China has successfully landed its rover on Mars, becoming the second country in history to have a rover on the red planet.
The rover, Zhurong, named after a god of fire in Chinese mythology, landed Saturday morning at the pre-selected area in Utopia Planitia on Mars. The six-wheel solar-powered Zhurong rover weighs about 240 kilograms (529 pounds) and carries six scientific instruments. It will be later released from the lander for a three-month mission in search of life on Mars' surface.
Tianwen-1, whose name means “Quest for Heavenly Truth,” will relay its signal to the rover during its mission and then conduct a global survey of the planet for one Martian year. It hopes to gather important information about the Martian soil, geological structure, environment and atmosphere, and to search for signs of water. The probe has spent three months in orbit scanning the landing area before releasing the rover to the surface, and sent back its first photo of the planet from more than a million kilometers (621,371 miles) away.
Tianwen-1 was launched by a Long March 5 rocket from the Wenchang space launch center in Hainan on July 23 last year, and spent seven months on the way to Mars before entering its orbit in February. “The probe is going to orbit, land and release a rover all on the very first try, and cooperate with an orbiter in observation,” the scientific team behind Tianwen-1 said before the rover's landing. “No planetary missions have ever been implemented in this way”.
Tianwen-1 is one of three international Mars missions launched last summer due to an alignment between Earth and Mars on the same side of the sun, making for a more efficient journey to the red planet. Unlike the US and China missions, the UAE probe is not intended to land on Mars—just study the planet from orbit.
