We’ll have to wait a bit longer for China’s Mars photos

[Mike Wehner]

It's been a few days now since China announced that it had successfully landed its first Mars rover. The robot and its lander had been orbiting the planet since February in preparation for the landing, and now that it's on the ground, China's scientists have roughly three months with which to work with the rover, assuming it lives as long as it's designed to. However, the rover isn't, well, roving quite yet. As is often the case when sending hardware into space, a period of testing and diagnostics has to be passed before the robot can actually begin using its instruments and sending back scientific data.

For casual science observers, the most exciting part about a new rover on Mars means new photos from the surface of the Red Planet. Unfortunately, unlike NASA's rapid turnaround between landing Perseverance and publishing new photos, China won't be gathering images immediately. China's state-run media revealed that the country's space agency plans to run its post-landing checks and may finally get around to sending photos back to Earth sometime around the end of May, which is still nearly two weeks away.

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We’ll have to wait a bit longer for China’s Mars photos originally appeared on BGR.com on Tue, 18 May 2021 at 23:35:23 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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