Rover Zhurong has reached the planet
On Saturday night, the Zhurong rover landed on Mars. It is China’s first successful Mars landing, joining the United States and the former Soviet Union.
Chinese state media report a success. The rover Zhurong, China’s first Mars landing project, is said to have landed around one o’clock local time in the south of the Utopia Planitia region, a presumably earlier ocean.
There is certainly life on #Mars! We’re the life of the party! #Zhurong # Tianwen1 #CNSA @CNSA_en pic.twitter.com/cC8pZVmyVt
– China National Space Administration (CNSA) (@CNSA_en) May 15, 2021
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China lands rover on first attempt
The successful landing is a very special success for the People’s Republic. After all, it took NASA decades and several attempts to safely deposit its own rover on the surface of Mars.
Although the USA has a head start with nine successful landing attempts, the research race with the NASA rover Perseverance, which is also on Mars at the same time, is completely open again. The former Soviet Union also landed a rover on Mars in 1971. However, after almost two minutes on Mars, it did not send any more signals – why is still unclear today. The country had not started any further attempts.
Two missions by the European Space Agency (ESA) were even more unsuccessful than the attempt by the Soviet Union. Their projects failed in 2003 and 2011.
Landing announced hours in advance
The Zhurong rover is part of the so-called Tianwen-1 mission, which consists of a probe orbiting the planet, a landing vehicle and the rover itself. Tianwen-1 was launched in July 2020 without much prior notice and had already reached Mars orbit in February 2021.
The landing of the rover, whose name was given in February as Zhurong, “god of fire”, but more importantly “ruler of the south”, was quite spontaneous. Hours before the landing mission, China had announced that it would land Zhurong “in the next few days”.
The Zhurong rover differs in essential points from the NASA rover Perseverance. At 250 kilograms, Zhurong is significantly lighter than the one-ton Perseverance. While the Americans rely on a nuclear drive, the Chinese have built in solar cells. The Perseverance rover is the size of a compact small car, Zhurong is more like a golf cart.
Both drive over the surface with six wheels and both are able to take soil samples with special grippers. Just like the nose, China also wants to make soil samples taken ready for collection by a later mission in order to be able to examine them much more precisely in earthly laboratories than is possible with the small outpatient laboratories of the rovers.
Zhurong is supposed to search for water, map Mars and take weather measurements
Overall, the goals of the Chinese mission are very similar to those of NASA. Zhurong is said to be looking for traces of water on under the surface. In addition, the Chinese rover will measure the planet’s magnetic field and help improve the mapping of Mars. A weather station for climate measurements is also on board. The mission is scheduled to last about three months.
Mars is currently orbited by nine probes. Four satellites put the United States, two the Europeans, and one each India, the United Arab Emirates and China into orbit.
