Roam if you want to: China’s Zhurong rover begins trundling on Mars

China's Mars rover has taken its first tentative trundlings on the surface of Mars, a week after the vehicle's landing in Utopia Planitia. The 22 May roll came following the receipt of the first images from the safely landed rover late last week. Those images came after the Tianwen-1 orbiter, which carried the rover and lander …

[Eclectic Man]

Well done

Congratulations to the Chinese for a successful landing and getting their rover trundling about on the surface of Mars.

Looks like it is a popular destination at the moment.

Hopefully the science will show up something interesting.

[MonsieurTM]

Re: Well done

I totally agree! Well done China and their efforts in their space program: a success that is well deserved and a first time too!

And the ESA are following a good plan: test thoroughly! We know this from the software industry: if it ain't tested: it is not proven to work. Period.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Well done

Journeyed, landed, photographed, moved - all difficult accomplishments. Tsingtaos for boffins.

I look forward to the science results and, of course, more pictures.

I wish Zhurong a long and productive life.

As an added bonus, now Perseverance won't keep getting matched with their cousins on TinderMars.

[Potemkine!]

Re: Well done

if it ain't tested: it is not proven to work.

<murphy>If it's tested, it is not proven to work either! </murphy>

[Pascal Monett]

"a notoriously difficult task"

Not only notorious, it's statistical.

More than half of the missions that have attempted to land on Mars have failed. That doesn't make for good odds.

Recentrly, we've been getting better at it, but it's still far from easy.

So kudos to the Chinese for succeeding on their first try !

[John Brown (no body)]

Picture taken by the front obstacle avoidance camera

Looks to me like they forgot to remove the shadow of the camera operator in that image. Clearly, the shadow shows an old style TV camera pointing to the left and the operator, also facing left, just behind the camera to our right.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Picture taken by the front obstacle avoidance camera

Hong-Kong martial arts movie fake landing ?

[Zenco]

Zen

I am impressed with the result, but when you consider the years of effort and money spent, repeated tries and experience gained by America, Russia, Great Britain and Japan, going into space, I am curious to know from whence does China's success derive, having no track record at all.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Zen

Mostly knowing it can be done so it's just engineering. Especially if previous missions gave you published pressure gradients etc

They may have had spies inside the UK missions to know what not to do

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing there...

There's not even anything to crash into.

[Spherical Cow]

Re: Nothing there...

They picked an excellent area to land, very safe. The rover can now drive to other locations.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Nothing there...

Perhaps their is. NASA Mars rover. Robot wars here we come.