It’s one small rover, but one giant leap for China.
On May 14th, China successfully landed their first mission on Mars, making them the 3rd* nation to do so. The landing is a component of the Tianwen-1 mission, which launched last July on a Long March 5 rocket. It entered orbit around Mars on February 10th. Tianwen-1 consists of 3 parts. The orbiter contains solar panels, communication equipment, and science experiments, including cameras, radar, and spectrometers. Attached to the orbiter is a capsule that contains a lander and rover. The lander has no scientific instruments, only the rockets to land the rover, and a ramp. The rover is named Zhurong, after a figure from Chinese mythology.
The 240 kilogram Zhurong rover is powered by solar panels, and has 6 science experiments. The rover contains instruments to study the magnetic field of Mars, and lasers to study the chemical makeup of rocks. One of the most exciting instruments on Zhurong is the ground-penetrating radar. The ground-penetrating radar will be able to probe for water ice up to 100 meters underground.
The Chinese space agency will spend the next few days making sure that all of the systems on the rover are operating properly. After that, Zhurong will roll off the lander and begin conducting science on the surface of Utopia Planitia. China plans on using it’s Tianwen-1 orbiter as a relay station to help Zhurong communicate with Earth.
Future plans for Tianwen-1
Zhurong has a planned mission of 90 Martian days, while the Tianwen-1 orbiter will be used for at least 2 Earth years. During that time, China will likely make many interesting scientific discoveries.
China plans to conduct a sample return mission to Mars sometime in the 2030’s. They also have plans for robotic missions to Jupiter, and to return a sample of an asteroid to Earth. But for the next few years, the Chinese space agency will be focusing on their space station. They have already launched the first module of the station, and are preparing to launch a cargo spacecraft in the next few weeks.
Yinghuo-1
Tianwen-1 is actually not China’s first Mars mission. In 2011, Russia launched a mission called Fobos-Grunt, which attempted to return rock samples from Phobos, one of Mars’s moons. A small Chinese satellite called Yinghuo-1 launched with the Fobos-Grunt. Unfortunately, both spacecraft burned up in Earth’s atmosphere after a failed engine firing.
*China was either the 3rd or 4th country to soft land on Mars. The USA and USSR have landed on Mars before. The United Kingdom attempted to land their Beagle 2 lander on Mars in 2003. Communications were lost during the landing, and never regained. However, based on pictures from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, it is been theorized that Beagle 2 successfully soft landed, but failed to deploy it's antenna.
Sources: https://www.space.com/china-mars-rover-zhurong-first-week, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/china-landing-rover-on-mars-in-high-stakes-mission
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