Chiny potwierdzają , że w 2020 planują w kierunku Marsa wysłać orbiter, lądownik i rover.
6-kołowy łazik o masie 200 kg ma pracować przez 3 miesiące marsjańskie.
China plans to send a spacecraft to orbit Mars, make a landing, and deploy a rover in July or August 2020, said Zhang Rongqiao, chief architect of the Mars mission at a press conference in Beijing. "The challenges we face are unprecedented."
According to Ye Peijian, one of China's leading aerospace experts and a consultant to the program, the 2020 mission will be launched on a Long March-5 carrier rocket from the Wenchang space launch center in south China's Hainan province.
The lander will separate from the orbiter at the end of a journey of around seven months and touch down in a low latitude area in the northern hemisphere of Mars where the rover will explore the surface.
Images displayed at Tuesday's press conference showed a device with six wheels, powered by four solar panels, two more than the rover sent to the moon.
Weighing around 200 kilograms, it is designed to operate for three Martian months, according to Sun Zezhou, chief designer of the probe.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-08/24/c_135627828.htmEDIT:
http://www.pulskosmosu.pl/2016/08/24/chiny-ujawnily-koncepcje-wyslania-lazika-na-marsa-do-2020-roku/