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The space race continues as China successfully launches its Mars probe called Tianwen-1 from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site in Hainan Province in south China on July 23, 2020.

Launch of Tianwen-1 | Source: CNSA

China's first Mars mission Tianwen-1 was carried off to the Earth-Mars transfer orbit by their largest launch vehicle, the Long March-5 rocket.

The take-off happened at exactly 12:41 p.m. and the journey to the red planet is expected to take around six to seven months, with February 2021 being the anticipated arrival of the probe to Mars.

According to the China National Space Administration (CNSA), Tianwen-1 means “Questions to the Heaven” and was lifted from a poem written by one of the greatest Chinese poets in ancient times, Qu Yuan.

Once the Tianwen-1 reaches the Mars orbit, it will survey the red planet for possible landing sites using a high-resolution camera, in preparation for the landing scheduled on May.

When it lands on the surface of Mars, the rover will be released to explore the red planet, while the orbiter will transmit communications for the rover while conducting its own scientific probe.

China's first mission to Mars blasts off and makes its way to the red planet | Source: CNSA
In a statement published in CNSA's website, Liu Tongjie, spokesperson of the mission and deputy director of the Lunar Exploration and Space Program Center, detailed what China's first Mars mission aims to accomplish.

“The mission will study the Red Planet's morphology and geological structure, soil characteristics and distribution of surface water ice, surface material composition, atmospheric ionosphere and surface climate and environment, as well as physical field and internal structure of Mars.

The rover has an expected lifespan of around 90 Martian days or three months on Earth, while the orbiter is designed to last up to one Martian year or about 687 days on Earth.

“It will help China achieve a significant technological leap in the field of its deep space exploration and establishes an independent deep-space exploration engineering system, to promote sustainable development in this field.”

Just a few days ago, on July 20, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) also launched its first space mission to Mars in Japan.

On July 30, another Mars mission is set to launch, the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover of the United States, which would be the third mission to head to the red planet this year.

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