The landing module with the “Zhurong” rover touches down in the Utopia Planitia region. The US rover “Perseverance” landed on the Red Planet back in February.
Beijing (dpa) – China has landed on Mars for the first time. The landing module of the Chinese spaceship “Tianwen-1” touched down with the rover “Zhurong” on board on the surface of the Red Planet, as the state news agency Xinhua reported, citing the space agency.
“Tianwen-1” broke from Earth last July and reached Mars orbit in February.
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.
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.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210515-99-604710 / 2
