To Mars and Back, Alongside Crewed Lunar Mission Buildup
Tianwen-3 teams are drawing up plans to retrieve and analyze Mars samples, while the Long March 10 has infrastructure built.
Teams part of China’s Tianwen-3 Mars sample return mission have begun formulating plans to retrieve and analyze surface samples from the red planet, while a team back on Earth is preparing to construct infrastructure for the Long March 10 Moon rocket, and commercial launch companies are preparing to conduct more launches, alongside another debut.
Tianwen-3 samples to return around 2031 in search for Martian life
In an article titled The search for life signatures on Mars by the Tianwen-3 Mars sample return mission in the November issue of the National Science Review, part of the Tianwen-3 team shared their exploration strategy for the Mars sample return mission. The primary focus of the teams’ article is ‘where to sample’, ‘what to choose’, ‘how to sample’, and ‘how to utilize’ during the Tianwen-3 mission. The article was authored by Zengqian Hou (侯增谦), Jizhong Liu (刘继忠), Yigang Xu (徐义刚), Fuchuan Pang (庞涪川), Yuming Wang (汪毓明), Liping Qin (秦礼萍), Yang Liu (刘洋), Yu-Yan Sara Zhao (赵宇鴳), Guangfei Wei (魏广飞), Mengjiao Xu (徐孟娇), Kun Jiang (江琨), Chuanpeng Hao (郝传鹏), Shichao Ji (吉世超), Renzhi Zhu (朱仁智), Bingkun Yu (于秉坤), Jia Liu (刘佳), Zhenfeng Sheng (盛振峰), Juntao Wang (王俊涛), Chaolin Zhang (张朝琳), and Yiliang Li (李一良).
For ‘where to sample’ the team has proposed eighty-six possible landing sites, where surface samples will be collected. As such the landing and sampling site should be in areas that could have supported life, like ancient lakes or deltas, where signs of past life might be preserved. This should also balance being scientifically interesting while being safe to at land, considering Martian terrain, rocks, and weather.
In ‘what to choose’ the team is concerned with identifying and preserving biosignatures while distinguishing them from false positives and negatives. To do so the team will use Mars-like environments on Earth to study biosignature preservation, microbial changes in simulated Mars conditions, and the ability of different minerals to preserve signs of life. Mars-like environments will help to identify the best rocks and minerals for sampling from the surface.
Regarding ‘how to sample’ the team is focused on optimizing surface sampling strategies, including particle sizes and drone support, and studying how radiation, oxidation, and weathering at different depths effects buried organic matter. While optimizing sampling the team is concerned with preventing contamination and addressing obstacles during sub-surface drilling.
Lastly for ‘how to utilize’ the team emphasizes securely storing Mars samples before analysis. Focus is put on detecting biosignatures like organic compounds, life-related minerals, and isotopic signals via the use of mass spectrometry and spectroscopy. For trying to find traces of life within the samples effort will be put into studying microbial metabolites, identifying life-formed minerals, and analyzing isotopic fractionation.
The four paragraphs above are very oversimplified explanations (I am also not a planetary scientist) of what the Tianwen-3 team intends to do while retrieving Mars samples, I do recommend you read their article in full if you have time.
Currently the Tianwen-3 mission is planned to begin in 2028 via the launch of two Long March 5 vehicles. One Long March 5 will launch the Mars orbiter-Earth return spacecraft while the other will launch the Mars lander and ascent vehicle. After the samples are launched from the Martian surface and delivered to the orbiter, the spacecraft will begin its journey back to Earth, for arrival around 2031.
Back in September Tianwen-3’s launch date was officially moved up to 2028, two years earlier than planned, increasing the likelihood that China would return the first surface samples from Mars, as the U.S. Mars Sample Return mission flounders amid restructuring due to budget issues.
Contract Awarded for Long March 10 Launch Tower
China State Shipbuilding Corporation (中国船舶集团有限公司) announced on November 28th that its subsidiary, Wuchang Shipbuilding Heavy Industry Group (武昌船舶重工集团有限公司), had signed a contract to produce the launch towers for the Long March 10 Moon rocket.
These launch towers are expected to be similar to the existing launch towers for the Long March 5 and Long March 7 series of rockets actively in use at the Wenchang Space Launch Site. Like those towers, the launch towers will provide the Long March 10 with commodities, propellant, electrical power, and communications ahead of liftoff. Once these towers are completed they will be integrated onto the Long March 10’s mobile launch platform, used for transporting the vehicle from the vertical assembly facility to its launchpad.
Contracting the launch towers to a shipbuilding company may seem odd but Wuchang Shipbuilding has been building equipment for China’s launch sites since the 1990s, having worked on infrastructure at Xichang, Jiuquan, and Wenchang.
Long March 12 likely to debut on November 30th
The Long March 12 Y1 launch vehicle, developed by the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology, was moved to Commercial Launch Pad 2 at the Wenchang Commercial Space Launch Site, on the east coast of Hainan province. This move came on November 26th, four days ahead of when NOTAMs and local ticket sales indicate a launch will take place.
Official wording for the debut mission from the vehicle’s developer is still “in the near future”. Based on the previously mentioned NOTAMs, this launch will likely take place on November 30th with a window lasting from 13:30 to 16:00 pm Universal Coordinated Time, or 21:30 pm to midnight in China Standard Time.
When the Long March 12 does lift off, as said last week, it will be providing the first flight of the YF-100K engine, among a few other firsts. The other firsts will be the largest diameter non-inline fairing to be used on a Long March vehicle, as the 5.2-meter diameter fairing is still present, and the first time a 3.8-meter diameter Long March vehicle lifts off, most other Long March vehicles are limited to a stage diameter of 3.35 meters. This launch will also be the first mission to liftoff from the Wenchang Commerical Space Launch Site.
Second Zhuque-2E mission planned for 2024
LandSpace is expecting to launch its second Zhuque-2E mission before the end of 2024, with this mission denoted as Y3. This second launch in 2024 would have LandSpace fly two times for two years in a row. With the limited time left in the year, it is quite likely that this mission will take place in December.
Few details are known about the second mission for Zhuque-2E, but LandSpace has already shared the mission patch, through which some guesses can be made. Most visibly the patch is a wider diameter fairing, likely the planned 4.2-meter diameter fairing, and four stars, likely alluding to four possible payloads onboard. The first Zhuque-2E mission had two flowers on its patch, representing the two payloads, while the Zhuque-2 Y3 mission patch had three independent stars, representing its three deployed satellites.
Kinetica-1 Y6 mission to take place in December
CAS Space announced on November 26th that hardware for its Kinetica-1 Y6 vehicle had been shipped from the company’s industrial base, in the city of Guangzhou in Guangdong province. The Kinetica-1 Y6 mission is expected to take place in December to complete the company’s launch plans for 2024.
For this mission, CAS Space states that the Y6 vehicle is one of the first mass-produced not-specific-mission-orientated rockets produced by the company. The Y6 vehicle will also fly some self-developed hardware for the first time. Both the mass-produced and self-developed hardware are expected to help drive costs down as more missions are conducted.
Like the previous mission, on November 11th, a 3.35-meter diameter fairing will be used, which CAS Space is manufacturing internally. A possible reasons for this fairing flying again is due to the Y6 mission planning to carry eleven satellites.
A specific launch date is not known but there are rumors that it will take place in the second half of December. So far CAS Space has flown Kinetica-1 five times, all successfully, to deliver fifty-seven satellites into orbit.
Kinetica-2 performs RCS test
Kinetica-2, CAS Space’s in-development partially reusable launch vehicle, has also been making more progress towards its maiden launch. Announcement of a successful test of the vehicle’s second-stage reaction control system thrusters came on November 28th.
This test included the firing of eight 300-newton and four 100-newton thrusters being fed propellant from three tanks. The total duration of the test was also stated as lasting 1,200 seconds.
Following the test CAS Space states the data indicated that structural stress was within their expectations, passing the criteria needed for mass production. The reaction control system is expected to be used repeatedly during flight, with its propellant either pre-loaded ahead of launch day or can be loaded on-site.
Kinetica-2 is currently expected to make its debut flight in September 2025, suborbital hops to test rocket reuse may take place prior.