(Yicai Global) Sept. 20 -- China's first Mars exploration mission is underway as planned, and the relevant payload, consisting of 19 items, has been confirmed, said Zhang Rongqiao, chief engineering designer of the mission, at the 3rd Beijing International Forum for Lunar and Deep Space Exploration.

Of these 19 payload items, 13 will be carried by the Mars orbiter, involving fields of space environment exploration, Mars surface exploration and Mars surface structure exploration. The other 6 items will be carried by the Mars rover, including a tester for testing the atmospheric environment on Mars, cnr.cn reported today.

China's first Mars exploration mission was set up in January 2016 and is expected to launch China's first Mars exploration satellite around 2020. It will carry out orbiting exploration and landing inspection, collecting important data related to the space environment, topographic characteristics, surface structure and atmospheric environment.

The 3rd Beijing International Forum for Lunar and Deep Space Exploration opened today and will last for three days. The forum will mainly discuss aerospace countries' plans for exploring the moon, Mars, and asteroids before 2030, as well as related technological and scientific progress. The forum is sponsored by the Chinese Academy of Sciences. More than 200 experts and scholars from China, the US, France, Germany, Russia, Japan, UK, Canada, Australia, and some other countries attend the forum.