China’s first Mars mission Tianwen-1 passes important milestone on journey
- The spacecraft is now 100 million km from earth and is due to reach the Red Planet in February
- The Chinese mission, which aims to put a rover on the surface of the planet, is one of three heading for Mars at the same time
State media reported on Tuesday that it is now 100 million km (60 million miles) from earth after launching in July.
However, the vessels has already travelled much further than that, over 360 million km, as it performed a series of orbital manoeuvres as it moved away from the earth’s orbit and approached the Red Planet.
By the time it lands on Mars in February it will be 190 million km from the earth, scientists told state news agency Xinhua, and it will have travelled more than 500 million km to get there.
The only Chinese space vehicle to have travelled further was the Chang’e 2 lunar probe, which travelled beyond Mars after successfully orbiting the moon.
Xinhua said Tianwen-1 has so far carried out three orbit corrections and tested its equipment. The vessel remained in good condition as it continued its journey at a speed of 18.6km a second relative to the earth’s velocity.
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Tianwen, which translates as “Heavenly Questions”, is named after the masterpiece of one of China’s greatest poets Qu Yuan (340–278BC).