China yesterday successfully completed a lander test in Hebei Province ahead of an uncrewed exploration mission to Mars next year.
China is on track to launch its Mars mission next year, China National Space Administration Director Zhang Kejian (張克儉) said.
Zhang was speaking ahead of the hovering-and-obstacle avoidance test for the lander.
Photo: AP
The journey through space will take about seven months, while landing will take seven minutes, said Zhang Rongqiao (張榮橋), chief architect of the Mars exploration program.
The test was conducted at a sprawling landing test site in Huailai, northwest of Beijing.
China has developed the powerful Long March 5 rocket to transport the probe to Mars.
The same rocket is meant to deliver the Chang’e-5 probe to the moon this year or early next year to bring back rock samples.
The Chang’e-4 probe successfully touched down on the far side of the moon in January, a historic first and a major achievement for China’s space program.
China made its first lunar landing in 2013. It expects to complete a modular space station by about 2022, around the time when NASA is said to start building a new space station laboratory to orbit the moon as a pit stop for missions to other parts of the solar system.
In 2003, China became the third nation to put a man in space with its own rocket after the former Soviet Union and the US.
Since then, it has been racing to catch up with the US and Russia to become a major space power by 2030.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was