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, possibly as soon as Saturday. If all goes well, that vehicle and the land rover it is carrying will join three Nasa spacecraft that are already surveying the planet.
The Chinese Mars mission may seem less sexy than Nasa’s latest, since it is essentially repeating feats that the Americans accomplished decades ago, but it represents another milestone in China’s ambition to make itself a “great space power”. More potential milestones lie ahead. Here’s what to know about them.