Exciting times for space enthusiasts this month. There will be three Mars launches in the upcoming days. NASA (scheduled for end of this month), UAE (July 20), and China's CNSA (tentative date set for July 23, if not, July 20 - 25).
"On Friday morning, China's fourth Long March-5 rocket, carrying China's Mars probe, was moved to its launch pad ahead of expected liftoff in a few days. The probe consists of an orbiter, a lander and a rover, and China has worked with many European space agencies on this Mars exploration mission."
Payloads from the French Space Agency as well as Australian Aerospace Agency will also be onboard. If launch is successful, the Tianwen-1 (aka Huoxing-1) journey to the red planet will take around 7 months. Wish them luck.
Watch the two minute video here:
news.cgtn.com/[...]
www.youtube.com/watch?v=NG9EpW9yr84
Thanks for this @cindyli. Interesting times.
Space exploration could go so much farther if the USA, Russia and China would poor money into space research instead of weapons and work collectively.
The 'giant leap forward' did not happen because of co-operation, like has happened since the 70s, but because of competition. All we get is Space Force, which just reminds me of Team America - World Police.
too many cooks spoil the broth. :-)
@cindy - thanks for the news snippet. Surprised this didn't make the news cut on the international media circus...um..er...uh...circuit....
Here's a report on CNN about the UAE's successful launch.
It does mention both US and China's upcoming missions.
edition.cnn.com/[...]
I was near WenChang,when the Long March 7 was launched.I think it was the most impressive thing I did see,in my whole life.
Scheduled launch set at 12:40pm.
Weibo live stream being transferred to Youtube:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZMAj2aH37g
