After a successful mission to the unexplored far side of the moon, China has now set its sights on Mars.
According to CNN, the senior mission official said that China could launch its historic mission from Earth to Mars as soon as 2028.
The chief mission designer, Liu Jizhong, at a deep-space exploration event in eastern China’s Anhui province last week, hinted about the possibility of the Tianwen-3 mission’s two launches ‘around 2028,’ two years before the previous date, to retrieve the Mars samples.
Space officials of the country earlier this year announced that the projected mission from Earth to Mars is targeted to launch in 2030.
The key objective behind this mission is to find traces of life on Mars.
Liu, in an interview with CGTN, the international division of China’s state broadcaster, said, “The return mission requires launch from the surface of Mars. It’s actually a small rocket launch – therefore, it will be very difficult to ensure the entire flight is reliable.”
Moreover, the mission will be launched with the combined efforts of NASA and the European Space Agency; however, there are concerns over complexity, budget, and risks. The US space agency is looking for faster and cheaper ways to bring Martian samples to the Earth by 2040.
To note, it would be a significant accomplishment for China’s space program if it succeeds in bringing samples from Mars.
