SHANGHAI — China’s Mars rover drove from its landing platform and began exploring the surface on Saturday, state-run Xinhua news agency said, making the country only the second nation to land and operate a rover on the Red Planet. The launch last July of the Tianwen-1 Mars probe, which carried the Zhurong rover, marked a major milestone in China’s space program. The Mars probe and rover are expected to spend around three months taking photos, harvesting geographical data, and collecting and analyzing rock samples. The United States and Russia are the only other countries to have reached Mars, and only the former has operated a rover on the surface. The U.S. rover launched a small robotic helicopter on Mars which was the first-ever powered flight on another planet.

Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer May 22, 2021 10:35 UTC