Mars receives two visitors from the Earth this week.
NASA's new spacecraft MAVEN entered the orbit around Mars on Sept. 21 to hunt for the planet's lost water. And India's first Mars probe has reached Mars on Sept. 24, said Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, adding that India is the first country to have reached the Red Planet on its first attempt.
After China's successful soft landing on the moon late last year, will Mars be its next goal? No official plan has been published yet, but some experts have disclosed the country's interest.
Ouyang Ziyuan, a leading scientist in China's moon program, told the International Planetarium Society conference in Beijing in June that China plans to send a Mars rover around 2020, collect samples and bring them back to Earth around 2030.
Russia launched a rocket carrying a China-made probe to Mars in 2011, but the mission failed because of an accident in the orbital transfer.
Ye Peijian, a leading design adviser for China's Chang'e-2 and Chang'e-3 moon probes, has called repeatedly during the annual sessions of the national legislature and political advisory body for an early start of a Mars exploration mission.
"India has gone ahead of us," Ye says.
Is China capable of probing Mars? Many experts are confident.
With current technologies, China could send a probe to orbit and land on Mars in one mission, Ye says.
"We already lag behind (India) in time, so we should do it better," Ye says.
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