Onwards to Mars for China’s deep space explorers after Chang’e 4 moon mission success

  • Buoyed by a world first, Chinese scientists are looking to the red planet to push frontiers

China’s first attempt to reach Mars failed in 2012, when Russia’s Phobos-Grunt spacecraft carrying China’s Yinghuo 1 probe failed to get beyond Earth’s orbit and eventually broke up over the Pacific Ocean. Photo: Shutterstock/NASA

A successful moon landing has revived China’s interest in sending spacecraft to Mars, six years after its failed mission to the red planet.

Officials from the China National Space Administration said on Monday that China would send a probe to Mars around 2020 and a returnable craft to the moon by the end of this year.

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