Beijing’s ambitious space programme has stepped up a notch after China completed tests on its Martian lander, which is set to be part of the nation’s unmanned mission to the Red Planet. Chinese officials wanted to see how the lander coped with being dropped from vast distances, and if it could land without damage. The craft was held 70 metres above the ground by cables before being dropped. As it approached the ground, the lander then began to hover using jets.
According to officials, the test was designed to see how well the machine could land in a similar environment to Mars – although gravity on the Red Planet is just a third of Earth’s.
Zhang Kejian, head of the China National Space Administration, said at the event which was witnessed by international media and foreign diplomats: “In 2016, China officially began the Mars exploration mission work, and currently all of the different development work is progressing smoothly.
“The hovering-and-obstacle avoidance test for the Mars lander being carried out today makes up a crucial part of the development process. As scheduled, China’s first Mars exploration mission will take place in 2020.”
Upon its arrival, part of the spacecraft will orbit Mars while a rover – equipped with ground penetrating radar and a remote sensing camera – will then be deployed and will roam the dusty planet for three months.
If the mission is successful, China will be just the second country to have landed a craft on Mars, with the US having already done it with NASA.
A joint effort from Europe and Russia saw the duo get an orbiting spacecraft around the Red Planet, but the lander crashed on arrival.
China made history at the start of the year when its Chang’e 4 lander and Yutu 2 rover becomes the first to explore of the moon’s far side.
But the country’s extraterrestrial ambitions will not end there. China will begin work on a moonbase within the next decade to ready for future manned missions to the Red Planet.
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President Xi Jinping is adamant that future space missions will foster growth in Chinese aviation, robotics and artificial intelligence research, with a strong space programme being core to his ongoing national revival programme.
In the more immediate future, Beijing will be sending another spacecraft to the moon later this year, in December.
The probe will collect and return samples of moon rock for analysis and display back on the Earth, Zhang Kejian, the administrator of the China National Space Administration, said.
