In the early hours of Saturday morning, South African time, the China National Space Administration’s Zhurong rover successfully touched down on Mars. Its landing site was in the southern region of Utopia Planitia. This made China only the second country to put a rover on to the Red Planet.

The rover, with its landing system, was carried to Mars by the Tianwen-1 Mars orbiter, itself China’s first national interplanetary mission. Tianwen-1 launched in July 2020 and arrived in Martian orbit in February. The landing of Zhurong was executed after three months of preparation (including the taking, and studying, of high resolution images of the landing site). The drop from orbit to the planetary surface took nine minutes.

Zhurong is named after the fire god in Chinese mythology. It has a mass of 240 kg and is solar-powered, with four solar panels. It is fitted with six wheels and has a maximum speed of 200 metres per hour.

The rover is currently in a systems-check phase and will take images of its landing area, to allow the creation of a panoramic image. Only then will it roll off its landing platform and commence its science mission, which is initially planned to last 90 days.

Zhurong is equipped with six science payloads. These include panoramic and multispectral imagers, a weather station, ground-penetrating radar, a magnetometer and a spectroscopy instrument which will use a laser to break down surface material so as to analyse its minerals and elements.

The rover is intended to undertake science that will complement the missions of other Mars probes operated by other space agencies. In addition to China’s own Tianwen-1 orbiter and Zhurong rover missions, Mars is currently being studied by US orbiters, landers and rovers (and one small helicopter), as well as by orbiters from India, the United Arab Emirates, the European Space Agency (ESA), plus a joint ESA/Russian orbiter. Zhurong will focus on gathering information on geology, topography and especially water ice deposits and weather.