Chinese National Space Administration (CNSA) will attempt to land the Zhurong rover. China may soon become just the third country to safely ...
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| Chinese National Space Administration (CNSA) will attempt to land the Zhurong rover. |
The Chinese National Space Administration (CNSA) will attempt to land the Zhurong rover, part of the Tianwen-1 spacecraft, which has been orbiting Mars since February of this year. If China successfully lands its spacecraft on the surface, it will become only the third country to land a rover on another planet after the United States and Russia. China aims to achieve orbiting, landing, and roving on the Red Planet in a single mission.
China will attempt to land its Zhurong Mars lander some time late Friday evening, as part of its Tianwen-1 mission.
The ambitious Tianwen-1 mission to Mars launched in July 2020 and contains three spacecraft: an orbiter, which is now circling Mars, a lander and a rover. This is China's first mission to Mars and landing on the planet is a difficult task — Only around half of the trips to the planet have proven successful and no agency beside NASA has landed on the surface since 1973.
Take Away
- The rover and lander will enter the thin Martian atmosphere tucked behind a heat shield. The duo will then eject the shield and deploy a parachute to slow its descent.
- Rather than using a “skycrane” that NASA has successfully used on a number of occasions to softly lower a its most recent Mars rovers, China’s descent module will power thrusters to slow its descent prior to touchdown.
- Zhurong is scheduled to land in the same region where NASA’s Viking 2 lander touched down back in 1976, the Utopia Planitia. The region is a large plain believed to be an impact basin some 3,300 kilometers across.
- Scientists believe there are massive ice deposits under its surface, making it particularly interesting for further study.
China has been relatively quiet about when we can expect the entry, descent and landing to begin, but reports suggest it will occur at 4:11 p.M. PT (11:11 p.M. UTC) on May 14. The lander and rover are currently encased within a protective shell, but will detach from the orbiter earlier and begin to head toward the surface.
When it hits the Martian atmosphere, (approximately) seven minutes of terror begins. The lander-rover duo will slam into the tenuous atmosphere, safely tucked within a heat shield. Once the spacecraft punches through, the heat shield will fall away and a parachute will be deployed to slow the vehicle down.
Zhurong's landing will look a little different from that made by NASA's Perseverance rover in February 2021. The NASA robot was lowered to the surface carefully via the agency's tried-and-true "skycrane" method, which saw the rover softly touch down in an ancient Mars lakebed.
Zhurong's descent will feel similar to Perseverance, but the lander will be doing all the work. It uses a suite of cameras and LIDAR to navigate to the surface. If the touchdown is a success, it will deploy a ramp for Zhurong to roll out onto Mars and begin its exploration mission.
The landing zone is Utopia Planitia, the same region of Mars where NASA's Viking 2 lander touched down in 1976. Viking 2 was a particularly interesting mission because some scientists suggested it had found signs of life.
China is aiming for Zhurong to spend 90 sols (Martian days) on the surface. We'll be sure to have a livestream link if one becomes available -- but if the country's Chang'e missions to the moon are anything to go by, I wouldn't expect to see too much until landing has been confirmed