Closer to the Red Planet
Huailai, a county in Hebei Province bordering Beijing, has gained a place in China’s aerospace history after Asia’s largest test site for landing on extraterrestrial bodies was built there last year.
Six gigantic steel-woven columns, towering more than 100 meters above the ground and joined at the top by one big hexagon with a smaller one embedded within, stand as physical evidence to China’s looming Mars mission. Planned for launch later this year, the country’s first Mars probe has been carrying out landing drills in Huailai since last November.
On China’s Space Day on April 24, the China National Space Administration (CNSA) announced that the. Chosen from some 35,000 entries collected via an international poll since 2016, the name literally means “ask the sky.” It was inspired by a poem by great poet Qu Yuan (340-278 B.C.), and was picked to signify the Chinese nation’s perseverance in pursuing truth and science, and exploring nature and the universe.
