According to Chinese state media, the country has managed to land a rover and lander on the planet Mars. That happened around 1 am Dutch time. The rover lander bundle does not appear to have taken damage on landing.
On descent, the rover-lander bundle used a parachute and retro missiles. The landing took a total of seven minutes and took place on Utopia Planitia, a stretch of flat landscape. The landing was carried out autonomously, because due to the 20-minute signal delay, nothing can be controlled in real time .
The rover is expected to perform explorations and measurements at least 90 sols, about three months on Earth. During those 90 sols, the 240-kilogram Zhurong rover will collect data on things such as the landscape, the soil, the atmosphere, the magnetic field and the climate of Mars with six different measuring instruments.
Actual video recordings of the landing are not available at the moment. On the site of the China Global Television Network, however, there is a series of animations and texts that explain what the course of China’s Tianwen-1 mission should be. It is the first time that China is carrying out a Mars mission.
