NASA scientist congratulates China on its first Mars landing

Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA's associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate, on Saturday congratulated CNSA's Tianwen team on the successful landing on Mars of China's Zhurong rover.

(Screenshot from the Twitter account of Thomas Zurbuchen)

"Together with the global science community, I look forward to the important contributions this mission will make to humanity's understanding of the Red Planet,"he said on his Twitter account.

Technical personnel work at the Beijing Aerospace Control Center in Beijing, capital of China, May 15, 2021. The lander carrying China's first Mars rover has touched down on the red planet, the China National Space Administration (CNSA) confirmed on Saturday morning. It is the first time China has landed a probe on a planet other than Earth. (Photo: Xinhua)

China's first Mars rover Zhurong on Saturday touched down at the planned landing area in the Utopia Planitia on Mars successfully. Tianwen-1 is the first probe from China that landed on Mars, and the ninth ever.