BEIJING (AP) – China says the Tianwen-1 spacecraft has entered a temporary parking orbit around Mars, waiting for a rover to land on the red planet in the coming months.
China’s National Space Administration said the spacecraft performed a maneuver to adjust its orbit to Beijing time on Wednesday morning and will remain in the new orbit for about three months before attempting to land. During this time, it will map the surface of Mars and use its cameras and other sensors to collect additional data, especially about its potential landing site.
This followed the landing of the US Perseverance rover last Thursday near an ancient delta of the river in the Jezero crater to look for signs of ancient microscopic life.
A successful bid to land Tianwen-1 would make China only the second country after the US to place a spacecraft on Mars. The solar-powered vehicle in China, about the size of a golf cart, will collect data on groundwater and look for evidence that the planet could once have harbored microscopic life.
Tianwen, the title of an ancient poem, means “The Search for Heavenly Truth.”
The landing of a spacecraft on Mars is notoriously difficult. About a dozen orbiters missed the sign. In 2011, a Chinese orbiter related to Mars that was part of a Russian mission did not leave Earth’s orbit.
China’s attempt will involve a parachute, rocket fire and airbags. Its proposed landing site is a vast, rocky plain called the Utopia Planitia, where the American lander Viking 2 reached in 1976.
The arrival of Tianwen-1 on Mars on February 10 was preceded by that of an orbiter in the United Arab Emirates. All three recent missions were launched in July to take advantage of the close alignment between Earth and Mars that happens only once every two years.
Tianwen-1 is the most ambitious mission to date for China’s secret military-related space program, which first launched an astronaut into orbit around Earth in 2003 and last year brought lunar rocks to Earth for the first time since 1970s. China was also the first country to land a spacecraft on the far side of the moon, little explored, in 2019.
China is also building a permanent space station and is planning a monthly manned mission and a possible permanent lunar research base, although no data have yet been proposed.
On Monday, a massive Long March-5B Y2 rocket was moved to its site at the Wenchang spacecraft launch site in Hainan Province for assembly and testing before the launch of the space station’s central module, dubbed Tianhe. The launch is scheduled for the first half of this year, the first of 11 missions scheduled in the next two years for the construction of the station.
China is not participating in the International Space Station, partly at the insistence of the United States.
The space program is a source of enormous national pride in China, and Tianwen-1 has attracted a particularly strong audience. Tourists gathered on the tropical island of Hainan to watch the launch, while others visit the mockery of the Mars colonies in desert places with white domes, airblocks and space suits.