China Lands Its First Rover On Mars (space.com) 90
China just successfully landed its first rover on Mars, becoming only the second nation to do so. Space.com reports: The Tianwen-1 mission, China's first interplanetary endeavor, reached the surface of the Red Planet Friday (May 14) at approximately 7:11 p.m. EDT (2311 GMT), though Chinese space officials have not yet confirmed the exact time and location of touchdown. Tianwen-1 (which translates to "Heavenly Questions") arrived in Mars' orbit in February after launching to the Red Planet on a Long March 5 rocket in July 2020. After circling the Red Planet for more than three months, the Tianwen-1 lander, with the rover attached, separated from the orbiter to begin its plunge toward the planet's surface. Once the lander and rover entered Mars' atmosphere, the spacecraft endured a similar procedure to the "seven minutes of terror" that NASA's Mars rovers have experienced when attempting soft landings on Mars.
A heat shield protected the spacecraft during the fiery descent, after which the mission safely parachuted down to the Utopia Planitia region, a plain inside of an enormous impact basin in the planet's northern hemisphere. Much like during NASA's Perseverance rover landing, Tianwen-1's landing platform fired some small, downward-facing rocket engines to slow down during the last few seconds of its descent. China's Mars rover, called Zhurong after an ancient fire god in Chinese mythology, will part ways with the lander by driving down a foldable ramp. Once it has deployed, the rover is expected to spend at least 90 Mars days (or about 93 Earth days; a day on Mars lasts about 40 minutes longer than a day on Earth) roving around on Mars to study the planet's composition and look for signs of water ice. Utopia Planitia is believed to contain vast amounts of water ice beneath the surface. It's also where NASA's Viking 2 mission touched down in 1976.
A heat shield protected the spacecraft during the fiery descent, after which the mission safely parachuted down to the Utopia Planitia region, a plain inside of an enormous impact basin in the planet's northern hemisphere. Much like during NASA's Perseverance rover landing, Tianwen-1's landing platform fired some small, downward-facing rocket engines to slow down during the last few seconds of its descent. China's Mars rover, called Zhurong after an ancient fire god in Chinese mythology, will part ways with the lander by driving down a foldable ramp. Once it has deployed, the rover is expected to spend at least 90 Mars days (or about 93 Earth days; a day on Mars lasts about 40 minutes longer than a day on Earth) roving around on Mars to study the planet's composition and look for signs of water ice. Utopia Planitia is believed to contain vast amounts of water ice beneath the surface. It's also where NASA's Viking 2 mission touched down in 1976.
Congratulations! (Score:5, Insightful)
Welcome to the Mars Club
Re: (Score:3)
Welcome to the Mars Club
Agreed. Well done, well done!
From their promo video, it looks like this lander has some impressive autonomous site selection and navigation during the final minute or so. It would be really cool to have a video from another lander watching it fly around.
Re: (Score:1)
Re:Welcome to 1997! (Score:5, Insightful)
Good job China...proud of you. All that hacking and soviet tech finally paid off. Can't wait to see "starship". Onward!
It's really easy to mock someone for doing something years later but you seem to be missing a point. As mentioned, China is only the 2nd country to land on Mars. They did it in one try. They aren't using tech from 97 either. The equipment looks pretty sophisticated. You need to keep in mind that China's tech industry has been catching up to the US and is expected to exceed it. It seems to me that China's rapid moves here show they will eventually overtake the US in this field as well unless something changes this trend. So you may find this funny now but given a decade, you might not be laughing then.
Re: Welcome to 1997! (Score:2, Interesting)
Well, of course. In fact, you'd be stupid to do anything else. That's always been the case, and a lot of entities have succeeded doing that. ...and the Chinese are kind of being forced into it, so why the hell not? It's the fastest way to innovate... build on top of existing inventions that are known to work, and achievements that have been successful.
Only a complete idiot, or a completely idiotic system, would insist everyone start from scratch in any endeavour.
Re: (Score:1)
So you support stealing then?
Re: (Score:2)
I've been stealing knowledge for some decades now. First from my parents and other family members, then from schools/college even peers taught me some stuff, later learning things on the jobs that I was doing. Some call it learning, but stealing sounds cooler.
Re: Welcome to 1997! (Score:2)
I just don't consider ideas to be property.
Re: (Score:2)
Look how well it turned out for America.
Re: Welcome to 1997! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Well, they both copied the Germans.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Welcome to 1997! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Welcome to 1997! (Score:4, Informative)
TFS says second to successfully land a rover on Mars. The Soviet Mars 3 mission was a bit of a flop - communication was lost after twenty seconds.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Well technically Mars 3 landed just fine. It just didn't work for very long afterwards.
Re: (Score:2)
Incredible work by China. All the sinophobes posting yesterday about how it was doomed to fail because everything made in China is crap can enjoy their humble pie.
I'm old enough to remember when "Made in Japan" was the same punchline.
Re:Welcome to 1997! (Score:4, Insightful)
China's (and ESA's) Mars rover looks strikingly similar to NASA's Spirit / Opportunity rovers, down to the wheels and the suspension. This isn't merely a coincidence. It's much more difficult (and expensive) to come up with something developed from scratch.
I'm more interested if the Chinese will be able to pull-off a Mars Sample Return mission, since there's no reference point for them to adhere to. We haven't been able to pull it off either. Yet.
Re: (Score:1)
True, but it's much easier to pull-off something like this if you have a reference on how to do it. Most likely many of the NASA projects had some ethnically Chinese on them who took their knowledge back to China..
Great. now lets get NASA to encourage some of our ethnics right here to study the art. I'm sure they can benefit from pre selection at age three, special school, special diet, paid undergraduate, graduate,.... But it looks like our public schools are doing fine just the same.
Re: (Score:2)
It's not coincidence, it's form following function. And if you want to go down that route then the US rovers looked very similar to the Russian ones that preceded them.
Re:Welcome to 1997! (Score:4, Insightful)
It seems to me that China's rapid moves here show they will eventually overtake the US in this field as well unless something changes this trend. So you may find this funny now but given a decade, you might not be laughing then.
No need to wait that long. In about 4 years, the Chinese space station will be the only one up there, that would be less than 30 years after the US prevented the Chinese from joining the ISS.
Same with Beidou, the Chinese GPS, fully operational now. It was a bit less than 20 years after Chinese paid & joined Europe's Galileo project and then withdrawn a few years. To this day, the Galileo still was not completed yet.
The same with high speed rails, there was almost none 25 years ago, and now China has more than 1/2 of the world's HSR rails. Same with 5G. It may be happening for AI, EV and their combination autonomous vehicles.
Betting China will not overtake you in tech eventually once they set their minds to it, is probably not a wise bet.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
I thought it was a South African planning the round trips to Mars. It is true that he stole a lot of the Germans ideas after they were filtered by NASA.
Re: (Score:2)
A decade from now the US will be colonizing Mars with year round flights while China tries its best to copy and keep up. Maybe by then time the US puts humans on Mars; China will have its 2nd rover--this time twice the size of golf cart!
We were supposed to have a moon base long ago, it was even brought back during the Bush administration to build a ship to send towards Mars yet here we are and we're barely able to have a space station in orbit. Talk is cheap you know and politicians promising to fund are a dime a dozen. Maybe we will have a colony in 10 years, but I wouldn't hold my breath.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
As it pertains to China "exceeding the US" you can keep drinking the kool-aid. Its clear you live in a 3rd world country or you're Chinese. From here in the good ol USA we have this thing called freedom which inspires us to push beyond limits rather than bow to them. China is a ticking time bomb...no way the people there are going to tolerate living in fear for much longer. Couple the birth rate issue with a simmering hunger for freedom and China is about to implode. Oh and as desperate as China is to be #1....guess what the world finally woke up and saw their systematic corruption and ruthless tactics.
Why am I the one drinking the kool-aid? It could be you for all we know. Time will tell. Oh and the freedom you so talk about has been mentioned by US tech companies as an impediment to their ability to develop.
Welcome to 1970 (Score:2)
Re: Welcome to 1997! (Score:2)
Right. Huawei is now leading in the global patent race.
https://www.ft.com/content/614... [ft.com]
Re: Welcome to 1997! (Score:3)
The patent system is obscene, irrespective of who is leading. It is no longer serving its original purpose, and it hasn't for quite some time. Copyright too.
Re: (Score:2)
It should be very simple, "This is my creation, this is how it works, this patent grants me exclusive use for this many years", "This is my copyright, I created this product, this copyright grants me exclusive use for this many years", and "This is my trademark, when you say this word in the context of this industry, it is a product made by my company, and I have exclusive use as long as I use and defend it".
But no. Greed ruins everything.
Re: (Score:2)
The patent system is obscene, irrespective of who is leading. It is no longer serving its original purpose, and it hasn't for quite some time. Copyright too.
The patent and copyright systems were not designed to keep people out of innovation. They were designed to allow for free distribution of ideas without replicating the application needlessly. What is obscene is how they are abused.
Ok, opportunity of a lifetime (Score:5, Funny)
Battlebots, on Mars.
Re: (Score:2)
More along the lines of what I was expecting, though with some element of "This planet is getting too crowded."
Hopefully it's just more flag waving of the most expensive sort. It would not be so nice if their real goal was to set up the first robotic factory on Mars. (But if one of the primary products of a robot factory is oxygen...)
Re: (Score:2)
Chinese space officials have not yet confirmed the exact time and location of touchdown
It landed directly on Perseverance!
A Chinese spokesperson denied malicious intent and simply commented: "Ooops..."
Right (Score:1)
Chinese space officials have not yet confirmed the exact time and location of touchdown
Advanced enough to land on Mars, not advanced enough to know what time it is.
Re: Right (Score:2)
"confirmed". I think that means someone has to make a guess first... then they will confirm it... perhaps even award a prize.
Re: Right (Score:2)
Eastern time, wherever that rover goes
Re: Interplanatary contamination (Score:1)
That was the USA no? Well, there's as much evidence for that as for it happening in China...
Western media bias glaringly obvious (Score:3, Interesting)
This is big news. Not really because someone landed something on Mars - that's kind of a well trodden path by now - but because China is definitely turning into a space powerhouse.
Have you noticed how this has had essentially zero coverage in the western media? They sure aren't shy about beating NASA's drum whenever possible. But Chinese missions? Not so much.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:1)
No one is talking about singing praises dipshit. Merely talking about it in the news is good enough, and China's media does talk about US launches, whether successes or failures.
But all things equal?
Re: (Score:3)
And, of the western news sites I visited this morning, at least three talked about the successful Chinese landing. How many would satisfy you?
Re: (Score:3)
At Foxnews they have in big ass print flying saucer news. Then right under in little bitty print Chinese reach Mars. Way to go Foxnews. Who needs the Weekly World News, we got you!
Re: Western media bias glaringly obvious (Score:2)
Actually, in my experience such events are widely reported in China.
Re:Western media bias glaringly obvious (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: Western media bias glaringly obvious (Score:2)
It is in the US, too.
This guy is probably just looking at Facebook and calling it "News."
Re:Western media bias glaringly obvious (Score:4, Informative)
This is big news. Not really because someone landed something on Mars - that's kind of a well trodden path by now - but because China is definitely turning into a space powerhouse. Have you noticed how this has had essentially zero coverage in the western media?
It's the #2 story on BBC. In the top banner for Le Monde. #3 story on The Guardian. #3 story on CNN. (it seems lower down the rankings on tabloids and on Fox).
I wonder if the reason is because China didn't share the planned touchdown time, so it was hard to prepare stories before the fact? Suggesting that it's the quick-update places that right about it right now, and others will follow shortly?
Re:Western media bias glaringly obvious (Score:4, Informative)
Have you noticed how this has had essentially zero coverage in the western media?
It is literally on the top of the page at https://www.cnn.com/ [cnn.com] as we speak.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
This is big news. Not really because someone landed something on Mars - that's kind of a well trodden path by now - but because China is definitely turning into a space powerhouse.
Have you noticed how this has had essentially zero coverage in the western media? They sure aren't shy about beating NASA's drum whenever possible. But Chinese missions? Not so much.
Maybe where you get news? Dont lump everyone into the same hyperbolic bucket as your lack of looking around for news.
Re: (Score:2)
He is probably mixing facebook up with a news site.
Re:Western media bias glaringly obvious (Score:5, Insightful)
Apart from the numerous examples of it literally being front page news right now in the top 5 listing on the largest networks including CNN, BBC.
Problem is China doesn't really talk about it's work effectively. The rover did not have a name until the end of April and there are no photos of the actual rover. How do you talk about the rover so little information is released that this is the CNSA's website and there pictures section is just outdated powerpoint slides on a website that looks like it was designed in 1995: http://www.cnsa.gov.cn/english... [cnsa.gov.cn] I really want to beleive that CNSA.gov.cn is not the right website right now.
Compare that to NASA: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_p... [nasa.gov] Their site is taylor made to appeal to public perception and provide media images. Those rover selfies with the arms digitally removed is not because that's valuable to scientists seeing how they probably wanted the photos of the arms too. It's entirely so when CNN wants to talk about it, they have a real world photo. Same reason why they release photos from the clean rooms.
CGI renders and plastic mockups in convention centers are terrible at keeping people interested in the 'unnamed 'Tianwen-1 rover' and that was literally all that most media sites had to work on up until a month ago.
Re: (Score:1)
What total twollocks. Pretty much everyone reported it.
Sky is reporting it:
https://news.sky.com/story/nin... [sky.com]
BBC is reporting it:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/sci... [bbc.co.uk]
Many others are reporting it as well, go use google news.
I bet even FOX is reporting it as well.
Re: Western media bias glaringly obvious (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Have you noticed how this has had essentially zero coverage in the western media?
No [cnn.com] I [foxnews.com] haven't. [bbc.com] But I am beginning to worry about what it is you consider "western media".
Re: (Score:2)
This is big news. Not really because someone landed something on Mars - that's kind of a well trodden path by now - but because China is definitely turning into a space powerhouse.
Mars still eats spacecraft. I wouldn't minimize the achievement just yet. Hopefully NASA and JPL shared some of their tricks and failure modes so other teams don't have to learn everything the hard way.
Personally, I'm not going to get all nationalistic about this. Mars is big and I'm much more interested in learning more about it than caring which set of taxpayers footed the bill.
Re: Western media bias glaringly obvious (Score:3)
Wrong.
It appears to me that the landing was reported by multiple members of the mainstream press in the USA before it was reported in China's press.
And no, I'm not counting a Twitter post as mainstream press.
Re: (Score:2)
Not really because someone landed something on Mars - that's kind of a well trodden path by now ... I would not call it a 'well trodden path'.
Considering that 50% of all landing "attempts" failed
One problem ... (Score:2)
The trouble with a Chinese rover landings is that an hour later, you want to land again ... :-)
No videos? (Score:4, Interesting)
No video of landing like NASA's?
Re:No videos? (Score:4, Funny)
Blender crashed mid-render.
Re: (Score:1)
It takes a while to send back, the link isn't that fast and the transmitter on the rover is power limited.
Video / Photograph of landing? (Score:2)
I dunno, man... (Score:2)
Unless I can check it and confirm there are traces of bamboo, I don't believe it originated in China.
Completely Unaware Such a Mission Existed (Score:3)
Took me completely by surprise leading to the following thoughts:
a) could be complete fabrication given the quality of possible now with fake video, etc. ... Viking lander or Perseverance or ... " but would that make it believable? Likely not.
b) could have been kept under wraps so that a failure could pass relatively unnoticed.
c) funny but you might think 'Hey what if their rover took a pic of
Bottom line is that it's hard to believe in something such a secretive country does or doesn't do. Every news item begs the question: real or propaganda?
also (Score:2)
Much like during NASA's Perseverance rover landing, Tianwen-1's landing platform fired some small, downward-facing rocket engines to slow down during the last few seconds of its descent.
And by incredible coincidence, some matching serial numbers are visible on them!
Timing (Score:5, Funny)
"The rover, however, was not permitted to move by its own computer because its social credit check fell below 3 due to not sending its 3 second "Dear Leader" heartbeat during landing."
Re: (Score:2)
"Dear Leader" is a DPRK thing, not PRC.
Aka China lands first rover using stolen US intell (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
And what technology does any other country have that was not "stolen somehow" form somewhere else?
For Chinese inventions:
blackpowder
fireworks
cannons, mortars, explosive shells
people carrying kites
telescopes
paper
paper money
printing press
silk / breeding silk worms / butterflys
the Junk ship - till into modern times the most build ship type ever, world wide. A multi compartment ship, that is as close to unsinkable as you can make a wooden ship.
Should I continue? That was just in 5 seconds from my mind. Took me
Re: (Score:2)
True words. Reed Joseph Needham for so much more on that list.
I remember people mocking Japanese and their 'transistors' which in the first half of the sixties was a synonym of small radios in a plastic cover that was no match to Braun design. And much smaller.. - somehow, that sort of mocking stopped a while later.
Copying - including violation of copyright, patents and that sort of barriers - is a typical early stage of technical/industrial development. For example, "Made in Germany" was a label forced on
Re: (Score:2)
Those voices will dimm down in a few years and are a indicator of stupidity anyway, like (very young) children shielding their eyes with hands and saying "you cannot see me".
Mainland China has a proven record of meeting (and usually surpassing) their plans. Being a world leader in recognized key technologies has been a target for decades and AFAIKT they do deliver.
In a chinese view this is a return to normality. China was the center of civilisation for thousand of years and the ignominy of loosing in the op
The cpc shills have entered the chat (Score:1)