1 . This year's hottest destination is Mars. On 23 July, China launched the Tianwen-1 mission to the Red Planet — one of three spacecrafts' planning to head there in 2020. This is China's second interplanetary mission, but the first that the nation has launched on its own. The other, Phobos-Grunt, was a cooperation with Russia that didn't make it out of Earth's orbit after blasting off in 2011.
The new mission, called Tianwen, translated as "questions to heaven" — consists of an orbiter, a lander and a rover, the last of which will be named via a public competition. "It's very ambitious because it's a four-part mission: there's the launch, getting into orbit, the landing and the rover, and every single step has to go right, says space consultant Laura Forczyk. All those steps must work on the first try, an achievement no other space program me has accomplished on a Mars mission because of the difficulty of landing there.
If all goes well, Tianwen-1 will arrive at Mars in February 2021 and the lander and rover will touch down two or three months later. They will take pictures from the surface, measure the soil composition, make radar observations of the planet's underground structure and observe Mars's magnetic field. Due to the harsh environment on Mars, the rover is expected to last about 90 Martian days. It weighs around 240 kilograms, about the same as China's Yutu-2 rover, which is currently roaming the moon. "The Chinese mission to the far side of the moon has been hugely successful, so they are building on that success now," says Forczyk.
The orbiter, which will relay data from the lander and rover back to scientists on Earth, also carries a suite of scientific instruments. It has two cameras and a spectrometer (光谱仪), which it will use to create a map of the mineral composition of Mars's surface, as well as radar and detectors to examine particles in the Martian atmosphere. It will also look for deposits of water ice that could be helpful for future explorers.
Tianwen-1 won't be alone in Mars orbit. The United Arab Emirates has just launched its first mission to Mars, and NASA's Perseverance rover is set to launch on 30 July. These missions are all leaving now because Mars is at its closest point to Earth, which happens once every two years.
1. Which statement is true according to the first two paragraphs?| A．On 23 July, three countries launched space crafts to Mars. |
| B．Every step of Tianwen mission can be completed at several attempts. |
| C．The mission, Phobos-Grunt, cooperated with Russia was a great success. |
| D．Tianwen mission shows the pioneering efforts of China's space exploration. |
| A．Travelling around. | B．Floating past. | C．Wandering aimlessly. | D．Moving swiftly. |
| A．act as a detector to examine particles on the earth |
| B．search for a substance useful for future exploration |
| C．send information back to the earth collected from Mars |
| D．identify the position of minerals possibly lying on Mars |
| A．China's Successful Space Explorations |
| B．China Launching Missions to Mars |
| C．Tianwen, the First Interplanetary Mission |
| D．Mars, the Hottest Destination to Explore |
