중국: 톈원-1호, 미국과 우주 경쟁...7개월간 화성 여행길에 올라 VIDEO: China rockets to Mars: Tianwen-1 launches on seven-month journey to the Red Planet in space race with US - three days after the UAE's first mission

China rockets to Mars: Tianwen-1 launches on seven-month journey to the Red Planet in space race with US - three days after the UAE's first mission

Tianwen-1 launched aboard a Long March 5 from the southern island of Hainan

It will arrive at Mars in February 2021 after a 7-month, 34-million-mile journey

The mission includes a Mars orbiter, lander and rover that will study Martian soil

It follows the launch of the UAE's successful Mars orbiter on Monday (July 20)

It comes ahead of NASA's scheduled launch of the Perseverance rover on July 30

 

By JONATHAN CHADWICK FOR MAILONLINE  and AFP

PUBLISHED: 06:02 BST, 23 July 2020 | UPDATED: 14:50 BST, 23 July 2020

중국: 톈원-1호,  미국과 우주 경쟁...7개월간 화성 여행길에 올라    중국은 화성에 성공적으로 톈원-1 우주선을 발사했는데, 화성은 7개월 동안 3,400만 마일 항해 끝에 내년 2월에 화성에 도착할 예정이다. 무인 우주탐사선은 중국 하이난성 원창 우주발사센터에서 오후 12시 41분(GMT) 롱 3월 5일 오후 12시 41분 롱샴 Y-4 캐리어 로켓을 타고 발사됐다. 궤도선, 착륙선, 탐사선으로 구성된 이 우주선은 높이가 6피트(1.85m), 무게는 530파운드(240kg)를 약간 넘는다. 화성 표면의 성분, 물질의 종류, 지질 구조, 기상 환경을 조사하고 외계 생명체의 흔적을 찾을 것이다. 이번 발사는 아랍에미리트(UAE)가 자체 화성 탐사선을 발사한 지 사흘 만에, 나사의 페르세반스 탐사선 발사 예정일을 일주일 앞두고 이뤄졌다. 황기철 콘페이퍼 에디터 Ki Chul Hwang Conpaper editor curator

edited by kcontents

China has successfully launched its Tianwen-1 spacecraft to Mars, which is due to arrive on the Red Planet next February after a seven-month, 34-million-mile voyage.

The unmanned space probe took off aboard a Long March 5 Y-4 carrier rocket at 12:41pm (04:41 GMT) from Wenchang Space Launch Centre on the southern island province of Hainan, China. 

The craft, which consists of an orbiter, lander and rover, measures just over six feet in height (1.85m) and weighs 530 pounds (240kg). 

It will survey the composition, types of substance, geological structure and meteorological environment of the Martian surface, and look for signs of alien life. 

The launch comes three days after the UAE launched its own Mars orbiter and a week before NASA's scheduled launch of the Perseverance rover.  

The countries are taking advantage of a period when Earth and Mars are favourably aligned for a short journey, with the US spacecraft due to lift off on July 30.

The Chinese mission is named Tianwen-1 ('Questions to Heaven') – a nod to a classical poem that has verses about the cosmos.

China's largest carrier rocket, the Long March 5, blasted off with the Tianwen-1 probe at 12:41 pm local time (0441 GMT) from Wenchang Space Launch Centre on the southern island of Hainan

Engineers and other employees cheered at the launch site on the southern island of Hainan as it lifted off into blue sky aboard a Long March 5 – China's biggest space rocket.

Livestreams showed a successful liftoff, with rockets blazing orange and the spacecraft heading upward across clear blue skies. 

Site commander Zhang Xueyu declared the mission a success on state broadcaster CCTV.

 

China's mission includes a Mars orbiter, that will carry the lander and rover until release, a lander, that will parachute down the the surface carrying the rover, and a rover that will study the planet's soil and atmosphere for signs of life

The UAE launched a probe on Monday that will orbit Mars once it reaches the Red Planet.

But the race to watch is between the United States and China, which has worked furiously to try and match Washington's supremacy in space.

NASA, the American space agency, has already sent four rovers to Mars since the late 1990s.

The next one, Perseverance, is an SUV-sized vehicle that will look for signs of ancient microbial life, and gather rock and soil samples with the goal of bringing them back to Earth on another mission in 2031.

'As a first try for China, I don't expect it to do anything significant beyond what the US has already done,' said Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, about the Chinese craft.  

Tianwen-1 is 'broadly comparable to Viking in its scope and ambition', said McDowell, referring to NASA's Mars landing missions in 1975 to 1976.

After watching the US and the Soviet Union lead the way during the Cold War, China has poured billions of dollars into its military-led space programme.

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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-8551539/China-launches-Mars-probe-space-race-US.html

China launches rocket to Mars starting race with US to land humans on the red planet

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