The lander, with the rover attached, touched down in Utopia Planitia, in the northern hemisphere of Mars – a large, vast plain that was once thought to have been an ancient ocean. The lander has currently deployed its solar panels, and is expected to release the rover within a week. The Zhurong rover, just like NASA’s currently active rovers on Mars, is also primarily astrobiological in nature – which means that it will search for present, or most importantly, past life on the planet. It will range on the surface, powered by solar panels, and probe the surface and subsurface of the planet, performing in-situ chemical analyses on soil composition, while also hunting for biosignatures for any past life or habitability.

It is also considered to be a precursor to the sample return mission that china plans for the 2030s and is expected to function for at least three months. The first spacecraft to land on Mars successfully was Mars 3, launched by the Soviet Union in 1971. It, however, stopped transmitting after just 110 seconds. russia has not had a successful landing since. The european union (EU) has also attempted to land on Mars, but not been successful yet.