Zhurong lander touches down on Mars

Successful landing makes China the first Asian nation to operate a Mars lander

China’s Zhurong lander has successfully landed on Mars.

The landing was widely reported by news networks earlier today, and marks a significant step forward for China, whose credentials as an operator of interplanetary space probes are now established.

The landing occurred just after 7pm, Eastern Standard Time, on 14 May. Zhurong landed a few tens of kilometres from the centre of its landing ellipse, on the flat expanses of Utopia Planitia, just north of Bluff crater. Among those offering their congratulations on social media in the hours after landing were the associate director of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Thomas Zurbuchen.

The scale of China’s achievement is clear against the backdrop of failed attempts to land spacecraft on the surface of Mars. Although the Soviet Union managed to land a probe intact on the surface in 1971, it flew through a dust storm in the process, and failed after 20 seconds of data transmission, leaving a scientific legacy of a single, unintelligible photograph. Many other attempts, including by NASA’s Mars Polar Lander, the British Beagle 2 lander, and the European Space Agency’s Schiaparelli lander, have failed during descent or on landing.

The successful arrival of the Zhurong lander, along with its eponymous rover, on the Red Planet establishes a new record, with five active probes on Mars simultaneously for the first time in history. NASA’s InSight lander, which is equipped with a seismometer, was primed to listen for seismic waves created by the probe as it landed, with findings expected later. The first images are expected to be transmitted to Earth on 15 May.