A few hours ago the lander and rover of the Chinese Tianwen 1 mission landed successfully on the planet Mars, in the Utopia Planitia region. The event was confirmed by the Chinese space agency making China the third nation to land a vehicle on the red planet after the USA and the then USSR. The rover, which was named Zhurong, has a life expectancy of at least 90 days during which it will explore the area by making surveys with a series of instruments. The orbiter, which reached Mars together with the lander and rover on February 10, 2021, continues its work from above.
Utopia Planitia is the largest impact basin on Mars at the center of NASA’s Viking 2 mission in the 1970s. It’s in a favorable latitude for a vehicle powered by solar panels such as the Zhurong rover. It’s a rover that compared to NASA’s rovers is larger than Spirit and Opportunity but much smaller than Curiosity and Perseverance.
The landing system of the lander and rover is similar to the one used by NASA for its Curiosity and Perseverance rovers, being equipped with a system consisting of a parachute that slows down the descent speed and a retro-rocket system that completes the last phase of the braking. This system was designed specifically for the Martian Tianwen 1 mission because Mars has an atmosphere, albeit a thin one, that allows the use of a parachute. Some technologies are adaptations of the ones used in the Chang’e Moon missions, where an automatic system manages the landing using the vehicle’s thrusters.
The landing on Mars of the lander and rover is a new success for the Chinese space program. After the Moon missions, the construction of a space station, and the missions with astronauts, or taikonauts, into orbit, China joins the USA and the then USSR also for the presence of a vehicle on the Martian surface.
The Chinese president and secretary of the Communist Party Xi Jinping immediately congratulated the national space agency for this new success, stressing its importance. Xi remarked on this importance by calling it an important step in interplanetary exploration. China’s plans for space exploration continue successfully showing the level of a long-term program. Behind the scientific missions, there are superpower ambitions that must be taken seriously.
