International space experts hail the landing of China’s rover on Mars

Space experts from different countries and foreign media have applauded the successful landing of China’s lander and rover on the Mars surface on Saturday.

The landing of the Zhurong rover is a bit of a journey back in time. If you look at the appearance of this rover, you will immediately notice the similarity to the twin Spirit and Opportunity, which landed on Mars in 2004 but no longer work. In two years, the Rosalind-Franklin rover is to boast a similar achievement, which also uses solar panels as a power source, but the next few days will belong to the Chinese Zhurong.

The successful landing of the Zhurong lander and rover on Mars occurred around 1:11 CET on May 15

On the surface, there seems to be nothing new about this Mars landing. First, the rover capsule enters the Martian atmosphere, passes through its upper layers, when the heat shield gets hotter, the parachutes open and the rover lands on the surface with the use of rocket engines. Well, apparently. In practice, this landing was different than any before.

There was no direct transmission, but there was something to watch

Do not expect a direct transmission by the Chinese space agency. However, those interested in landing can count on interesting messages on the web, for example, this observatory in Bochum. It is a long stream, but you can learn interesting things from it.

In addition, the operators of the Tianwen-1 mission have already surprised us with a video of the entry into the orbit of Mars, as well as selves made by the probe, which even NASA did not manage. So who knows how the moment of the Zhurong rover’s landing will be captured?

Zhurong landed similarly, and yet slightly different, to other rovers

First, Zhurong is not landing on the move. It has been orbiting Mars since February, attached to the Tianwen-1 orbiter, which will remain in this orbit to continue research on the planet and fulfill the important task of the station transmitting data from the rover to Earth. It is true that NASA has a well-developed telecommunications network in orbit, but Zhurong is after all the work of the CNSA, so it should not be surprising that China wants to control the data at first. Which will eventually be shared with the world community anyway, similar to the data from the lunar rovers. But whoever will be first to access them, the former will be able to draw conclusions.

 
High-resolution photos were taken by the Tianwen-1 probe after it entered Mars orbit

So we have the first difference, Perseverance entered the Martian atmosphere at about 20,000 kilometers per hour, Zhurong will start landing moving a little slower, probably around 17,000 kilometers per hour. Before that, the orbiter will lower its orbit. The parachutes were opened at an altitude of at least 4 km, when the speed decreased to about 1600 km / h (as with the landing of other rovers).

At an altitude of 3 kilometers, the heat shield was to be thrown back, and then the proximity radar using LIDAR was launched. The lander’s legs will also be unfolded. Wait a minute … a lander? Exactly. This is the second difference compared to Perseverance and its predecessor. Zhurong will not land alone, but with the lander. However, it is difficult to say whether it will act as an independent research instrument when the rover moves away in search of interesting objects on the surface.

Sojourner, who landed on Mars in 1997 together with Pathfinder, did a similar thing. But that landing was also different. Back then, the lander was surrounded by an inflatable fabric cocoon that cushioned the fall to the surface. This technique was repeated on two more rovers, but the next ones were too heavy. Zhurong, although much lighter than Perseverance (weighs about 240 kilograms), will also only use a rocket motor to reduce the sink speed and ultimately the flexibility of the lander’s legs.

China does not have as good Martian intelligence as NASA or ESA, so the lander probably surveyed its surroundings prior to touchdown to make sure it landed in a safe place. Earlier, the photos taken from orbit by the Tianwen-1 spacecraft helped to precisely select the landing site.