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First ever, and go to Mars? Pretty ballsy.

• qayxc 6y ago
  It's their first interplanetary mission, not their first satellite. There's very few other nearby options and Venus is harder to reach than Mars despite being closer most of the time.
• runawaybottle 6y ago
  A Reuters report on this mentioned there are two other Mars missions being launched this year from China and the US, so it looks like it’s the place to be. Will be interesting to see how the data can be used as a whole from the three missions.
  • nyokodo 6y ago
    The lowest energy means to get to Mars is to use the Hohmann Transfer Orbit and the launch window comes about approximately every 2.1 years. Therefore, you’ll tend to see missions from different agencies all launch close together. More complex missions using gravity assists or relying on certain alignments etc are more variable in timing.
• JohnL4 6y ago
  I get the feeling it was a pretty international effort.
• sinxccc 6y ago
  First of this launch window (2020) for the expedition to Mars.