The ambitious goal is part of a plan to build a base on the Red Planet in an intensifying space rivalry with the United States.
China plans to launch its first manned mission to Mars in 2033 with regular follow-up flights, as part of a long-term plan to build a permanently inhabited base on the Red Planet and extract its resources.
The ambitious plan, which will intensify a race with the US to colonize Mars, was first announced in detail after China landed a robotic rover on Mars on its first mission to the planet in mid-May.
Crewed launches to Mars are planned for 2033, 2035, 2037, 2041 and beyond, said the head of China’s most important rocket manufacturer Wang Xiaojun recently via video link at a space research conference in Russia.
Before the manned missions begin, China will send robots to Mars to investigate possible locations for the base and build resource extraction systems there, the official China Space News reported on Wednesday, citing Wang, the head of the China Academy of Launch vehicle technology.
For the colonization of Mars, the crews would have to be able to use the planet’s resources, for example extracting the water below its surface, generating oxygen on site and producing electricity.
China also needs to develop technology to fly astronauts back to Earth.
An unmanned round-trip mission to collect soil samples from the planet is expected by the end of 2030.
NASA, the US space agency, developed technology to get a crew to Mars and back sometime in the 2030s.
China’s Mars plan calls for fleets of spacecraft to shuttle between Earth and Mars and the great development of its resources, Wang said.
To shorten travel time, spacecraft would need to tap into energy from nuclear reactions in the form of heat and electricity in addition to traditional chemical fuels, Wang said.
China has to manage round trips with a total flight time of “a few hundred days,” he said.
China is also planning to set up a base at the south pole of the moon and will start robotic expeditions to asteroids and Jupiter around 2030.
Last week, on its first manned mission since 2016, China sent three astronauts to an unfinished space station to expand its growing low-Earth presence and challenge US leadership in orbital space.
