Outfitted with an array of high-tech instruments, including five built by scientists from Hong Kong, Macao, and foreign institutes, China”s Tianwen 3 robotic Martian mission is primed to be the first to send samples from Mars’ surface back to Earth, according to the China National Space Administration.
At a ceremony in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province, on Friday marking the country’s 11th Space Day, the administration announced five cooperative projects that strongly support the Tianwen 3 mission and boast great scientific value, good achievability, and high technological readiness.
According to the CNSA, the Tianwen 3’s orbiter will be equipped with three of them: the Mars PEX Spectrometer, developed under the leadership of the Panel on Exploration of the international science organization Committee on Space Research, which is designed to search for traces of life on Mars and detect the composition of surface minerals; the Mars Molecular Ion Composition Analyzer, built by Macao University of Science and Technology, which will monitor the escape process of the Martian atmosphere; and the Laser Heterodyne Spectrometer, made by The Chinese University of Hong Kong, which will detect the vertical profile distribution of water isotopes in the Martian atmosphere and measure Martian wind fields.
The orbiter will carry the Mars Terrestrial Hyperspectral Imaging Spectrometer — developed by The University of Hong Kong — to facilitate the detection of life traces, water-bearing minerals, and general resource surveys on Mars.
The lander will mount a laser retroreflector array developed by Italy’s National Institute for Nuclear Physics — National Laboratory of Frascati, which will deploy precise reference points on the Martian surface.
According to the CNSA, the Tianwen 3 probe will have five components — a lander, an ascender, a service capsule, an orbiter, and a reentry module — and will be launched around 2028 on two Long March 5 heavy-lift carrier rockets from the Wenchang Space Launch Center in Hainan province.
If everything goes according to plan, the mission will collect samples from Martian surface and send them back to Earth around 2031, becoming the first to return substances from Red Planet back to Earth.
