China could beat NASA to return first Mars samples by 2031
The mission will drill about 500 grams of rock and soil and use a simpler two-rocket design, officials said.
4 Articles
4 Articles
China could beat NASA to return first Mars samples by 2031
China is aiming to bring 500 grams of Mars back to Earth by 2031, and NASA currently has no clear plan or the funding to match it. The CNSA (China National Space Administration) mission, called Tianwen-3, is set to launch around 2028 on two Long March 5 heavy-lift rockets (the workhorse that has already delivered both of China’s Chang’e lunar sample returns) out of the Wenchang Space Launch Site in Hainan, China’s southernmost province. The laun…
Launch is planned for 2028 and compared to the launch of the Sputnik satellite in 1957. Collecting samples will be the key to finding similar traces "to the first forms of life on Earth".
Returning a sample with a fully documented origin opens up a much broader field of research. No spacecraft has ever managed to transport a sample from Mars that was intentionally collected to a laboratory on Earth. China wants to change that with its planned Tianwen-3 mission, which aims to complete a series of extremely demanding steps in a single operation to collect Martian material, seal it, launch it from the planet's surface, perform an au…
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