Interplanetary journeys

In addition to the moon, China's space authorities are looking farther into the solar system. They took the first step in the country's interplanetary voyage during the summer.

On July 23, Tianwen 1, China's first independent Mars mission, was launched from the Wenchang center by a Long March 5 rocket, opening the nation's planetary exploration program.

By the middle of this month, the 5-ton spacecraft－consisting of an orbiter and a landing capsule－was 100 million km from Earth, about 12 million km from Mars, and had traveled nearly 360 million km, according to the space administration.

If everything goes according to schedule, the probe will travel more than 470 million km before being captured by Mars' gravitational field in February, when it will be 193 million km from Earth.

Depending on the two planets' orbits, Mars is 55 million km to 400 million km from Earth.

After entering Mars' orbit, the spacecraft will circle the planet for two and a half months to examine the preset landing site before descending to release the capsule, which will fall gradually through the atmosphere.

The mission's goal is to deploy a rover in May on the southern part of Utopia Planitia－a vast plain within Utopia, the largest known impact basin in the solar system－to conduct scientific surveys.

Weighing about 240 kilograms, the rover, which has yet to be named, has six wheels and four solar panels, and can move at 200 meters an hour on Mars.

It carries six scientific instruments including a multispectral camera, ground-penetrating radar and a meteorological sensor.

It is expected to work for about three months, and if the semi-autonomous machine functions well, it will become the fifth rover to be deployed on Mars, following four US predecessors.

If Tianwen 1 can fulfill its objectives－orbiting Mars for comprehensive observation, landing on the planet's surface and deploying a rover to conduct scientific operations－it will become the first Mars expedition to accomplish all three goals with one probe, according to Ye Peijian, a leading deep-space exploration scientist at the China Academy of Space Technology.

Tianwen 1 is the 46th exploration mission to the red planet since October 1960, when the former Soviet Union launched the first Mars-bound spacecraft. Only 17 of those missions were successful.