1 week Ago
While Chinese scientists vowed to bring back rock samples from Mars to Earth with two unmanned vehicles in 2028-2031, their American counterparts said they will launch an uncrewed spaceship to the Red Planet in 2026 and a crewed one in 2028. The China National Space Administration (CNSA) plans to carry out its Tianwen-3 mission through two launches in 2028, aiming to bring back 500 grams of rock samples from Mars and searching for signs of life on the planet. In the Tianwen 3 plan, the lander or sample collector (landing-ascending combination) and deliverer or return module (orbiter-returner combination) will be launched to Mars separately, Liu Jizhong, director of the Lunar Exploration and Space Program Center of CNSA, said at at the 2nd International Deep Space Exploration Conference in Anhui on September 5.
Chinese space engineers will have to tackle key technologies such as collecting samples on the Martian surface, taking off from the Red Planet, rendezvous on the orbit around Mars, as well as planetary protection, he said. Some media, including the South China Morning Post, the launch of the Tianwen-3 mission to Mars in 2028 is two years earlier than previously planned. But in fact Sun Zezhou, chief designer of the Tianwen-1 mission, had already in April last year that the earliest time for China to launch space rockets to Mars for a sampling mission would be 2028 while the mission probably would involve two rocket launches.
Sun had also at that theme elaborated on the mission’s 13 steps, which will be executed through methods such as in-situ and remote-sensing detections. Although Liu’s latest speech did not contain new information, it that Beijing’s Mars-sampling project remains on track. Earth and Mars align every 26 months, making possible a journey between the two planets within 259 days or eight-and-a-half months.
Following Liu’s speech, SpaceX Chief Executive Elon Musk said in an X post on September 7 that his company’s first uncrewed Starships will be launched in 2026 when the next window opens. “These will be uncrewed to test the reliability of landing intact on Mars. If those landings go well, then the first crewed flights to Mars will be in four years,” Musk said.
He added that the flight rate will grow exponentially from there, with the goal of building a self-sustaining city in about 20 years. “Being multiplanetary will vastly increase the probable lifespan of consciousness, as we will no longer have all our eggs, literally and metabolically, on one planet,” he says. “It currently costs about a billion dollars per ton of useful payload to the surface of Mars,” Musk said in another post.
“That needs to be improved to US$100,000 per ton to build a self-sustaining city there, so the technology needs to be 10,000 times better. Extremely difficult, but not impossible.” China’s Long March-5 The CNSA and SpaceX will use different methods to land on Mars and collect the rock samples.
In July 2020, China launched Zhurong, a 240-kilogram rover, to Mars with a Long March-5 rocket. The rover successfully landed on Mars on May 14, 2021. It stayed active for 358 days, exceeding the designed lifespan of 93 days.
The Long March 5 is nicknamed “ ” as it looks bulky with eight YF-100 and two YF-77 engines, all of which have a combined thrust of 10,636 kN. It can lift 25 tons to low Earth orbit and 14.5 tons to geostationary transfer orbit (GTO).
The YF-100 originated from the Soviet Union’s RD-120, which was produced in Ukraine several decades ago. China acquired the engines and knowhow from Ukraine in the 1990s. As the more powerful Long March-9 will only be available for use in 2033, the CNSA can only launch its Mars lander with a Long March-5 in 2028.
The return module, which is lighter than the lander, can be with the older-generation Long March 3B, which can lift 11.2 tons to low Earth orbit and 5.1 tons to GTO.
SpaceX’s Super Heavy In comparison, SpaceX’s launch vehicle called Super Heavy is a lot younger as it only flew for the first time in April 2023. It has a maximum thrust of 74,400 kN. It can lift 150 tons to low Earth orbit and 100 tons to geostationary transfer orbit (GTO).
This is why SpaceX can launch a Starship to Mars in one go. Besides, Super Heavy is reusable, helping minimize SpaceX’s launch costs. An Anhui-based columnist says in an published on Monday that Musk’s Mars colonization program sounds rosy but whether it will work is another matter.
“It’s not the first time that Musk said he can send people to Mars. Are his rockets and astronauts ready? Can his goals really be achieved in four years?” says the writer. “Musk does not have full plans nor sufficient budget.
Even if SpaceX has an innovative team, it’s impossible for it to accomplish its missions by 2028,” he says, adding that China is pushing its space exploration plans step-by-step. If the CNSA’s plan is smooth, its Mars samples will arrive on Earth in July 2031. Meanwhile, NASA has already collected some rock samples with its rovers on Mars.
It originally planned to send samples to Earth by 2033 but such a plan will probably be delayed due to budget concerns..
