Landing of China’s Mars rover is imminent
China’s Mars rover Zhurong will land on the Red Planet in the next few days, maybe on Saturday. Chinese scientists are also facing “seven minutes of terror”.
On February 18, the NASA rover Perseverance landed on Mars. Now, around three months later, China is starting preparations for its Tianwen-1 space probe. It has been in orbit of the Red Planet since February – with the Chinese Mars rover Zhurong on board. The rover could land in a few hours, Saturday morning Beijing time. The period announced by the Chinese space agency CNSA for the landing in the Mars region Utopia Planitia runs from Saturday to Wednesday.
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Tianwen-1: China is confident
Chinese scientists are according to the state newspaper Global Times confident about the planned landing on Mars. After all, the landing of the Chang’e 5 space probe on the moon in December was already successful. The two missions would be very similar, it was said. The plan is for the Tianwen-1 to enter the Martian atmosphere within around nine minutes, slow down from 4.9 kilometers per second to almost zero and then land.
The Chinese scientists also have to survive the so-called “seven minutes of terror”. This generally means the time between entering the atmosphere and landing on Mars. According to the Chinese space expert Pang Zhihao, this time can vary depending on the design of the probe and the type of landing maneuver.
The term “terror / horror” stems from the fact that the entire landing maneuver must take place autonomously. The scientists involved only find out several minutes after the landing whether it was successful at all. The corresponding signals take around 20 minutes to arrive on earth and in the control center of the Chinese space agency. Part of the landing maneuver is that the probe hovers 100 meters above the surface shortly before landing and uses its sensors, including an on-board camera, to search for a safe place to land.
After landing, the Mars rover Zhurong, named after an ancient fire god in Chinese mythology, will remain on the Red Planet for at least three Mars months and conduct research. The 1.85 meter tall and approximately 240 kilogram heavy vehicle is to examine the atmosphere and the soil of Mars. Like the NASA rover Perseverance, Zhurong is also supposed to take pictures of the Red Planet. Mapping the surface is also one of the tasks of the Chinese Mars rover, like the Futurezone writes.
