Tianwen-1’s objectives embody analysing and mapping the Martian floor and geology, searching for water ice and learning the local weather and floor setting.
China’s first Mars rover can be named Zhurong after a conventional fireplace god, the federal government introduced Saturday.
The rover is aboard the Tianwen-1 probe that arrived in Mars orbit on February 24 and is because of land in May to search for proof of life.
It is a part of Chinese area plans that embody launching a crewed orbital station and touchdown a human on the moon. China in 2019 grew to become the first nation to land an area probe on the little-explored far facet of the moon and in December returned lunar rocks to Earth for the first time for the reason that Seventies.
The rover’s title suits with the Chinese identify for Mars — “Huo Xing,” or fireplace star, the China National Space Administration stated.
The identify “signifies igniting the flame of China’s planetary exploration,” a deputy CNSA administrator, Wu Yanhua, was cited by the official Xinhua News Agency as saying.
The prime candidate for the touchdown web site is Utopia Planitia, a rock-strewn plain the place the U.S. lander Viking 2 touched down in 1976.
CNSA says Tianwen-1’s objectives embody analysing and mapping the Martian floor and geology, searching for water ice and learning the local weather and floor setting.
China would turn out to be the third nation after the previous Soviet Union and the United States to place a robotic rover on Mars.
