The vehicle is called like the Chinese god of fire and carries scientific instruments with it. His landing is a space milestone for the country.
Beijing – China * has landed on Mars for the first time. The landing module of the Chinese spaceship “Tianwen-1” touched down on the surface of the Red Planet on Saturday morning, with the rover “Zhurong” on board. The state news agency Xinhua reports.
The spaceship “Tianwen-1” had already left Earth in July 2020 and had reached Mars orbit in February. The landing process is also known as the “seven minutes of horror” because it is faster than radio signals from Mars can reach Earth.
Three countries are heading for Mars in 2020 – USA will be the first to land with “Perseverance”
The Chinese mission is one of three flights to Mars that took off from Earth last summer. The United Arab Emirates and the USA had also sent rockets towards Mars at that time. The US rover “Perseverance” landed in February.
So far, only the US has managed to deploy reconnaissance vehicles on the Red Planet. The Soviet Union landed in the 1970s, but contact with the probe was immediately lost. The flight to the Red Planet and landing are considered extremely difficult. Only about half of previous landing attempts were successful.
China sends 240 kilogram rover to Mars – landing successful
If everything goes according to plan, the rover “Zhurong”, named after the Chinese god of fire, which touched down in the Utopia Planitia region, should wake up and work and carry out investigations for at least three months. The rover weighs around 240 kilograms. It has six wheels and four solar panels and can move at 200 meters per hour on the surface of Mars.
The rover carries scientific instruments with which information about the composition of the planet’s surface, the geological structure and the climate can be collected. * Merkur.de is an offer from IPPEN.MEDIA
