21 July 2020
China's space tracking ship Yuanwang 3 has set sail from a Shanghai-based shipyard after completing maintenance in early July. Already on 13 July, Yuanwang 6 departed from its port in Jiangsu Province for supporting multiple spacecraft monitoring missions. In the meanwhile, China has completed the modification of two relay satellites to prepare them for new tasks relating to the country's scheduled Mars exploration mission Tianwen 1. The Tianlian 1-02 and Tianlian 2-01 geosynchronous orbit satellites mainly provide global tracking and data-relay support for the country's in-orbit spacecraft.