China hopes to complete the rover in May in Utopia, a major impact center on Mars. After overseeing the United States and the Soviet Union leading the way through the Cold War, China has poured billions of dollars into its military-led space program.
It has made great strides in the last decade, sending humans into space in 2003. The Asian powerhouse has laid the foundation to assemble a space station by 2022 and to gain a permanent hold in Earth’s orbit.
But Mars has been a challenging target so far, with most missions sent by the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan and India to the planet since 1960 coming to an end. end in failure.
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Tianwen-1 is not the first attempt in China to reach Mars. A previous mission with Russia in 2011 ended prematurely when the launch failed.
China has already sent two rods to the Moon. With the latter, China was the first country to land a successful soft land on the other side.
All systems on the Tianwen-1 probe are in “good condition,” CNSA said Friday.
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