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Mars China

China Lands Its First Rover On Mars (space.com) 90

Posted by BeauHD from the mission-accomplished dept.
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.
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China Lands Its First Rover On Mars More

China Lands Its First Rover On Mars

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  • Congratulations! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Saturday May 15, 2021 @12:28AM (#61386480) Journal

    Welcome to the Mars Club

    • 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)

      by Aubz ( 7986666 )
      Red planet under a Red flag. Yea!

  • Ok, opportunity of a lifetime (Score:5, Funny)

    by bobstreo ( 1320787 ) on Saturday May 15, 2021 @12:31AM (#61386484)

    Battlebots, on Mars.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by shanen ( 462549 )

      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...)

    • 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)

    by Anonymous Coward

    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.

  • Western media bias glaringly obvious (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Saturday May 15, 2021 @01:55AM (#61386570)

    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)

      by ilovechina ( 8097276 )
      No shit sherlock. How do you think the Chinese media's coverage of US space conquest is? Do you think the Eastern Media is over there singing our praises and talking about the numerous breakthroughs that are being made on a regular basis?

      • Actually, in my experience such events are widely reported in China.

    • Re:Western media bias glaringly obvious (Score:5, Interesting)

      by bloodhawk ( 813939 ) on Saturday May 15, 2021 @02:06AM (#61386582)
      maybe in the US, here in Australia it has been on the radio and every news channel has it as a leading story.

    • Re:Western media bias glaringly obvious (Score:4, Informative)

      by ljw1004 ( 764174 ) on Saturday May 15, 2021 @03:07AM (#61386646)

      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)

      by subreality ( 157447 ) on Saturday May 15, 2021 @03:24AM (#61386662)

      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.

      • Because they are waiting for proof. There was no lead up, no shared telemetry. That's just being responsible.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Joviex ( 976416 )

      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:Western media bias glaringly obvious (Score:5, Insightful)

      by feedayeen ( 1322473 ) on Saturday May 15, 2021 @04:55AM (#61386778)

      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)

      by Anonymous Coward

      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.

    • That's bull shit. Every news source that i read has mention this mission and the landing. They also typically only devote one or two articles to NASA missions.

    • 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".

    • 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.

    • 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.

    • Not really because someone landed something on Mars - that's kind of a well trodden path by now
      Considering that 50% of all landing "attempts" failed ... I would not call it a 'well trodden path'.

  • The trouble with a Chinese rover landings is that an hour later, you want to land again ... :-)

  • No videos? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by antdude ( 79039 ) on Saturday May 15, 2021 @03:56AM (#61386688) Homepage Journal

    No video of landing like NASA's?

  • So... I've been searching, but my googleFu is failing me. Has anyone seen photographs or video of the landing, or any ..erm.. evidence of success?

  • 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)

    by fygment ( 444210 ) on Saturday May 15, 2021 @08:46AM (#61387160)

    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.
    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 ... Viking lander or Perseverance or ... " but would that make it believable? Likely not.

    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?

  • 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)

    by Impy the Impiuos Imp ( 442658 ) on Saturday May 15, 2021 @10:01AM (#61387366) Journal

    "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."

  • What technology does China have that wasn't stolen, exactly?
    • Even better, how much better would the technology everyone is using be if they respected the development process at all?

    • 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

      • 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

  • Gotta defend the motherland right?

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