China is preparing to launch two scientific missions with one rocket in 2030. The first of the probes will be directed to Jupiter and will study its moons. The second one will fly to Uranus.
China will explore Uranus and Jupiter
At the International Astronautical Congress in Paris, representatives of China spoke about plans to send probes to giant planets. Earlier it was already known that the Celestial Space Agency CNSA is going to explore Jupiter. Now it has become known that there will be not one, but two missions. And the second of them will be sent to Uranus.
Both devices will operate under a single program called “Tianwen-4”. They will also launch them together, for which they use a giant Long March 5 rocket. First, the two spacecraft will fly together, and then they will separate and each will head towards its goal.
Tianwen-4 is planned for 2030. It is part of the expanded Chinese program for the study of the Solar System “Tianwen” (“Heavenly Expanses”), named after a poem written 2,300 years ago. It was within its framework that the Zhurong rover and the orbiter were sent to Mars in 2020.
The next one should be the Tianwen-2 mission, within the framework of which, in 2025, the near-Earth asteroid Kamo’oalewa will launch a probe that will take a sample of the material from its surface and bring it to Earth. Then, in 2028, it will be the turn of the Tianwen-3 mission, the purpose of which will be to deliver samples of Martian soil to Earth. And only after that will it be the turn of the giant planets.
What will Tianwen-4 explore
According to CNSA representatives, the scientific goals and the final design of both devices are still under development. Apparently, the mass of the main vehicle, which will be sent to Jupiter, will exceed a ton.
Its main goal will be to enter the orbit of the most distant of the four major moons of Jupiter, Callisto. Earlier it was reported that it will include a small lander that will reach the surface, but now they have decided to abandon this idea.
The smaller of the two spacecraft, which will be sent to Uranus, will have a mass of hundreds of kilograms. The program of its flights, perhaps, will provide for a rendezvous with an asteroid similar to the flight of the asteroid Lutetia, made by the Rosetta apparatus on its way to the comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko.
According to https://www.space.com
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