The Zhurong rover is deployed by China on the Red Planet and is a milestone: only the United States had achieved it before

The Zhurong rover is deployed by China on the Red Planet and is a milestone: only the United States had achieved it before

Only the United States had done it before . China’s Tianwen 1 mission lander has landed on Mars, with a rover named Zhurong on board .

China’s first Mars explorer is named Zhurong in honor of the god of fire in ancient Chinese mythology, which refers to the Chinese name for the red planet: Huoxing (the planet of fire).

Tricky landing

The descent of the spacecraft through the Martian atmosphere was extremely difficult without ground control and had to be directed by the spacecraft autonomously .

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To establish a connection with the rover, they had to wait for the rover to autonomously deploy its solar panels and antenna to send the signals after landing, with a lag of more than 17 minutes as a result of the distance between Earth and Mars. .

The 240 kg solar powered rover carries panoramic and multispectral cameras and instruments to analyze the composition of the rocks. Zhurong also plans to investigate the characteristics of the subsurface with penetrating radar .

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