BEIJING, May 22 (Xinhua): China s first Mars rover, Zhurong, drove down from its landing platform to the Martian surface on Saturday, leaving the country s first footprints on the red planet.
Zhurong s first successful drive made China the second country after the United States to land and operate a rover on Mars.
The six-wheeled solar-powered rover, resembling a blue butterfly and with a mass of 240 kg, slowly trundled off a ramp on the lander to hit the red, sandy soil of Mars, starting its journey to explore the fourth planet from the sun.
According to the telemetry data, Zhurong set its wheels on Martian soil at 10:40 a.m. (Beijing Time) on Saturday, the China National Space Administration (CNSA) said.
China s first Mars rover starts exploring red planet - Buz & Tech News
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Xinhua Headlines: China s first Mars rover starts exploring red planet
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China becomes the third country to land on the surface of Mars
An artist s impression of the Tianwen-1 lander module touching down on Mars
China National Space Administration
China National Space Administration
China has taken another big step forward in its ambitious space program, successfully landing its Tianwen-1 probe on Mars to become just the third nation to touch down on the Red Planet. Onboard is the country s Zhurong lander, which is currently surveying the surrounding environment and will soon be rolled out to study the Martian environment from the surface.
China s Tianwen-1 mission was launched in July last year and carried an orbiter, lander and rover towards Mars over a journey lasting nearly seven months. After entering the planet s orbit in February, the spacecraft spent more than two months searching for a landing site, before mission scientists settled on a plain in the northern hemisphere called Utopia Planitia.