China lands its ZhuRong rover on Mars

[Atrecord]

Quite a feat by the Chinese...

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-57122914

China has successfully landed a spacecraft on Mars, state media announced early on Saturday.

The six-wheeled Zhurong robot was targeting Utopia Planitia, a vast terrain in the planet's northern hemisphere.

The vehicle used a combination of a protective capsule, a parachute and a rocket platform to make the descent.

The successful touchdown is a remarkable achievement, given the difficult nature of the task.

Only the Americans have really mastered landing on Mars until now. With this landing, China becomes the second country to put a rover on Mars.

Chinese President Xi Jinping congratulated the team's "outstanding achievement" in a special message.

"You were brave enough for the challenge, pursued excellence and placed our country in the advanced ranks of planetary exploration," he said.

The probe officially landed at 07:18 on Saturday, Beijing time (Friday 23:18 GMT), according to state media.

It took 17 minutes to unfold its solar panels and send a signal back to Earth.

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Remarkable photo of Mars rover during landing

Zhurong, which means God of Fire, was carried to Mars on the Tianwen-1 orbiter, which arrived above the planet in February.

The time since has been spent surveying Utopia, taking high-resolution images to pinpoint the safest place to put down.

The aim with all such ventures is to pick a spot, as far as possible, that is devoid of imposing craters and large boulders.

Chinese engineers have to follow events with a time lag.

The current distance to Mars is 320 million km, which means radio messages take almost 18 minutes to reach Earth.

Every stage of the Zhurong's approach to the surface therefore has to be managed autonomously.

The entry (into the atmosphere), descent and landing strategy follows a familiar architecture.

At the chosen moment, the rover, encased in an aeroshell, is released from the Tianwen orbiter and dives downwards.

A heatshield on the capsule slows the fall by pushing up against the Martian air. A parachute then opens to reduce the velocity still further. Finally, the robot breaks away on a rocket-powered bench for the manoeuvres that take it to the ground.

It is a daunting challenge, but China has shown great competence of late in its space endeavours, which have included putting two rovers on the Moon.

Now that Zhurong has got down successfully, scientists will try to get at least 90 Martian days of service out of it, studying the local geology. A day, or Sol, on Mars lasts 24 hours and 39 minutes.

The robot looks a lot like the American space agency's (Nasa) Spirit and Opportunity vehicles from the 2000s. It weighs some 240kg and is powered by fold-out solar panels.

A tall mast carries cameras to take pictures and aid navigation; five additional instruments will help assess the mineralogy of local rocks and look for any water-ice below ground.

 

[Thaiyotakamli]

That shows asian math is good haha

[Lala81]

Good stuff. 

Really not easy. 

[Beregond]

 are they suppose to carry rock and come back to earth?

or just stay there and send back images and video

[Nolicense]

22 minutes ago, Beregond said:

 are they suppose to carry rock and come back to earth?

or just stay there and send back images and video

need another rocket to come back lor.. wait take the rock back got the alien species.. how?

i dont mind if it is this type though.. come come cum..

[Enye]

wah... song song gao zhu rong

🤣

[Windwaver]

[Voodooman]

3 cheers for the Chinese people. 

 

[Lala81]

1 hour ago, Beregond said:

 are they suppose to carry rock and come back to earth?

or just stay there and send back images and video

Technically very difficult to have round trip back currently. Though Elon is serious about attempting a manned mission to Mars within this decade. 

Edited May 15, 2021 by Lala81

[Lala81]

1 hour ago, Beregond said:

 are they suppose to carry rock and come back to earth?

or just stay there and send back images and video

Video. Probes. Measure data etc. Then power down when battery runs out. 

[Tohto]

Remind me of this movie.

 

[Beregond]

4 minutes ago, Lala81 said:

Technically very difficult to have round trip back currently. Though Elon is serious about attempting a manned mission to Mars within this decade. 

when elon do it, total recall gonna be real.

 he successfully landed his rocket  just not long ago.

hard to imagine some private company can fight china and usa in such research 

[1fast1]

While this is a great achievement for the Chinese (and landing a craft on the surface is a very impressive feat), the first Asian nation to reach Martian orbit (and to do so on its first attempt) was India. I don't recall seeing a thread here about it, nor in the local MSM (to be fair, I don't read it regularly), but anyway, the details are here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Orbiter_Mission

[Jellandross]

1 hour ago, Lala81 said:

Technically very difficult to have round trip back currently. Though Elon is serious about attempting a manned mission to Mars within this decade. 

Sounds like fun

https://www.space.com/elon-musk-mars-spacex-risks-astronauts-die

"You might die ... and you probably won't have good food and all these things. It's an arduous and dangerous journey where you may not come back alive, but it's a glorious adventure," Musk said.

 

Edited May 15, 2021 by Jellandross

[Staff69]

page 1

 

selling mars prime estate, get your Orchard road of MARS...now

 

1sqm for $0.05,

Edited May 15, 2021 by Staff69

[Ender]

2 hours ago, Windwaver said:

Have they infected the moon yet?

[mersaylee]

3 hours ago, Beregond said:

 are they suppose to carry rock and come back to earth?

or just stay there and send back images and video

Maybe grow and send back 土豆 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

photo😁

[Sosaria]

5 hours ago, Thaiyotakamli said:

That shows asian math is good haha

Same for the successful Indian mars mission, just shows asian math is good

NASA and Roscosmos were leaders in space exploration partly because they had a head-start with those nazi rocket scientists captured after WW2.