International Cooperation Speeding Up October Chinese Mars Launch

September 2, 2009 (LPAC)— International cooperation, especially with Russia, is making it possible for China to carry out its planned launch of its first Martian probe in October, far earlier than China could do on its own, Caijing magazine reported Aug. 13. Caijing interviewed Chen Changya, assistant chief engineer for the Sino-Russian Mars probe and a researcher at the Shanghai Satellite Engineering Scientific Research Institute, who said that the two countries have been cooperating on space programs since the 1990s, and the project to explore Mars has increased cooperation. Originally, China was planning to launch a Mars expedition in 2020, but its cooperation with Russia had cut 10 years from the schedule and vastly increased rocketry know-how among Chinese scientists, Chen said.

The United States and European Space Agency are also participating in the project.

"China still doesn't have the ability to conduct deep space expeditions on its own," Wu Ji, head of the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Center for Space Science and Applied Research (CSSAR), told Caijing. Surveying Mars is a big challenge, since China has only recently surveyed the moon.

China wants to develop its space technology, and Russia needs a partner for space exploration, Chen said. In October, China's first Mars probe, the Yinghuo-1, which will eventually land on the larger Martian moon, Phobos, will be launched aboard a Russian Zenith rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

The project will contribute to Chinese expeditions to the Moon and a possible probe on Mars itself as early as 2012.

The current expedition, Phobos-Grunt (Grunt is Russian for soil), will release a Chinese-made satellite and landing probe later into Martian orbit next year. When the probe lands on Phobos, it will take only the second lunar soil samples ever, the first being the samples taken from Earth's moon. The soil samples should be returned to Earth in summer 2012.

The satellite and probe will carry out many other tests which will contribute to planning a manned Mars mission, Caijing reported.

The final tests of the Yinghuo-1 are being carried out at the Lavochkin Science and Production Association facility in Moscow, with excellent results, Caijing reported. The remote control systems are a particular challenge for Chinese scientists, and here the European Space Agency is cooperating with China and Russia, by allowing the use of European antennas to supplement Chinese communications antennas in Miyun, northeast of Beijing, and Kunming, Yunnan Province.

Chen Changya told Caijing that China will eventually be able to launch a solo expedition to Mars. Cooperation with Russia has greatly increased China's technological capabilities in remote control technology and communications, he said. However, antenna technology still needs a lot of work.

Augustin Chicarro, part of the ESA's Mars Express Project, told Caijing that the ESAs project to develop a Martian surface vehicle, ExoMars, should enhance cooperation. This was planned for launch in 2013, but lack of funding only 850 million of the needed 1.2 billion euros needed for the project have been allocated by the European Union is making this impossible. The ESA is to produce an orbiter and rover, and the US the rocket and networking technology. Japan is reported to be interested in the project, and China might also be, Caijing reported.