Chinas Mars landing will be a greater feat with the release of more data – ThePrint

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China has made it to to Mars, becoming only the second country to puta rover to the red planet. Its a breakthrough scientifically, economically andpolitically for a country increasingly focused ontechnological self-reliance. Beijings first such attempt, an orbiter launched by piggybacking on aRussian spacecraftin 2011, failed. A decade later, it hasdone a lot more and achieved it alone.

Thepropaganda value of a landing on another planet, as the Communist Party prepares to celebrate itscentenary, is not lost on Beijing. Reaping the soft power benefits abroad, though, will requiremore than headlines. Timely, plentiful shared technical and scientific information from its Mars missionwill go a long way toward building credibilityand towarddefusing some of the tension around overlapping civilian and military usethat have made collaborationin space so fraught.

So far, Beijing appears to have chosen not to release possibly imperfect early images from the actual landing. It may still be awaiting the deployment of thesix-wheeled Zhurong rover. Its alsojust the sort of openness that has impact. The lesson fromCovid-19 vaccines was clear: Prestige and trustcomes with transparency and so too does scientific cooperation of the sort that China and the rest of the world badlyneeds.

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After a series of major launches in 2020, Mars has been a hive of activity. The United Arab Emirates Hope craft, aimingto study weather and climate systems, arrived in Mars orbit in early February, joining others already studying the planet.Tianwen-1, Chinas mission,followed. NASAs Perseverance rover landed on Mars surfacein mid-February, with the Ingenuityhelicopter probe. Its not all aboutElon Musk-styleambitions of colonization, though: Scientists hope the planet most similar to Earthcan answer questions about the evolution of our own home.

Talk of a race is misleading, but China, with bigambitions andan annual budgetestimatedat around$9billion, the second-largest globallyafter NASA, is clear on the scientific benefit and economic necessity of space prowess. ItlandedChange-4on the far side of the Moon in 2019 a first and saw the first seeds sprout. Its agreed to team up with Russia for a permanent lunar base and last month, it launched the first module of its plannedspace station. And now, Mars.

Not everything has been perfect.Aprils launch of themodule for itsfuture space stationhad the worldfretting after the rocket made an uncontrolled re-entry, eventually splashing into the Indian Ocean. We dont know exactly how much of the technology is homegrown, even with Chinas pushto avoid relianceon Western inputs.Yet Tianwen-1 is already an impressive mission, giventhe immense technical challenges of landing on Mars, explainsKatarina Miljkovic of Curtin University in Australia. Thats because ofthe existence of an atmosphereand the need to use parachutes to slow the descent, unlike on the Moonnot to mentionthe fact that landings have to bedone autonomously,because of the communications time lag with Earth.

But thequestion is not so much whether Beijing, which has made huge strides since putting itsfirst man in space in 2003, can succeed. Unquestionably, history points in Chinas favor, with its deep pockets, steadfast political commitment and a massive internal market for satellites and more. Already, the International Space Station is agingjust as Beijingbuilds its own version, perhaps leavingChina with the only sustained human presence in orbit.

The question is whether that success can be shared and amplified for the common good, or whether Chinas inward-looking push for self-reliance, its opacity andWestern worries about technological transfer dictate the opposite. David Flannery at Queensland University of Technology, who has been working with NASAs Mars 2020team, says Chinas mission reflects the scientific goals of the wider community. He points out information from the Moon mission was shared, so there is an encouraging precedentbut theres room for more.Thats true even if getting to NASA-levels of disclosure say, live-streaming launches will be challenging for Beijing to accept.

China is certainly clear that there arebenefits, offering up Moon samples and the ability to placeexperimentson its space station. It can go a lot further.

Theres room for the West to act, too. TheU.S.can provide encouragement by reconsideringtightlimitson collaboration. Excluding China hasnt worked. The rules wereintended tocounter espionage,but have dented multilateralism,fueled Beijings ambitions and not aided Washingtons.

That would give us even more reason to cheer Tianwen-1.-Bloomberg

Also read: This 16-year-old Star Trek-Star Wars fan from Pune has captured epic, viral image of Moon

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Chinas Mars landing will be a greater feat with the release of more data - ThePrint