China has landed on Mars. Tianwen-1, the first Chinese interplanetary exploration, has “successfully” completed the landing procedures on the Red Planet by placing the Zhurong rover “safely” on the dunes of Utopia Planitia. The news was given by the state media, from CCTV to Xinhua. After three months of preparations in orbit and about 8 minutes after entering the Martian atmosphere, the spacecraft survived the so-called “seven minutes of terror” or “nine minutes of unknown”, in which it is not possible to receive signals from Earth. live due to the natural delay in communications. The rover touched the surface shortly after 7:00 local time (1:00 in Italy). The success of the operation was confirmed by the China National Space Administration (CNSA), the Chinese space agency, according to which the means have maintained, as expected, contacts with Earth.
What the rover will do
The rover, powered by solar energy and weighing 240 kilograms, has six scientific payloads – between a pair of navigation cameras and another multispectral, an ion detector, a penetrating radar, a magnetometer and a climate station – at the aim to study the topography, geology, soil structure, minerals, rock types and atmosphere in the area. The Tianwen-1 probe allowed China to become the third nation to have achieved such a feat, after Russia and the United States: the landing on Mars took place on the 295th day of its journey after being launched by a Long March rocket. -5 from the Wenchang base in Hainan province, which took place on July 23, 2020.
Xi congratulates the probe on landing
President Xi Jinping congratulated the successful landing of the first Chinese probe on Mars, with the Zhurong rover over the Utopia Planitia dunes. In a message, reported the People’s Daily, the president “expressed his warm congratulations and sincere greetings to all those who participated in the exploration mission to Mars, Tianwen-1”.
Source-tg24.sky.it