China will intensify studies of Mars, but an exploration of the
Red Planet is still years away, space officials and scientists said
Sunday in Beijing.
"We have fixed our eyes on deep space... and we are launching a
lunar exploration this year, but we don't have a specific plan for
a Mars mission right now," said Sun Weigang, director of the Space
Department of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp.
But research on deep space, including feasibility studies on a
Mars mission, will be strengthened in the years ahead, he said.
Sun's comments were made just hours after a US spacecraft
carrying robotic explorer Spirit rover landed on Mars
yesterday.
Luan Enjie, director of the China National Space
Administration, yesterday expressed his congratulations for the
successful landing.
"We have been always closely watching Mars exploration
activities," he said. "We hope the US mission will be a complete
success in the days to come."
Sun said: "China has other important things to do -- including
further implementing its manned space program -- before it is ready
to kick off a Mars effort."
Technically speaking, China still has a long way to go before it
would be ready, he said.
"China may have a carrier rocket to blast off a Mars probe, but
the most challenging work is to develop monitoring and control
systems that can track and control the actions of a possible Mars
probe," said Liu Zhenxing, a researcher with the Center for Space
Science and Applied Research of the Chinese
Academy of Sciences.
The experience and expertise accumulated in the course of
implementing the lunar probe program will help China's exploration
of Mars, both Sun and Liu said.
Wu Ji, the center's vice-director, said China has been
conducting studies comparing the geospace environments between Mars
and Earth since late 1990s.
Such studies have been funded by the state, and will continue,
he said.
Liu earlier said China will launch a fly-by prober to Mars in
2020. But the China National Space Administration yesterday ruled
out that the country had such a timetable.
Liu, who proposed the famous Double Star Program for geospace
research -- which later becoming a Sino-European joint project --
even listed three stages for China's Mars expedition: orbiting,
landing and returning from Mars.
The first phase of the project would see China send a Mars
orbiter spacecraft to circle the planet.
This part of the mission will also deal with analyzing the space
environment of Mars, according to Liu.
The subsequent two phases of the program will involve wheeled
robotic explorers, which roll on the planet and collect rocks for
research, and setting up an unattended station on Mars, he
said.
Yesterday's successful landing of the Spirit rover, designed to
look for sign hospitable to life on the planet, created widespread
interest by the Chinese people about Mars.
Hours before the lander touched down, the Spirit rover had
landed on major Chinese Internet portals.
China's Central Television broadcast the landing process
live.
(China Daily January 5, 2004)