China is likely the first country to bring Martian soil back to Earth as part of an ambitious science and technology project, according to a leading scientist in the field.
Wu Weiren, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and a senior scientist at the China National Space Administration, said this week in Wuhan, capital of Hubei province, that the country plans to collect Martian samples and then bring them back to Earth around 2030 in a landmark project called Tianwen 3, the third in China’s interplanetary exploration program.
“Based on the existing progress of other countries’ Mars exploration projects, China is expected to be the first to complete a Mars return project,” he said, noting that the country has begun establishing the world’s first Martian pattern laboratory.
He gave more details on detailed timelines for the planned mission.
According to CNSA’s project planners, the Tianwen 3 robotic probe will have four parts (a lander, an ascender, an orbiter and a reentry module) and will be introduced on two flights of five Long March heavy rockets from Wenchang space. Hainan Province.
The lander and ascender will fly on an Earth-Mars motion trajectory and perform orbital correction maneuvers before entering Martian orbit, after which they will attempt a comfortable electrically assisted landing.
Meanwhile, the orbital stack (the orbiter and the re-entry module) will follow the same path to succeed in Martian orbit, after which they will fly across Mars to transmit signals and wait for samples.
Once the samples are collected and packaged in a vacuum-sealed steel container, the ascender’s engines will put it into orbit to rendezvous and dock with the reentry module, move the samples, and undock it.
The in-orbiting battery will leave Martian orbit and return to Earth orbit, where the pair will separate and the re-entry module will carry out confusing maneuvers to return to a predefined landing site.
If all goes according to plan, the samples could be the first to be sent back to Earth from Mars and will help scientists search for lifelines on Mars, learn more about the planet’s geology and internal structures, and understand its atmospheric cycles. .
All of this will allow researchers to expand their knowledge of the creation and evolution of Mars, according to the project’s planners.
Yang Yuguang, a senior space industry observer and vice chairman of the International Astronautical Federation’s Space Transport Committee, said Friday that humanity has achieved many remarkable feats in the history of space exploration, including several successful robot expeditions to Mars, but none have achieved it. . He tried to bring back samples from Mars because it would be an incredibly complicated and complicated procedure.
“First of all, anyone who needs to get to the Martian soil will have to first bring to the planet a spacecraft capable of taking off from the Martian surface to send samples back into Martian orbit, and this means that such a spacecraft will have to be giant enough to include engines and thrusters.
“And landing a giant spacecraft safely on the Martian surface would be exceptionally tricky, the fact that a landing on Mars is much more complicated than a landing on the moon because of the complex environment surrounding Mars,” he said.
Even if a rising spacecraft could land on Mars and take off, Yang said a new challenge would come: how to advise it to make an accurate rendezvous and dock with the orbiter flying around the planet to wait for samples.
“On our missions back to lunar patterns, the most confusing component is the in-orbit rendezvous and docking between the spacecraft carrying the patterns and the orbiter, and this operation had at least ground range and other types of technical support. “There will be virtually no technical assistance for the same procedure that is performed in Martian orbit because of the very long distance,” the expert explained.
China unveiled its first Mars program, Tianwen 1, in July 2020, the country’s first independent interplanetary exploration initiative.
The Tianwen 1 lander landed on the Martian surface in May 2021 and then released a rover, Zhurong, to perform clinical tasks.
Tianwen 2, a robotic project to retrieve samples from an asteroid, is expected to launch around 2025 and return to Earth with samples around 2027, according to authorities in the area.