When China successfully landed its Tianwen-1 spacecraft on Mars?

A. 15th May 2021
B. 5th March 2021
C. 2nd April 2021
D. 1st Feb 2021

On May 15, the Chinese successfully landed its Tianwen-1 spacecraft on Mars.

According to Dawn news, the Chinese space lander and rover (named Zhurong after the Chinese god of fire) is the most recent of a number of missions to Mars — by the United States, the Russians, and in their wake an unlikely United Arab Emirates with its Hope orbiter.

The achievements of the Chinese Zhurong mission deserves plaudits for a number of reasons. The time it took: the spacecraft left Earth in July 2020 and arrived at Mars 10 months later. The complexity of the task: according to one scientific report, “landing on Mars is notoriously difficult, not least because engineers back on Earth have no control over it in real-time, and must leave pre-programmed instructions to play out. Many missions have been lost, or have crashed on arrival”. The mission’s uniqueness: it was a one-shot exercise. As the China National Space Administration explained: “Each step had only one chance, and the actions were closely linked. If there had been any flaw, the landing would have failed.”