Chinese state-run media says the nation's space agency has landed its first spacecraft on Mars, with its rover now deployed

The Tianwen-1 spacecraft landed on a site on the Southern Utopia Plain, "leaving a Chinese footprint on Mars for the first time," Xinhua said.

The lander was carrying a rover whichhas been deployed on the red planet, making China the second nation to deploy one, behind the United States. 

The six-wheel robot called Zhurong marks a major leap in China’s space program, which has managed to launch an orbiter, lander and rover in a single mission. 

The 5-tonne spacecraft blasted off from the southern Chinese island of Hainan in July last year, launched by the powerful Long March 5 rocket.

After more than six months in transit, Tianwen-1 reached the Red Planet in February, and has been in orbit ever since.

Tianwen-1, or Questions to Heaven, named after a Chinese poem written two millennia ago, is China's first independent mission to Mars.

A probe co-launched with Russia in 2011 failed to leave the Earth's orbit.

Source | ABC / Wires