China's Space Program News Thread

Status
Not open for further replies.

by78

General
The Mars rover has travelled 1921 meters so far and has beamed back 940GB of scientific data.

52074994677_1c37f58a43_o.jpg
 

by78

General
Also, this latest slide conflicts with an earlier presentation on a sample return mission to 469219 Kamoʻoalewa (see illustration at the bottom). In that earlier presentation, the probe was named Zheng He instead of Tianwen-2. Also, the mission was much more complicated and had two parts: first a sample return mission from 469219 Kamoʻoalewa and then a remote observation mission of another astroid named
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
, all done by the same probe, with the two-part mission lasting almost a decade. The full summary of the earlier presentation is as follows:


Of course, this latest slide may have omitted mentioning the second part of the mission for whatever reason, but my gut tells me that Zheng He may have been deemed too ambitious or risky and thus had been scaled back and re-worked to become Tianwen-2. Now I wonder if the remote observation of 311P/PanSTARRS is still planned and whether a separate probe will be sent for that endeavor.


51555588230_4f0fefab6c_h.jpg

False alarm, Tianwen-2 retains the second mission component that calls for remote observation of
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
after completing a sample return of 469219 Kamoʻoalewa.

According to Zhang Rongqiao (张荣桥), the chief engineer for China's Mars exploration program, Tianwen-2 has entered the initial engineering stage. The probe is on track to be launched in 2025.



52076039961_5e738565fb_o.jpg
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top