Posted on 07/15/2020 2:54:38 PM PDT by BenLurkin
The red planet will be at its closest point to Earth in late July, at around 36 million miles (58 million kilometers), but Tianwen-1 will still have to navigate a much greater distance to land on Mars' surface sometime in April 2021. That requires a good deal of navigational accuracy and a terrifying descent to the surface. As the US and Russia are well aware, Mars is notoriously good at killing off robotic explorers. Over 50% of the missions sent to the red planet fail.
The Chinese mission will kick the difficulty up a few more notches. Tianwen-1 is a triple threat: It contains an orbiting spacecraft, a lander and a rover
The orbiter is equipped with seven instruments. It contains two cameras, a subsurface penetrating radar, a spectrometer to reveal the mineral composition of the surface and instruments to analyze charged particles in the Martian atmosphere.
The rover, which is about twice the mass of China's lunar Yutu-2 rover at around 240 kilograms (530 pounds), contains six instruments and also includes two cameras, as well as radar and three detectors which can be used to understand the soil composition and magnetic fields of Mars.
The landing site for the rover has been the subject of speculation, but the Nature article confirms it will be somewhere in Utopia Planitia, a vast plain in Mars' northern latitudes and the same place NASA's Viking 2 mission landed in the 1970s. The expected touchdown date is approximately two to three months after Tianwen-1 arrives in Mars orbit so, if all goes to plan, we can expect it sometime in April or May 2021.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnet.com ...
My suspicion is that they will be looking for gold and rare earths not bacteria.
Mars needs belts and roads?
Will Prezzy XI be on board?
Good guess..
“My suspicion is that they will be looking for gold and rare earths not bacteria.”
—
Naw - they wanna make sure the bacteria gets the Flu Manchu, too.
To carjack our lander? Damn, those people are absolutely determined to steal ALL our intellectual property! (j/k)
I am surprised the Chinese are not going for astronauts.
They are not known for their caution with their er citizens....
I am surprised the Chinese are not going for astronauts.
They are not known for their caution with their er citizens....
This says a lot about this contemptible nature of China's thinking about the rest of the world.
One of the key differences between the American space program starting in the early ‘60s was that we did everything out in the open, while the USSR kept everything about their program a state secret until they were sure it was going to turn out well.
Great!! Now will will have Covid on Mars.
“Interestingly, all eight successful Mars landings have been NASA missions, although the US space agency also had a failure of its own when the Mars Polar Lander was lost in 1999.”
That was my first thought. I wouldn’t put it past the ChiComs to have put a human or two aboard as sacrificial subjects, a la “Lada” the dog sent into space to die by the Russians in 1957 or 1958.
I have read everything I could find about that Russian dog in space—fascinating stuff.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laika
The Russians kept changing their story about the incident.
I got the name wrong. Laika it is.
Will check out the Wiki article. Thanks!
Well yeah. The dog baked to death in a few hours after launch.
Use it for target practice.
It will fail
It will fail
It will fail
Any questions?
*ping*
Mars will have a Harbor Freight within a year.
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