China is preparing to launch the Long March-5 missile for the Mars mission

Representative image. Image credit: ANI

The fourth Long March-5 rocket, which will be used to launch China’s first Mars reconnaissance mission, was transported vertically to the launch site at the Wenchang Space Launch Center in South China’s Hainan province on Friday. The launcher, coded as Long March-5 Y4, is scheduled for late July or early August, according to the China National Space Administration.

Space technicians conducted a general meeting and tests on the rocket after it was shipped to Wenchang in late May. It took about two hours to bring the large rocket vertically to the launch area of ​​the center on Friday morning. Before the launch, the exams and tests on the rocket are taken.

This is the first time that the Long March-5 carrier rocket, currently China’s largest launch vehicle, has been put into practice after three experimental launches. The missile is expected to send the Mars probe to Earth in orbit, which is also the first mission performed by the Chinese missile.

China’s first Chinese exploration mission, Tianwen-1, aims to complete the runway, landing and roaming in one mission and obtain scientific exploration data on Mars.

The fourth Long March-5 rocket, which will be used to launch China’s first Mars reconnaissance mission, was transported vertically to the launch site at the Wenchang Space Launch Center in South China’s Hainan province on Friday.