China’s Tianwen-3 Mission Could Beat the U.S. in the Race to Grab Mars Rocks
On May 14, 2021, China’s Tianwen-1 lander plummeted from space to streak through the skies above Mars’s vast plain of Utopia Planitia, with an aeroshell protecting it from the heat and plasma of its high-speed atmospheric entry. After unfurling its parachutes and pulsing its engines to zero in on an amenable landing site, the spacecraft…
