China's latest news on Mars exploration: Around 2028, Tianwen-3 will visit the fascinating planet Mars

At the Second International Conference on Deep Space Exploration (Tiandu) held in Huangshan, Anhui on September 5, Liu Jizhong, chief designer of the Tianwen-3 mission, revealed that China's Tianwen-3 mission plans to carry out two launch missions around 2028 to return Martian samples to Earth .

01 Why do humans want to explore Mars?

As the planet closest to the Earth and with the most similar environment to the Earth, Mars has always been the first choice for humans to step out of the Earth-Moon system and conduct deep space exploration.

Mars, one of the eight planets in the solar system, is 400 million kilometers away from the Earth at its farthest point and about 55 million kilometers away at its closest point. Even at its closest point, it is more than a hundred times the distance from the Earth to the Moon.

From the Martians accidentally falling to Earth in the comedy "Uncle Martin on Mars", to humans surviving on Mars in the science fiction movie "The Martian"... this distant and mysterious red planet has aroused people's endless imagination.

02 Returning samples from Mars is a world problem that no country has ever solved. How can China solve it ?

Liu Jizhong introduced that Tianwen-3, as China's second Mars exploration mission, has established the exploration of traces of life as its first scientific goal. It will break through key technologies such as surface sampling, takeoff and ascent from the Martian surface, rendezvous around Mars, and planetary protection, and realize the return of Martian samples to Earth.

At the same time, the Tianwen-3 mission will carry out international cooperation in three aspects: international payload cooperation, sample and data sharing, and joint research on future planning. "We will work with various countries or scientific research institutions to carry out the mission and task definition, demand analysis, concept research, implementation plan design, key technology research, etc. of the Mars scientific research station to jointly build a home on Mars," said Liu Jizhong.

From manned space flight out of the earth to heading to the moon, exploring Mars and into deep space, the vast number of aerospace workers are constantly creating new history and promoting aerospace achievements to contribute to a better future.

03 China's Mars Exploration, a Glorious Journey

In the 1960s, humans began to explore Mars. So far, more than 40 Mars exploration missions have been carried out around the world, achieving flyby, orbit, landing and patrol exploration of Mars.

In 2021, Tianwen-1 successfully landed on Mars, marking my country's first landing on an extraterrestrial planet, making my country the second country to successfully land on Mars. The scientific achievements made have enriched human understanding of the evolutionary history of Mars, the laws of environmental change, and the causes of typical landforms on the surface of Mars.

On April 24, 2023, China's first Mars exploration global image map was released on the eighth China Space Day. Among them, the International Astronomical Union also named 22 geographical entities near the Tianwen-1 landing site after famous Chinese historical and cultural villages and towns, permanently imprinting the Chinese logo on Mars.

On May 15, 2023, the Tianwen-1 Mars rover, which is carrying out the global remote sensing scientific exploration mission on Mars, has been on duty for two years. In the past two years, the rover has obtained a lot of first-hand exploration data and achieved fruitful scientific research results.

Looking back at the more than 60 years of human exploration of Mars, starting with the Soviet Union's launch of the first human Mars probe in 1960, and by 2021 when Tianwen-1 engraved the bright red of the five-star red flag on the land of Mars, there has never been a moment like today. The dream of mankind to fly out of the Earth and the Moon and explore interstellar space is so real and within reach.

The Chinese dream of Mars exploration continues to shine:

Launch Tianwen-2 around 2025 to carry out an asteroid exploration mission;

The Tianwen-4 probe will be launched around 2030 to carry out a Jupiter system exploration mission;

The basic model of the international lunar research station will be completed before 2035... As the timetable for deep space exploration becomes clearer, the Chinese people are taking bigger and further steps in exploring space.

Where do the sun and moon belong? Where are the stars arranged? Humankind’s millennial questions about the universe will soon get more answers.

Comprehensive sources: Xinhua News Agency, China Military Network, etc.