U.S. and China to Launch Mars Missions.....days apart

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U.S. and China to Launch Mars Missions, Vying for Space Supremacy


WSJ

The rivalry between the U.S. and China assumes cosmic proportions this month, as both countries prepare to send spacecraft to Mars within days of each other.

The head-to-head Mars missions are the latest sign that China is ready to challenge the U.S. in space exploration, in recent decades an American preserve.

China’s first mission to another planet, the Tianwen-1 is set to blast off this week—the exact day has yet to be announced—on a seven-month journey to Mars. It will orbit the red planet for two to three months before deploying a rover that will conduct scientific experiments on the Martian surface.

The U.S. mission, due to launch July 30, will land the Perseverance rover on Mars. It will also deploy the Ingenuity Mars helicopter—the first craft capable of powered flight on another planet.

Chinese officials have framed space exploration as a contest between nations and sometimes likened the conquest of space to China’s territorial disputes here on Earth.

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President Xi Jinping has put China’s national space program at the heart of a quest for “great rejuvenation” after a century of perceived humiliation in which China fell behind the West. In a letter to Chinese space scientists published this year, Mr. Xi urged China’s space scientists to “achieve the early realization of the great dream of building a powerful space nation.”

China first put a man into space in 2003, more than four decades after Russia and the U.S., but since then its space program has steadily chalked up new milestones.

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Last year a Chinese probe, the Chang’e-4, became the first to touch down on the far side of the moon. In June, China put the 35th and final BeiDou-3 navigation satellite into orbit, completing its homegrown rival to the U.S. Global Positioning System.

There have been setbacks, too: The failure of China’s new Long March 5 heavy-lift rocket during a 2017 test set back the country’s space program by a couple of years. But two successful flights in December and May suggest the rocket’s glitches have now been resolved. The Long March 5 will power this week’s Mars mission, and put a planned Chinese space station into orbit by 2022.

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Even though the U.S. won the original race to the moon long ago, it would be politically embarrassing for the U.S. should China be the first to get there in the 2020s, Mr. Cheng said. Likewise, either country faces humiliation should its Mars mission fail while the other succeeds.

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