China efficiently launched its first mission to retrieve samples from a close-by asteroid Thursday, state media reported.
The Tianwen-2 spacecraft lifted off atop a Long March-3B provider rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan province, the Global Times reported.
The Tianwen-2 probe efficiently deployed its photo voltaic panels and entered its designated orbit roughly 18 minutes after launch, in keeping with the China National Space Administration (CNSA.)
The Tianwen missions are a collection of robotic interstellar exploration launched by the CNSA to discover the photo voltaic system.
Tianwen means “heavenly questions” or “questions to heaven.”
China’s Tianwen-1 Mars probe mission was launched in July 2020 and “achieved all designated goals, including orbiting, landing and deploying a rover to survey the Martian surface in a single mission,” the newspaper reported.
The Tianwen-2 mission will accumulate samples from the near-Earth asteroid 2016HO3 and discover the main-belt comet 311P, in keeping with the CNSA.
Asteroid exploration is of nice significance, and scientific analysis on asteroids holds immense worth, mentioned Liu Jianjun, deputy chief designer of the Tianwen-2 mission.
He mentioned that learning asteroids, which have been shaped round 4.5 billion years in the past within the early photo voltaic system, can present essential info for understanding Earth and its evolution.
Source: www.anews.com.tr