Models of China’s Mars lander, rover make debut

China: Full-size models of the lander and the rover for "Tianwen-1", China's first Mars exploration mission, made their debuts on Wednesday.

The 1.85-meter-high Mars rover weighing 240 kilograms will conduct scientific investigations including the Red Planet's surface composition, material type distribution, geological structure and the Martian meteorological environment. Six type of payloads - terrain camera, multispectral camera, subsurface detection radar, surface composition detector, surface magnetic field detector and meteorological measuring instrument aboard the rover will be used to collect data.

The rover also features functions such as environment perception, obstacle recognition, local path planning, and coordination and control of multiple-wheel motion, in order to adapt to the unusual environment on the Martian surface.

"Compared with the previous lunar rover, improvements in various areas, including the power system, have been made on the Mars rover. We are also conducting a detailed survey on the landing zone to give the Mars rover more data so that it can travel in a more stable and better way," said Liu Jizhong, commander-in-chief of China's first Mars exploration program.

Powered by solar energy, the Mars rover is designed to have a lifetime of three Martian months, about 92 Earth days.

China plans to launch its first Mars probe between July and August this year, aiming to complete orbiting, landing and roving in one mission. After the launch via China's largest carrier rocket Long March-5, the probe is expected to reach within the gravitational field of Mars next February and it will be captured into orbit around the planet.

In April 2020, China announced that its first Mars exploration mission was named Tianwen-1. The name comes from the long poem "Tianwen," meaning Questions to Heaven, written by Qu Yuan (about 340-278 BC), one of the greatest poets of ancient China.