The Moon, Mars and Beyond: Chinaâs Ambitious Plans in Space
An upcoming Mars landing is one of many high-profile missions on the countryâs schedule as it seeks to challenge American dominance of space exploration.
Watching the launch of a rocket carrying the Tianwen-1 Mars probe in Wenchang, China, in July.Credit...Yang Guanyu/Xinhua, via Associated Press
May 14, 2021, 3:31 a.m. ET
China is about to attempt something that only the United States and (very briefly) the Soviet Union have done before: successfully land a spacecraft on the surface of Mars.
Having orbited the planet since February, the Chinese craft, called Tianwen-1, is expected to send a landing vehicle on a difficult descent through the thin Martian atmosphere in the coming days. If all goes well, that vehicle and the land rover it is carrying will join three NASA spacecraft that are already surveying the planet.