Zhurong becomes first Chinese rover to land on Mars

CHINA has landed a spacecraft on Mars for the first time, a feat more technically challenging than a Moon landing, in the latest step forward for the country’s ambitious goals in space.

A rover vehicle, Zhurong, will stay in the lander for a few days of diagnostic tests before exploring an area of Mars known as Utopia Planitia.

It will join an American rover that arrived on the red planet in February. China’s first Mars landing follows its launch last month of the main section of what will be a permanent space station and a mission that brought back rocks from the moon late last year.

The official Xinhua News Agency said in announcing the landing on one of its social media accounts: “China has left a footprint on Mars for the first time, an important step for our country’s space exploration.”

The US has had nine successful landings on Mars since 1976. The Soviet Union landed on the planet in 1971, but the mission failed after the craft stopped transmitting information soon after touchdown.

A rover and a tiny helicopter from the American landing in February are currently exploring Mars. Nasa expects the rover to collect its first sample in July, for return to Earth in a decade.

China has landed on the Moon before, but landing on Mars is a much more difficult undertaking.

Spacecraft use shields for protection from the searing heat of the Martian atmosphere, and use both retro-rockets and parachutes to slow down enough to prevent a crash landing.

The parachutes and rockets must be deployed at precise times to ensure they land at the right spot.

Only mini-retro rockets are required for a Moon landing, and parachutes alone are sufficient for returning to Earth.

Xinhua said the entry capsule entered the Martian atmosphere at an altitude of 80 miles, initiating the riskiest part of the mission.

A 200 square metre parachute was deployed and later jettisoned, and then a retrorocket was fired to slow the speed of the craft to almost zero.

The craft hovered above the surface to identify obstacles before touching down.

“Each step had only one chance, and the actions were closely linked,” said Geng Yan, an official at the China National Space Administration.

“If there had been any flaw, the landing would have failed.”

Touchdown was at 7.18am Beijing time (12.18am BST), although more than an hour passed before ground controllers could confirm the landing was a success, Xinhua said.

Chinese president Xi Jinping called the landing “an important step in our country’s interplanetary exploration journey, realising the leap from Earth-Moon to the planetary system and leaving the mark of the Chinese on Mars for the first time”.