Mission planned for 2028

China wants to bring rocks from Mars back to Earth

(Bild: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

China has ambitious plans: in around four years' time, the country wants to launch a space mission to bring samples from Mars back to Earth. No nation or company has yet succeeded in doing this. So far, Martian rocks have been examined on the Red Planet and data sent back to Earth.

"Because Mars is much further away than the moon, two launches are needed to carry out the sample return mission due to the limited transportation capacity of our current rockets," one of the planners of the project, Liu Jizhong, told the state news agency Xinhua at a conference in eastern China. Two "Long March 5" carrier rockets would be used for this, he explained.

China had already sent a rover to Earth's neighboring planet in 2020 with the "Tianwen-1" Mars mission. This time, the Chinese scientists want to search for life on the red planet and take samples on the surface, in the air and through deep boreholes.

According to China's National Space Administration, "Tianwen-3" consists of modules for landing on Mars, the ascent from there, a space probe in orbit and a return module. If the mission succeeds, it would be a great success for China's space program.

"Difficult and challenging mission"
Liu anticipated a very difficult and challenging mission. The engineers would have to manage to collect the samples, lift them off from Mars in a rocket and connect them to the return module in orbit around the planet - all without contaminating the planet.

It is not yet known exactly where the probe will land on Mars. The mission is scheduled to take off from the Wenchang spaceport on Hainan Island in the south of China. The departure date has been given as around 2028.

The US space agency NASA has also had similar plans for a long time. The Mars rover "Perseverance" had even already collected rocks for transportation. However, in April of this year, NASA announced that it would not be pursuing these plans for the time being due to the high costs involved. New ideas were being sought.