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Phoenix666 [soylentnews.org] writes:

ArsTechnica [arstechnica.com]:

On Sunday, an orbiter built by the United Arab Emirates launched to Mars [arstechnica.com]. Next week, possibly as early as Thursday, July 30, NASA will launch is large, 1.05-ton Perseverance rover toward the red planet.

Sandwiched in between these to missions, however, is China's first interplanetary spacecraft. With its ambitious Tianwen 1 mission, China will attempt to orbit and land on Mars on its first attempt, subsequently deploying a rover. This is significant, because the typical mode of exploration is to first flyby a new world, then enter orbit, and only then send a spacecraft to land and potentially rove around.
...
The mission is likely to launch early Thursday, US time, between midnight and 3am EDT (04:00-07:00 UTC) Thursday onboard a Long March 5 rocket from a spaceport on Hainan, an island in the South China Sea. China space reporter Andrew Jones estimates the launch [twitter.com] will occur around 45 minutes after the window opens. Keeping with the nation's practice of generally only announcing launches after successful liftoffs, it seems unlikely that China will provide live coverage of the launch.

The lander aims to hover at 100 meters to autonomously determine the safest place to land.

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