By South China Morning Post | Created at 2025-01-09 12:03:20 | Updated at 2025-01-09 22:00:58
10 hours ago
China’s lead in the race to bring rocks back from Mars has grown by a big margin, with Nasa’s updated timeline for the return of samples collected by its Perseverance rover putting it at least four years behind.
Outgoing Nasa administrator Bill Nelson said during a media briefing on Tuesday that the earliest arrival for the Perseverance samples – that are still being collected by the rover, which landed in 2021 – is now 2035.
In contrast, Chinese space officials announced in September that the country’s Tianwen-3 mission remained on track to deliver around 600 grams (21 ounces) of Martian soil by 2031.
Astrophysicist Quentin Parker from the University of Hong Kong (HKU) said the race could represent “a Sputnik moment” – a reference to the Soviet Union’s launch of the first artificial satellite, which caught the US by surprise in 1957.
“China is leading Nasa not just by one year, but by several years, effectively taking a ‘long march’ ahead of America,” Parker said.
Ballooning budgets prompted Nasa last year to scrap its original plan for the Mars sample return mission in favour of seeking a cheaper, faster solution with input from private industry and academia.
