Applications are open for international science projects to join China’s Tianwen-3 mission to Mars, indicating that it is on track to launch in 2028 and increasingly likely to be first in the race to retrieve samples from the red planet.
As the official invitation was issued by the China National Space Administration (CNSA) on Wednesday, Nasa was facing new challenges – including the loss of its chief scientist – in the first round of cuts ordered by President Donald Trump and in the midst of uncertainties about its own Mars mission.
According to CNSA, the Tianwen-3 selection process to determine the successful projects will follow an accelerated timeline, with letters of intent due by June and final decisions expected in October.
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Each chosen project will be offered a free ride for up to 20kg (44lb) of instruments – if they can be ready by 2027. “This opportunity is open to the global community,” said the agency in a statement on its website.
Eligible projects will align with Tianwen-3’s primary scientific objectives – such as the search for signs of past life on the planet – or will need to provide complementary or extended value to the mission, while showing “strong innovation in science and engineering”, it said.
Planetary scientist Qian Yuqi, from the University of Hong Kong, said the announcement confirmed that Tianwen-3 is on schedule. He also noted the contrast with the dramatic shake-up at Nasa, where more cuts are expected.
“This could be a turning point where China challenges US leadership in deep space exploration,” Qian said, citing other recent Chinese achievements that include the world’s first successful mission to return samples from the moon’s far side.
Tianwen-3 will consist of a lander, an ascender, a Mars orbiter and an Earth return orbiter, to be launched separately from the Wenchang satellite launch centre on board two Long March 5 rockets.
Besides searching for evidence of life, the mission will investigate the geology and internal structure of Mars, as well as its atmospheric circulation and escape processes, with the aim of contributing to a deeper understanding of planetary habitability.
The precious samples collected during the Tianwen-3 mission will touch down on Earth around 2030, according to CNSA.
While the ride to Mars will be free, foreign partners must cover their own development costs and agree to share data with China, the agency said. “Collaboration between international and domestic science institutions and payload developers is encouraged.”
The US and China are the only two nations to have landed spacecraft on Mars. The Chinese rover Zhu Rong explored the planet’s surface for 358 Martian days before switching to inactive mode in 2022.
Meanwhile, Nasa’s Perseverance, which also landed in 2021, is still collecting samples. Unlike Tianwen-3’s “grab-and-go” approach, the US plan is to return to Mars and retrieve the sample tubes that have been gathered by its rover over the years.
Nasa’s retrieval mission was already at least four years behind the Tianwen-3 timetable before this week’s mass firings at the agency as part of the federal budget reductions ordered by Trump.
In one of his last media briefings in January before relinquishing the role, former Nasa administrator Bill Nelson said the earliest arrival for the Perseverance samples was expected to be 2035, but they may not touch down until 2039.
In response to the programme’s prolonged delays and ballooning costs, Nasa under Nelson sought alternative strategies, including collaboration with private aerospace companies like Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Blue Origin, owned by Jeff Bezos.
However, in the January briefing, Nelson said that he would leave the final decision to his successor on whether Nasa should use its own well-tested technologies or turn to privately-developed systems.
Nasa’s 2025 budget, which is expected to be released soon, is rumoured to include cuts of up to 50 per cent for science programmes.
More from South China Morning Post:
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- Trump job cuts may blind US Space Force to China’s moves in the sky, mission chief warns
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