China’s Mars rover steps down to surface of the planet, begins inaugural mobile mission
A remote-controlled Chinese motorised rover drove down the ramp of its landing capsule on Saturday and onto the surface of Mars, making China the first nation to orbit, land and deploy a land vehicle on its inaugural mission to the Red Planet.
Zhurong, named after a mythical Chinese god of fire, drove down to the surface of Mars at 10:40 a.m. Beijing time (0240 GMT), according to the rover’s official Chinese social media account.
China this month joined the United States as the only nations to deploy land vehicles on Mars. The former Soviet Union landed a craft in 1971, but it lost communication seconds later.
The 240-kg Zhurong, which has six scientific instruments including a high-resolution topography camera, will study the planet’s surface soil and atmosphere.
Powered by solar energy, Zhurong will also look for signs of ancient life, including any subsurface water and ice, using a ground-penetrating radar during its 90-day exploration of the Martian surface.
Zhurong will move and stop in slow intervals, with each interval estimated to be just 10 metres (33 feet) over three days, according to the official China Space News.
“The slow progress of the rover was due to the limited understanding of the Martian environment, so a relatively conservative working mode was specially designed,” Jia Yang, an engineer involved in the mission, told China Space News.
Jia said he would not rule out a faster pace in the later stage of BEIJING: