China has successfully landed a rover on Mars, state media says
According to state media, China has successfully launched its rover on Mars, becoming the second country in history to have a rover on the red planet.
According to the government news agency Xinhua, the rover, Zurong, named after the god of fire in Chinese mythology, landed in a pre-selected area in Utopia Planitia on Mars on Saturday morning.
The six-wheel solar powered Zurong Rover weighs around 240 kilograms (529 lb) and has six scientific instruments. It would later be deployed for a three-month mission in search of life on the surface of Mars from the lander.
The Tianwen-1 Mars Orbiter will give its signal to the rover during its mission and then conduct a global survey of the planet for a Mars year. The probe has spent three months in orbit to re-examine the landing area before leaving the rover to the surface.
Tianwen-1 was launched by the Long March 5 rocket from Wenchang Space Launch Centre in Hainan on July 23 last year, and spent seven months on Mars before entering its orbit in February.
The spacecraft sent back its first picture of the planet from more than a million kilometres (621,371 mi) away.
The scientific team behind Tianwen-1 said before the rover landed, the probe “would go into orbit, land and release a rover on the first try, and coordinate observations with an orbiter.” “
“No planetary mission has ever been implemented in this way,” the team said.
Tianwen-1 is one of three international Mars missions launched last summer with NASA’s Perseverance Rover, which landed on Mars in February, and the UAE’s Hope Probe, which launched Mars in February Had entered the classroom. Unlike the US and China missions, the UAE probe is not intended to land on Mars – just study the planet from orbit.
All three missions were launched around the same time due to the alignment between Earth and Mars on the same side of the Sun, allowing for more efficient travel to the Red Planet.
Tianwen-1, nicknamed “the search for heavenly truth”, hopes to gather important information about the soil, geological structure, environment and atmosphere of Mars and search for water signs.
China’s ambitious space program made headlines last weekend when an out-of-control £ 40,000 rocket fell into the Indian Ocean – rebuking NASA for “failing to meet responsibility standards about space debris”.
The Long March 5B rocket launched into orbit part of China’s new space station in late April and was left to go uncontrolled into space until Earth’s gravity pulled it back.
CNN’s Jessie Yeung, James Griffiths and Ashley Strickland contributed to this report