For the first time, China has successfully landed a rover on Mars—now what?
On March 14, China’s space program took a huge leap forward when it landed a rover on Mars for the first time, according to state media.
On March 14, China’s space program took a huge leap forward when it landed a rover on Mars for the first time, according to state media. China is now only the second country to land successfully on Mars. The rover, named Zhurong (after the god of fire in ancient Chinese mythology) joins NASA's Curiosity and Perseverance rovers as the only wheeled robots trekking around the surface of the planet.
“This is really a milestone for the Chinese space program,” says Chi Wang, the director of the National Space Science Center at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. “It signifies Chinese space exploration steps out of the Earth-Moon system and heads for the [Mars] planetary system. A mission like this demonstrates China has the capability to explore the entire solar system.”
Zhurong is part of the Tianwen-1 Mars mission that China launched last July, the same month as NASA’s launch of the Perseverance rover and the UAE’s launch of the Hope Mars Orbiter. All three made it to Martian orbit in February. Perseverance headed straight for the surface, while China held Tianwen-1 in orbit for a few months to look for a suitable landing site for Zhurong. It eventually chose Utopia Planitia, the same region where NASA’s Viking 2 spacecraft landed in 1976. Tianwen-1 comprises both an orbiter and the Zhurong rover.
