Next stop - Mars: China aims to send rover to Red Planet within six years

Scientist reveals ambitious project to explore both Mars and our solar system - and even recreate a planet

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This undated photo shows an artist's rendering of a Nasa rover called Phoenix. China plans to send its own rover to the planet within a few years. Photo: AP

Published: 3:45pm, 24 Jun 2014Updated: 4:40pm, 24 Jun 2014

China has ambitious plans to touch down on Mars by 2020, likely with a rover, and to collect its own samples from the red planet 10 years after that, a top aerospace scientist has revealed.

China already sent a probe, the Jade Rabbit (or Yutu) to the moon last year. It is expanding its horizons this time.

Ouyang Ziyuan, chief scientist of the country’s lunar project, said the new Mars programme aimed to create space probes – an orbiter and rover – for Mars, according to the Beijing Times.

Nasa's Curiosity rover has had exciting discoveries. Photo: AP

They will help answer questions including if there is extraterrestrial activity on Mars and whether it is hospitable to life.

Speaking to the 22nd International Planetarium Society Conference in Beijing, which drew 35 member countries, Ouyang gave timetables including collecting samples from the planet by 2030, according to the newspaper.

By comparison, the United States is trageting to launch a manned mission to Mars by 2030 onwards - the first country to announce such plans in 1990. The US also hopes to send a manned mission to an asteroid by 2020.

So far, US space agency Nasa’s Curiosity rover has been leading discoveries on Mars. Since its launch in 2011, it has discovered initial hints that the planet was once host to microorganisms and may have once been awash in water.