China has moved a rocket into position to launch a rover to Mars next week in one of three upcoming missions to the red planet, one from the U.S. and another from the United Arab Emirates.
The Long March-5 carrier rocket is China's heaviest-lift launch vehicle and has been launched experimentally three times, but never with a payload. Dubbed Tianwen-1, China's first-ever mission to Mars aims to land a rover to gather scientific data.
This summer's trio of missions in the most sweeping effort yet to seek signs of ancient microscopic life while scouting out Mars for future astronauts. Each spacecraft will travel more than 480 million kilometres before reaching Mars next February. In the process, they will loop out beyond Earth's orbit and sync up with Mars' more distant orbit around the sun.
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