China Reports Successfully Landing Its Rover On Mars

China has announced that it has landed its Tianwen-1 spacecraft on the surface of Mars. “This is another milestone advance in our countrys aerospace endeavors, China’s president Xi Jinping said in a statement. You have had the courage for challenge, have strove for excellence and have brought our country to the global forefront of interplanetary exploration.”

China’s mission launched in July 2020 and took advantage of a window available every two years when Mars and Earth are the closest to each other. The spacecraft entered orbit around Mars on February 10th and stayed in orbit until it was ready to take on the so-called “seven minutes of terror” as the spacecraft entered the atmosphere of Mars.

Inside the Tianwen-1 landing craft is a rover called Zhurong, names after the Chinese God of fire in folktales. The rover is significantly smaller than the NASA Curiosity or Perseverance rover at about 25 percent of the weight.

China’s rover is solar-powered and features cameras, ground-penetrating radar, magnetic field detector, and a weather station. The rover and its landing craft landed on the Martian Utopia Planitia, which is the same region where NASA landed the Viking 2 Lander in 1976.