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  • Editorial.China takes the lead in the space race

China has sent the first probe it wants to take to Mars into space on Thursday , according to images broadcast on state television CGTN . The device will serve to orbit the Red Planet and subsequently land on it and explore its surface. It is expected to arrive in February 2021, after a "six to seven month" journey.

The launch took place at 12:41 local time (04:41 GMT) on the "Long March 5-Y4" transport rocket from the Wenchang space center in the Chinese island province of Hainan, located in the south of the country. If successful, it would become the first such mission to orbit Mars on the first try.

This first exploration mission from China to Mars, called Tianwen-1 , aims to orbit, land and explore its surface, and obtain scientific exploration data about the planet. The name comes from the poem "Tianwen", the meaning of which could be translated as "Questions to Heaven" , written by Qu Yuan (around 340 BC to 278 BC), one of the greatest poets of ancient China, according to the state agency Xinhua.

Last year, China began conducting experiments to prepare for the probe's descent and landing, a mission whose success would be an "unprecedented achievement," the China National Space Administration said at the time. The landing is, in fact, the biggest challenge to which the mission will face, as recently told Xinhua expert Bao Ming, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and will consist of a process with four stages seven to eight minutes long total.

The launch is part of the country's plans to advance the space race , and comes after the country became the first to land on the far side of the Moon in January 2019.

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