An unmanned Chinese spacecraft has touched down on Mars after successfully overcoming a “nine minutes of terror” on landing and it has become only the second country to visit the Red Planet.
China has followed the United States to land on Mars, reported state media, with the key moment when it comes in to land due to the lack of control on the vehicle.
The Tianwen-1 spacecraft landed on a site on the Southern Utopia Plain, “leaving a Chinese footprint on Mars for the first time,” Xinhua said.
Following more than six months of travel, safely landing on Mars is a complicated task where there is no human intervention possible.
(Image: China National Space Administrat)
The official Chinese Space News said the landing process consisted of “nine minutes of terror” as the module decelerates and then slowly descends.
The vehicle used a combination of a protective capsule, a parachute and a rocket platform to make the descent.
The touchdown is a significant achievement with only the Americans previously having been able to land on Mars.
(Image: Getty Images)
(Image: REUTERS)
A rover, named Zhurong, will now survey the landing site before departing from its platform to conduct inspections. It has six scientific instruments including a high-resolution topography camera.
The rover will study the planet’s surface soil and atmosphere. Zhurong will also look for signs of ancient life, including any sub-surface water and ice, using a ground-penetrating radar.
Tianwen-1, or “Questions to Heaven”, after a Chinese poem written two millennia ago, is China’s first independent mission to Mars. A probe co-launched with Russia in 2011 failed to leave the Earth’s orbit.
(Image: Tianwen-1)
The five-tonne spacecraft blasted off from the southern Chinese island of Hainan in July last year, launched by the powerful Long March 5 rocket.
Tianwen-1 reached the Red Planet in February and since then it had been looking for a spot to land where it was as flat as possible without craters or boulders.
It is the latest success for China whose space ambitions have also seen it put two rovers on the Moon.