About 600 kilos of Martian dirt are to be returned to Earth as part of the Chinese Mars mission.
The spacecraft being sent to Mars by China is expected to return to Earth in mid-2031 if it launches in 2028.
China would surpass the United States by a significant margin if its Mars mission is successful.
China’s orbirter, Tianwen-3, which it intends to deploy to Mars in order to gather samples, will also accept payloads weighing 25 kg from other international participants. Tianwen-3 will carry the cargo along with it as it travels to the red planet.
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Numerous rovers have been on Mars’ surface and orbiters have circled it. However, no nation has ever been able to send a craft to Mars, gather samples, launch from the planet’s surface, and then bring those samples back to Earth.
The Perseverance rover from NASA is presently present on the Martian surface. In the years following its landing, it has gathered twenty-five tubes of samples from the Martian surface. A Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission is being planned by the US space agency, but since September of last year, there has been ambiguity about it. The MSR mission is projected to cost USD 11 billion and could be finished by 2040.
