China’s Mars Rover Mission Lands on the Red Planet

The announcement from state media suggests the country is now only the second to put a working spacecraft on the Martian surface.

The United States now has company on Mars. A Chinese spacecraft descended through the thin Martian atmosphere and landed safely on a large plain on Saturday morning, state media reported, accomplishing a feat that only two other nations have before. The landing follows China’s launch last month of the core module of a new orbiting space station and a successful mission in December that collected nearly four pounds of rocks and soil from the moon and brought them back to Earth. Next month, the country’s space program plans to send three astronauts back to space, inaugurating what could become a regular Chinese presence in Earth’s orbit.