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An artist’s impression of the Zhu Rong Mars rover, which landed on the red planet on Saturday. Photo: Weibo

Touchdown for China’s Mars rover Zhu Rong after ‘nine minutes of terror’

  • Landing a rover on Mars involves a communications blackout period during which it must land without human intervention
  • Only half of all attempts to land on the red planet have succeeded because of its challenging atmosphere

After seven months of space travel, three months in orbit and “nine minutes of terror”, China has become the third country in the world to safely land a rover on Mars.

The China National Space Administration (CNSA) said its rover Zhu Rong – named after the Chinese mythical god of fire and war – had successfully landed on Mars on Saturday after “nine minutes of terror”, referring to Nasa’s description of the time when engineers on Earth have no control or oversight of the rover because of a radio signal delay.

“The scientific research team confirmed via the telemetry signal sent by the Zhu Rong Mars rover that on May 15, the Tianwen-1 Lander successfully landed in the pre-selected landing area in the Utopia Plain of southern Mars,” CNSA said.

The camera made in a Hong Kong university that just landed on Mars

Chinese President Xi Jinping said in a written congratulatory message that the mission was an important step in China’s space exploration. Scientists should continue their exploration of Mars and accelerate China’s development as a space power.

The milestone was also celebrated at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, with two research teams from the university contributing to the mission.

University president Teng Jin-guang said the two teams played a vital role in mapping and assessing landing sites.

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China Mars rover Zhu Rong successfully lands on red planet

China Mars rover Zhu Rong successfully lands on red planet
Zhu Rong’s landing comes as China races to catch up with the United States in space technology. In recent years, China has launched the world’s first quantum satellite, made a soft landing on the far side of the moon and brought lunar samples back using a purely robotic mission. It has also started building its own space station.

Before China, only the United States and the former Soviet Union had managed a successful soft landing on the red planet 319 million kilometres (198 million miles) from the Earth. A soft landing means the spacecraft performs a gentle touchdown on the planet’s surface without any significant damage, which usually requires complex deceleration and control procedures.

If Zhu Rong succeeds in its mission to collect and send back information about the Martian surface over the next 90 days, China would become only the second country to accomplish the task after the US. While the Soviet Union landed its Mars 3 rover successfully in 1971, it soon stopped sending signals.

China’s several space missions in 2020 include Mars probe and space station launch

Landing on the red planet – which is known for its harsh environment and in particular its extremely powerful dust storms – has been a huge challenge with only half of all trips succeeding.

It can take up to 20 minutes for a radio signal to travel between Mars and Earth. The landing process usually takes only about seven to nine minutes but falls in the blackout period, during which the ground team cannot guide or direct the descending craft and must leave it on its own to perform the landing process.

Besides Zhu Rong, there are two other operational rovers on Mars – Curiosity and Perseverance – both of them operated by Nasa, which has landed so far 10 missions on the red planet.

Zhu Rong is part of China’s first Mars probe, Tianwen-1, which was launched in July 2020 with three parts – orbiter, lander and rover. The probe reached Mars and started orbiting in February.

Protected by a heat shield, China’s Mars landing craft carrying the rover had to detach itself from the orbiter 70km above the surface, before hurtling towards the surface at a speed of nearly 5km per second.

This was different from Nasa’s Perseverance, which did not have an orbiter and relied on a series of choreographed steps, including parachutes, rockets and a sky crane to land.

A CNSA researcher said Zhu Rong’s Mars landing would be “much harder” than China’s lunar rover Jade Rabbit, which landed on the moon’s surface in 2013, because the much greater distance from Earth made radio transmission more difficult.

“Landing on the moon relies primarily on rocket engines to decelerate, as the moon has no atmosphere, while the first stage of landing on Mars uses its atmosphere as brakes,” said the researcher, who declined to be named because he was not authorised to speak to overseas media. “That is a major test of the landing craft’s structure and heat-resistance, as it has to withstand violent shocks and extreme heat as it enters Mars’ tough atmosphere at a very high speed.”

Additional reporting by Phila Siu

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Beijing joins Mars club after ‘nine minutes of terror’
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