JawaPos.com – Zhurong sent his first selfie Wednesday (19/5). The image contains solar panels that power it and poles set in empty land with no plants at all. The robot, aka the Chinese rover, is already operating on Mars. The photo is an image of the surface of Mars.
It is Zhurong’s first image on the Red Planet after his historic landing on Sunday (16/5). Zhurong is the first rover in the world to make it to Mars on its first mission. Other countries have to try several times before they succeed. Zhurong’s arrival came several months after the rover belonging to the United States, Perseverance.
The Chinese National Space Agency posted the photo of Mars on their social media accounts. “Warganet, the picture of Mars that you miss is here.” This is the sound of the upload, as quoted by Agence France-Presse. Zhurong is estimated to have spent three months there taking photos and harvesting geographic data.
In recent years, China has indeed poured out a large budget for its space program. They want to catch up with the US and Russia. The astronauts and cosmonauts of the two countries have decades of experience in space exploration.
Last month, China successfully launched the first module of its new space station. The target is that the station, which is named Tiangong, can be occupied by 2022. Panda Country also wants to send its astronauts to the moon.
The plan is that, on Thursday (20/5) they will launch a rocket carrying supplies for Tiangong. Namely, food and space clothes. However, the launch was delayed due to technical issues.
The Chinese Space Agency did not specify the reasons for the delay. In total, it would take 10 launch missions to complete assembly in orbit. Tiangong will be in low earth orbit for 15 years.
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