China launches Mars probe in space race with US

TIL Desk/World/Washington/ China launched a rover to Mars on Thursday, a journey coinciding with a similar US mission as the powers take their rivalry into deep space.

The two countries are taking advantage of a period when Earth and Mars are favourably aligned for a short journey, with the US spacecraft due to lift off on July 30.

It is a crowded field. The United Arab Emirates launched a probe on Monday that will orbit Mars once it reaches the Red Planet.

The Chinese mission is named Tianwen-1 (“Questions to Heaven”) in a nod to a classical poem that has verses about the cosmos. It launched on a Long March 5 — China’s biggest space rocket — from the southern island of Hainan.

Chinese authorities have yet to confirm the success of the launch. Tianwen-1 is expected to arrive in February 2021 after a seven-month, 55-million-kilometre (34-million-mile) voyage.