China’s Tianwen-1 spacecraft has dropped its lander and rover — named Zhurong on May 15, 2021. It is China’s first mission to Mars, and makes it only the third nation — after Russia and the United States — to have landed a spacecraft on the planet.
- As per Chinese state news agency Xinhua, an entry capsule enclosing them separated from the orbiter at about 4 am Beijing time on 15 May. After several hours it entered Mars’s atmosphere at an altitude of 125 kilometres.
- The Zhurong landed on Utopia Planitia, which is a wide, flat expanse in a vast, feature-less basin that formed when a smaller object smashed into Mars billions of years ago.
- Tianwen-1 arrived in Mars’ orbit in February 2021 after launching to the Red Planet on a Long March 5 rocket in July 2020.
- The Chinese Mars mission included an orbiter, a lander and a rover — making it the first to send all three elements to the planet.
