Chinas Ambitious Plans in Space: The Moon, Mars and Beyond – The New York Times

A week after its successful Mars landing, China said on Saturday that it had deployed a land rover on the planets surface, a feat that only the United States had accomplished before.

The solar-powered rover, named Zhurong after a god of fire in Chinese mythology, drove down from its landing platform and reached Martian soil on Saturday morning, the China National Space Administration said. It is expected to explore the planets surface for at least 90 days.

The Mars mission, Chinas first, may seem less glamorous than NASAs latest, since it is essentially repeating feats that the Americans accomplished decades ago. Still, it represents another milestone in Chinas ambition to make itself a great space power, as its top leader, Xi Jinping, put it last month.

More potential milestones lie ahead. Heres what to know about them.

In January 2019, China became the first country to land a probe on the far side of the moon, the part that perpetually faces away from Earth. It was Chinas second successful moon landing, after one in 2013.

That year, it put a rover on the moons surface that still operates today, far beyond the three months it was expected to last. As of late April, it had roamed nearly half a mile from its starting point in the Von Krmn crater near the moons southern pole, according to a report on Chinese state television.

In December, China sent yet another craft to the moon. It scooped up nearly four pounds of rocks and soil near a volcanic feature called Mons Rmker and brought them back to Earth the first lunar samples since the ones collected by the Soviet Unions Luna 24 mission in 1976. Some of the samples were put on public display in Beijing with great fanfare.

China names its moon probes after Change, a moon goddess in its mythology. Three more are planned by 2027, featuring additional rovers, a flying probe and even a proposed experiment in 3-D printing in space, according to statements from Chinas space agency.

The missions are meant to lay the foundation for a lunar base and visits by astronauts, or taikonauts, as the Chinese call them, in the 2030s. So far, only the American Apollo programs have put people on the moon.

In March, Russias space agency, Roscosmos, said it would work with China on the construction of a lunar research station, though the countries have yet to offer details of any joint plans.

Chinas launch in April of the main module for its newest orbiting space station drew more international attention than expected for the wrong reasons. After reaching orbit, the main rocket booster tumbled ominously back to Earth in what is called an uncontrolled re-entry. The debris landed in the Indian Ocean in May, narrowly missing the Maldives and spurring criticism of how China carries out the launches of its heaviest rocket, the Long March 5B.

That mission was the first of 11 needed to build Chinas third, and most ambitious, space station by the end of 2022. Two more Long March 5B rockets will carry additional modules, and other variants will launch smaller parts. Four missions, one planned for June, will return Chinese astronauts to space after more than four years.

Chinas first two space stations were short-lived prototypes, but this one is intended to function for a decade or longer. Mr. Xi compared it to the two bombs, one satellite exhortation of Mao Zedongs era, which referred to Chinas race to develop a nuclear weapon, mount it on an intercontinental ballistic missile and put a satellite in orbit. Like all of Chinas accomplishments in space, it is being touted as evidence of the prowess of the Communist Party-run state.

The International Space Station, jointly developed by the United States, Russia and others, is nearing the end of its intended life in 2024. What happens after that is unclear. NASA has proposed keeping the station going for a few more years; Russia has said that it intends to withdraw by 2025.

If the station is decommissioned, Chinas could be the only game in town for some time.

The station named, like the first two, Tiangong, or Heavenly Palace will be able to house three astronauts for long-term missions and as many as six for shorter periods. China has selected a team of 18 astronauts, some of whom are civilians (only one is a woman). The first three are scheduled to spend three months in space, which would surpass the 33-day record for Chinese astronauts set in 2016.

Hao Chun, the director of Chinas Manned Space Agency, told the state news media that astronauts from other nations would be allowed to visit, whether aboard Chinese spacecraft or their own, though they would need a docking mechanism in line with Chinese standards, which differ from those on the International Space Station. He said some foreign astronauts were learning Mandarin in preparation.

In one go, Chinas Mars mission, called Tianwen (Questions to Heaven) after a classic poem, completed a trifecta of feats that NASA accomplished over a number of years. It reached orbit around the planet in February, safely put a craft on the surface on May 15 and has now released a land rover.

The Soviet Union was the first country to land a craft on Mars, in 1971, but seconds after touching down, the lander stopped communicating, probably because of a sandstorm. It transmitted a single incomplete or indecipherable image. Since then, a number of other attempts to reach the surface, made by several countries, have failed.

Until this month, only the United States had managed successful Mars landings eight in all, the most recent by the Perseverance rover in February. (China tried to send an orbiter to Mars in 2011, but the Russian rocket that was carrying it failed to get out of orbit, and both crashed back to Earth.)

Four days after Chinas lander touched down on Utopia Planitia, a large basin in the northern hemisphere where NASAs Viking 2 landed in 1976, the countrys space agency released its first photographs from the planets surface and said the mission was proceeding as planned.

The agency released two black-and-white photos on Saturday of the rover on the surface. The rover will conduct experiments studying Marss topography, geology and atmosphere. One goal is to better understand the distribution of ice in the region, which, in theory, could help sustain future visits by people.

China has said it plans to send a second lander to Mars by 2028 and, ultimately, to bring samples back from the planet. Its a complex feat that NASA and the European Space Agency are already working on, with hopes that soil and rocks collected by Perseverance can be brought home in 2031. Chinas mission could happen this decade, setting up a potential race.

In addition to the possibility of a future crewed mission to Mars, China is planning a single, 10-year mission to collect a sample from an asteroid and pass by a comet. It has also proposed orbiters for Venus and Jupiter. In 2024, it plans to launch an orbiting telescope similar to the Hubble, which first launched in 1990.

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Chinas Ambitious Plans in Space: The Moon, Mars and Beyond - The New York Times