{"id":114263,"date":"2021-05-15T03:28:14","date_gmt":"2021-05-15T10:28:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=114263"},"modified":"2021-05-15T03:39:41","modified_gmt":"2021-05-15T10:39:41","slug":"china-lands-its-zhurong-rover-on-mars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/05\/15\/china-lands-its-zhurong-rover-on-mars\/","title":{"rendered":"China lands its Zhurong rover on Mars."},"content":{"rendered":"<h2 class=\"ssrcss-1pjc44v-Contributor e5xb54n2\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em><strong>By Jonathan Amos&nbsp;<\/strong><\/em><\/span><br><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>BBC Science Correspondent<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n<p><strong>China has successfully landed a spacecraft on Mars, state media announced early on Saturday.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The six-wheeled Zhurong robot was targeting Utopia Planitia, a vast terrain in the planet&#8217;s northern hemisphere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The vehicle used a combination of a protective capsule, a parachute and a rocket platform to make the descent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"See China&#039;s &#039;Zhurong&#039; rover land on Mars in animation\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/xgxXNaZ_pd4?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The successful touchdown is a remarkable achievement, given the difficult nature of the task.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Only the Americans have really mastered landing on Mars until now. All other countries that have tried have either crashed or lost contact soon after reaching the surface.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Chinese President Xi Jinping congratulated the mission team on its &#8220;outstanding achievement&#8221; in a special message.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;You were brave enough for the challenge, pursued excellence and placed our country in the advanced ranks of planetary exploration,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thomas Zurbuchen, the head of science at the US space agency (Nasa), was quick also to add his own congratulations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Together with the global science community, I look forward to the important contributions this mission will make to humanity&#8217;s understanding of the Red Planet,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/science-environment-56013041\">China succeeds in putting a probe in Mars orbit<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/science-environment-56060890\">UAE space mission returns first image of Mars<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/science-environment-56133281\">Remarkable photo of Mars rover during landing<\/a><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/976\/cpsprodpb\/CC93\/production\/_118517325_hi067336664.jpg\" alt=\"Chinese engineers\"\/><figcaption>image captionThe mission team received a congratulatory message from the president<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The robot officially landed at 07:18 on Saturday, Beijing time (Friday 23:18 GMT), according to state media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It took 17 minutes to unfold its solar panels and send a signal back to Earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Zhurong, which means God of Fire, was carried to Mars on the Tianwen-1 orbiter, which arrived above the planet in February.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The probe then spent time surveying Utopia, taking high-resolution images to pinpoint the safest place to put the rover down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The aim with all such ventures is to pick a spot that is devoid of imposing craters and where the landscape isn&#8217;t covered in large boulders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Chinese engineers would have had to follow the landing effort with a time lag.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The current distance to Mars is 320 million km, which means radio messages take almost 18 minutes to reach Earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Every stage of the Zhurong robot&#8217;s approach to the surface therefore would have been conducted autonomously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/976\/cpsprodpb\/141C3\/production\/_118517328_067336794.jpg\" alt=\"Chinese engineers\"\/><figcaption>image captionEngineers follow events at Mars with a time lag of many minutes<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The landing architecture was a familiar one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The rover was encased in an aeroshell for the initial phase of the nine-minute descent. This capsule&#8217;s dive to the surface was slowed by pushing up against the Martian air.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The heat this generated was managed by a forward-facing shield.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At a predetermined time, a parachute opened to reduce the velocity still further.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Finally, the Zhurong robot broke away on a rocket-powered bench for the manoeuvres that took it safely to the ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Landing on Mars is always a daunting challenge but China would have had confidence going into the procedure, given the great competence it has shown in its space endeavours of late.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is a nation that has been putting rovers on the Moon, and bringing lunar samples back to Earth. This month it launched the first segment of a space station above our planet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/cpsprodpb\/825B\/production\/_118517333_mars_map_missions_640_2x_v2-nc.png\" alt=\"Successful landings\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Now that Zhurong has got down successfully, scientists will try to get at least 90 Martian days of service out of it, studying the local geology. A day, or Sol, on Mars lasts 24 hours and 39 minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The robot looks a lot like Nasa&#8217;s Spirit and Opportunity vehicles from the 2000s. It weighs some 240kg and is powered by fold-out solar panels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A tall mast carries cameras to take pictures and aid navigation; five additional instruments will investigate the mineralogy of local rocks and the general nature of the environment, including the weather.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Like the American rovers, Zhurong has a laser tool to zap rocks to assess their chemistry and a radar to look for sub-surface water-ice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Utopia Planitia is where Nasa landed its Viking-2 mission in 1976.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s a colossal basin &#8211; more than 3,000km across &#8211; that was formed by an impact early in Mars&#8217; history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There is some evidence pointing to it having held an ocean long ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Remote sensing by satellites indicates there are significant stores of ice at depth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/640\/cpsprodpb\/1FB9\/production\/_118512180_066020599.jpg\" alt=\"Model rover\"\/><figcaption>image captionA model shows Zhurong to have a similar look to Nasa&#8217;s Spirit and Opportunity vehicles<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/science-environment-57122914\">https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/science-environment-57122914<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Jonathan Amos&nbsp;BBC Science Correspondent China has successfully landed a spacecraft on Mars, state media announced early on Saturday. The six-wheeled Zhurong robot was targeting Utopia Planitia, a vast terrain in the planet&#8217;s northern hemisphere. The vehicle used a combination of a protective capsule, a parachute and a rocket platform to make the descent. The [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[132],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-114263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114263\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}