China has landed its Zhurong vehicle on Mars

NASA has had many recent successes with Mars missions, but don’t be fooled by that; Half of all missions to Mars fail. The Soviet Union had previously landed a spacecraft on Mars in 1971, but communication was lost 110 seconds later. Since 2017, the European Space Agency’s Schiaparelli landslide fell on its way to the surface of Mars. China’s first attempt on Mars Russia made the 2011 Fobos-Grunt mission to explore Mars and its moon Phobos. This spacecraft did not leave Earth’s orbit and re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere a few months later, which led China to Mars to continue its independent mission.

Don’t expect it to match Zhurong, say, Sustainability. The latter weighs more than a metric ton, has nuclear power, has 23 cameras, carries carbon dioxide-oxygen display technology, can take and store samples that will return to Earth in a day, and he also brought a new helicopter to the planet. The first weighs only 240 kilograms, is powered by solar energy, carries only six instruments, and is expected to last 90 days on Mars (although it may well last longer).

Tianwen-1 aims to study its 13 tools (seven in orbit, six in vehicle) on the geology and mineralogy of Mars, to map the distribution of water ice, to study the electromagnetic and gravitational forces of the planet, and the surface climate and environment. While the orbiter observes and measures these things from a global perspective and reduces the images to a resolution of 2 meters, Zhurong delves into the points of superficial intrigue. He will use spectroscopy to find out what the soil is made of, to measure the magnetic fields on the ground, and to monitor changes in weather such as temperature and wind.

Perhaps the strangest thing is that Zhurong has a radar that goes into the ground that will allow you to see underground activities and structures 100 meters deep, 10 times more than Perseverance’s radar. It is hoped that this tool will be able to detect potential groundwater reserves. Water resources could one day be a critical part of establishing a colony on Mars. Utopia Planitia in particular “is a fairly safe place to land and a possible place to find water,” says Wang.