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China’s Zhurong rover has touched down safely on Mars

China became the second nation to take a working machine to the Martian surface at the weekend.

The Tianwen-1 mission arrived in Martian orbit in February following a July launch last year. The spacecraft housed a lander, orbiter and a rover and at the weekend the lander and rover headed for Martian soil.

Unlike NASA which uses a sky-crane to lower its rovers onto the Martian surface, China brought down a lander from orbit so that the rover could essentially roll out of a protective cage.

Descent started at 01:00 according to Engadget China, but the lander didn’t enter reach the correct altitude for entry until 04:00. After many hours hovering in orbit, the lander descended to the surface and nine minutes later the lander touched down softly on the Utopia Planitia region of Mars.

If you’re wondering why the China National Space Administration took so long to actually land the rover, that’s because you only really get one shot at this.

The distance between Mars and Earth means that communications between the two planets can take upwards of seven minutes. To solve this problem, NASA has shifted to autonomous operation of all of its landers. It’s unclear if China has similar tech but we have to assume that there is some level of automation in this process given the high risk of an impact damaging the rover.

As for Zhurong, it’s currently running self-checks and imaging is assessing the landing site as preparations are made for the rover to begin its life of patrols on Mars.

The Chinese rover won’t run into Perseverance, NASA’s newest resident on Mars, as they are on very different sides of the planet.

The Red Planet is becoming a hive of human activity, and we aren’t even there yet.

[Image – CC 0 Pixabay]

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