How difficult is it to land on Mars?

People living on the earth can monitor the wind speed, pressure and density of the earth’s atmosphere in many ways to ensure the safety of the spacecraft when it re-enters the atmosphere. However, humans know very little about the atmospheric environment of Mars, which makes landing on Mars full of unknown dangers. Many probes that landed on Mars died here. ?

In addition, landing on Mars places extremely high requirements on the autonomous landing capability of the probe. This is because the earth and Mars are far apart and there is a large communication delay. It is impossible for the control center on the earth to control the probe on Mars in real time. ?

Currently, Mars is far away from the Earth, and the distance between Earth and Mars has reached 318 million kilometers. A radio signal emitted from the Earth travels at the speed of light and takes 17.7 minutes to reach Mars. Therefore, we can only give the probe full power to land on Mars independently. ?

Therefore, landing on Mars is extremely difficult. Before Tianwen-1, 20 probes had tried to land on Mars, of which only 10 successfully landed, with a success rate of only 50%. The first Mars lander to land on Mars was Mars 3 launched by the Soviet Union. It successfully landed on Mars for the first time in 1971, but it only operated for 14 seconds after landing. ?

The United States has the highest success rate. NASA has attempted to land on Mars 10 times and succeeded 9 times. Only the Mars Polar Lander launched in 1999 lost contact when landing on Mars. The first one to land on Mars was Viking 2 in 1976. Like Tianwen-1, it also landed on Utopia Plain. The most recent one was Perseverance, which landed on Mars on February 19 this year. It also brought an unmanned helicopter, Ingenuity, and made its first flight on Mars. ?

This shows how difficult it is for our country to successfully land on Mars in one go.

my country’s success stories in the field of space technology are frequent

On May 15, my country’s first Mars exploration mission, the Tianwen-1 probe, landed at the pre-selected landing area in the southern part of the Utopia Planitia on Mars. It left China’s mark for the first time and took an important step in our country’s interstellar exploration journey.

In the future, the Zhurong Mars Rover, a small vehicle named after the god of fire in Chinese mythology, will sequentially carry out global imaging of the landing site, conduct self-inspections, drive off the landing platform, and carry out patrol detection.

The Tianwen-1 probe was launched on July 23, 2020, arrived at Mars in February this year, and was successfully captured by Mars. After three months of recuperating, China finally completed its first Mars landing.

In recent years, China has received frequent good news in the field of space technology. From last year’s successful Beidou-3 network to provide Beidou services to the world, to April 29, the first spacecraft Tianhe core module of the Chinese space station project was successfully launched. emission.

Reference for the above content? Ifeng.com - Just now, Zhurong sent a "text message" from Mars: Tianwen-1 successfully landed! How difficult is it to land on Mars? Learn more about "Nine Minutes of Terror"