China Aims to Get Mars Rock Samples By 2031; Will It Leave NASA, ESA Behind Space Race By 2 Years?

A top Chinese space official announced Monday that the nation is on track to return rocks from Mars' surface two years before NASA and the European Space Agency are expected to work together to do the same thing.

Sun Zezhou, the principal designer of China's first Mars mission Tianwen 1, announced in a speech honoring Nanjing University's 120th anniversary (via South China Morning Post) that China is prepared to deploy two spacecraft by the year 2031 to carry out the Mars rock retrieval.

(Photo : NOEL CELIS/AFP via Getty Images)
TOPSHOT - A Long March-5 rocket, carrying an orbiter, lander and rover as part of the Tianwen-1 mission to Mars, lifts off from the Wenchang Space Launch Centre in southern China's Hainan Province on July 23, 2020.

China's Tianwen-3 Mission to Get Mars Rocks Ahead of NASA

One spacecraft will be an orbiter and re-entry capsule, and the other will be a lander and ascending vehicle. Zezhou said in a Space News report that the spaceship will depart from Earth in 2028 and return Martian pebbles to the planet by 2031.

According to its timeline, the NASA-ESA mission would launch in 2027 before China's mission. Still, it would not return samples until 2033. Tianwen-3 is the name of the upcoming Mars sample return mission.

Zezhou added their spaceship will touch down on Mars in September 2029 and use a four-legged robot to collect samples.

The first time an ascending vehicle has ever left the surface of Mars, it would link with an orbiter that was already there, load the samples, and send them back to Earth.

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Two spacecraft make up NASA's Mars Sample Return project, which is a follow-up to a location that Perseverance, one of its rovers, explored near Jezero Crater.

The first craft would touch down close to or within Jezero, gather the sample cache, and then launch it away from the Red Planet. It would be captured in Mars' orbit by the second spacecraft, which would return it to Earth.

"Only by bringing the samples back can we truly answer the question by using the most sophisticated, state-of-the-art labs, at a time when future generations can study them using techniques yet to be invented," NASA said in a statement.

About China Tianwen Missions

China's Tianwen-3 mission will be a little less ambitious, Futurism said. First, a lander and ascending vehicle will be sent to Mars by the nation's Long March super heavy rockets. The former will sample the Martian soil, while the latter will help it return to Earth.

The nation is also building on a wealth of expertise, having already sent the Tianwen-1 spacecraft into Martian orbit, planted the Zhurong rover on the surface of the Red Planet, and completed the Chang'e-5 mission by successfully retrieving lunar samples.

In other words, China is swiftly becoming the nation to watch in terms of space exploration, while NASA is occupied with other major programs like sending astronauts back to the moon.