NASA spots China's Tianwen-1 flying towards Red Planet

A streak of light across the night sky was identified by NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO) as China’s Tianwen-1 on its way to Mars, NASA’s asteroid watch twitter account posted.

“During routine survey operations for hazardous #asteroids for @NASA’s #PlanetaryDefense Coordination Office, the @fallingstarIfA ATLAS-MLO telescope spotted China’s Tianwen-1 on its way to #Mars. Bon Voyage Tianwen-1!” captioned the video.

The PDCO regularly sweeps swathes of the night sky for hazardous inter-planetary objects like asteroids and space rocks and maps their path in case one comes too close to the Earth.

The Hawaiian observatories which form the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) spotted China’s Mars Mission, Tianwen-1, which launched on Thursday for a seven-month journey to the Red Planet. The spacecraft included an orbiter, a lander and a rover.

Tianwen-1 was the second of the three spacecraft that were going to be sent to the neighbouring planet within the three-week window, when the planets’ orbits are aligned. The first was a spacecraft launched by the United Arab Emirates. Tianwen-1 will be followed by NASA’s own Mars Mission, which will be a huge rover named Perseverance on July 30. The Perseverance will also carry a small experimental helicopter called Ingenuity.