China successfully launches rover mission to Mars

BEIJING: China has launched its first homegrown rover mission to the Red Planet.

The six-wheeled robot was lifted off Earth by a Long March 5 rocket from the Wenchang spaceport on Hainan Island.

It will arrive in orbit around the Red Planet in February next year.

Earlier this week, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) had successfully launched Arab world’s first mission to Mars from Japan’s from the Tanegashima Space Centre.

The unmanned probe is called ‘Al-Amal’ meaning hope. People in the Japanese space centre and in Dubai as well were excited about the mission. UAE Mars mission’s deputy project manager Sarah al-Amiri had declared it “an indescribable feeling”. She had said, “This is the future of the UAE.”

The UAE scientist Sarah Al-Amiri had created history by leading first interplanetary mission of the Arab world. She wanted the project to inspire the next generation to take up sciences in school.