China's Tianwen-1 Mars mission is set to launch between 04:00-07:00 UTC/12-3 am Eastern July 23 (Thursday), with airspace closure notices suggesting launch ~4:45 UTC. No confirmation of live streams yet.

Chinese state media still keep saying 'late July, early August' because that's the general Mars launch window and the launch time is still being keep quiet. But launch is very much on for Thursday. https://twitter.com/globaltimesnews/status/1285465704934694912

The rocket for the mission is the fourth Long March 5, China's new heavy-lift launch vehicle. The 2nd flight in 2017 failed, and did not fly again until December 2019. Success of that launch was vital for China to proceed with Tianwen-1. Footage: CCTV

If all goes well with the launch, Tianwen-1 will reach Mars in February 2021, entering a highly elliptical orbit (400 x 180,000) before moving to a near-polar 265 x 12,000 orbit. It will remain in this orbit for 2-3 months in preparation for the rover landing attempt.

Landing area is a southern section of Utopia Planitia, south of the Viking 2 landing. This has been chosen through consideration of science goals, engineering constraints, low elevation (more time/atmos to slow down), solar power, smoothness, etc. https://twitter.com/AJ_FI/status/1283132091413209088

Here are some suggested landing areas (3-5) within this zone, calculated based on probability of dust storms, which would adversely affect the ~240 kg solar powered rover. The landing ellipsis (in which it will, statistically land) will be 100 x 20 km. https://twitter.com/AJ_FI/status/1283133077427032066

By comparison, Perseverance's landing ellipsis will be incredibly small, at 13 km by 7 km, thanks to the progress made by JPL. https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/teach/activity/mars-maneuver-a-pi-in-the-sky-math-challenge/