Chinese spacecraft lands on Mars. Seeing the exact moment

Government media China You mentioned that the country has successfully landed a rover in it Mars Saturday morning (15), becoming the second country in history to have an astronomical vehicle on the Red Planet.

Xinhua said the spacecraft named Zhurong, named after the god of fire in Chinese mythology, landed in a predetermined area in Utopia Planetia on the surface of Mars.

Zhurong has six wheels, powered by solar energy, it weighs about 240 kilograms and carries six scientific instruments. Then, it will be deployed from the probe on a three-month mission to search for signs or evidence of ancient life on Mars.

The Tianwen-1 orbiter from Mars will transmit its signals to the rover during the mission Then conduct a global survey of the planet for a Martian year, which is equivalent to 687 Earth days. The spacecraft spent three months in orbit to learn about the landing area before launching the probe to the surface.

The Tianwen-1 was launched by the “Long March 5” missile. Equal to those that fell near the Maldives last week – from the Wenchang Space Launch Center in Hainan on July 23 last year and spent seven months on the way to Mars before entering its orbit in February.

The spacecraft sent its first image of the planet over a million kilometers away.

The science team behind Tianwen-1 said before the probe landed that the spacecraft “will orbit, land and launch a rover on the first attempt, and the observations will coordinate with an orbiter.” “No planetary mission has been executed in this way.”

Tianwen 1 is one of three international missions to Mars launched last summer, along with NASA’s Persevering Rover, which landed on Mars in February, and the Emirati Hope Probe, which also entered orbit around Mars in February. Unlike the US and Chinese missions, the Emirati probe was not intended to land on Mars, just to study the planet in orbit.

The three missions were launched simultaneously due to the alignment between Earth and Mars on the same side of the Sun, which makes the flight more efficient for the red planet.

Tianwen-1, whose name means “searching for the celestial truth,” hopes to gather important information about Mars’ soil, geological structure, environment and atmosphere, as well as search for water signs.

The ambitious Chinese space program grabbed the headlines last weekend, when A missile fell out of control in the Indian Ocean – A rebuke from NASA for failing to “meet space debris liability standards.”

The “Long March 5B” rocket launched a portion of the new Chinese space station into orbit in late April, and was left to launch from space uncontrolled until Earth’s gravity pulled it back.

Check the landing video: