China’s Tianwen-1 spacecraft completes the historic Mars landing on Space News

The solar-powered vehicle called Zoverong will now explore the landing site before leaving its platform for inspections.

A Chinese unmanned spacecraft successfully landed on the surface of Mars on Saturday, the Xinhua news agency reported, China has become the second spacecraft to land on a red planet after the United States.

The Tianwen-1 spacecraft landed on a wide plain site called Utopia Planitia, “leaving a mark on China for the first time on Mars,” Xinhua said.

The spacecraft that left the parked orbit left GMT at around 5pm on Friday (Beijing at 1am on Saturday).

The landing module separated from the orbiter three hours later and entered the Martian atmosphere, China Space News official reported.

He said the landing process was a “nine-minute panic” as the module accelerated and then slowly descended.

A solar circulator, called Zhurong, will now examine the landing site before leaving its platform for inspections. Named after the legendary Chinese god of fire, Zhurong has six scientific tools including a high-resolution topography camera.

The rover will study the planet’s surface soil and atmosphere. Zhurong will also look for signs of ancient life, using surface radar, including groundwater and ice.

Tianwen-1, or “Questions for Heaven,” named after a Chinese poem written two thousand years ago, is China’s first independent mission to Mars. The probe launched with Russia in 2011 did not leave Earth’s orbit.

The five-ton spacecraft took off from the southern Chinese island of Hainan in July last year, launching a powerful Long March 5 rocket.

After more than six months, Tianwen-1 reached Mars in February, and has been in orbit ever since.

If Zhurong were to successfully deploy, China would be the first country to orbit, land and release the vehicle on its first mission to Mars.

Tianwen-1 was one of three to reach Mars in February when the U.S. traveler Perseverance successfully touched down on February 18 in a giant depression called Jezero Crater, 2,000 kilometers from Planet Utopia.

Hope – the third spacecraft to reach Mars in February this year – is not designed for a landing. Launched by the United Arab Emirates, it is currently orbiting Mars to collect data on its weather and atmosphere.

The first successful landing was made by NASA’s Viking 1 in July 1976 and then by Viking 2 in September of that year. The Mars probe launched by the former Soviet Union landed in December 1971, but communication landed and was lost within seconds.

China is pursuing an ambitious space program. It is testing reusable spacecraft and also plans to establish a manned lunar research station.

In a comment posted on Saturday, Xinhua said China “did not want to compete for leadership in space,” but pledged to “share the secrets of the universe and help humanity use space peacefully.”