"China lands unmanned spacecraft on Mars for first time"

does the Chinese Tianwen-1 have orders to "shoot to kill" if it encounters our Perseverance ?

@ogb said
does the Chinese Tianwen-1 have orders to "shoot to kill" if it encounters our Perseverance ?

@Duchess64
another katsura hugger , I see

@Duchess64
I called the Chinese landing a great achievement but it is still 20 odd years behind US technology, as shown by the sheer weight of the latest US rover and the little helicopter now proven to work on Mars.

The next helicopter is planned for Titan, extremely cold but an atmosphere something like Earth air pressure and about the same gravity field as Mars so it should be somewhat easier to build one to work on Titan.

Only problem with that is power. I don't think much solar energy reaches the ground on Titan, don't quote me on that🙂

If it can't use solar power like the little Mars helicopter, it will have to have some kind of very light weight atomic battery or some such to charge up batteries to make for multiple flights.

Anyway, it is still a great achievement by the Chinese.

Here is a bit about sunlight reaching the surface of Titan. not much🙂

https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/7849/how-much-sunlight-gets-to-the-surface-of-titan-what-would-astronauts-see

@Duchess64
I think the Soviets landed some kind of probe on Mars in 71, not sure if it was a rover or just fixed in place but I think that is all they were technically capable of doing.
So China is certainly ahead of Russia in that regard, having already landed a complex mission on the back side of the moon.

BTW, there are plans afoot for NASA to build a one kilometer radio telescope on the backside of the moon, where they would be looking at much lower frequencies than Earthbound scopes.

The problem with low frequency signals from space coming in, gets 99% blocked by the ionosphere made worse when the solar cycle, now called solar cycle 25, just the start of the 5 year long upswing in sunspot activity.
Anyway, being on the backside of the moon with such a large dish, twice the size of the Chinese dish just completed but the key there is that 3000 odd kilometer of moon blocking all the radio crap from Earth and out in space away from the ionosphere which opens a new set of RF frequencies now not able to read.

I hope they make it. They are designing automatic construction machines that do the work, and a much simpler mechanical arrangement than either the failed US scope or the Chinese one which has to endure hostile environment, high winds, rain, snow and such, no such problem on the back side of the moon.

Anyway, it is an exciting project.

@Duchess64
One thing going for the Chinese space program: Not the US or Russia actually succeeded in a lander on the first go.
That is what China just did.

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