SECOND TAKE
CHINA DAILY: China joins the US and Russia on Mars
The country’s safe landing on the Red Planet shows the reliability of its relevant technologies
About 50 Mars missions have been launched globally since 1960. Yet more than half have failed to reach the planet about 55-million kilometres from Earth. So after China’s Mars probe, Tianwen-1, was launched on July 23 2020 there was an anxious wait to learn its fate.
The news that the craft carrying exploration rover Zhurong landed safely on the surface of the planet on Saturday has therefore been met with both relief and celebration in the country. That the landing was carried out exactly as planned has made China the latest member, after the US and Russia, of the club of the world’s pioneering Martian explorers, and shows the reliability of the relevant technologies that China has developed on its own...
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