China's Mars rover travels 585 meters on red planet

Photo released on June 11, 2021 by the China National Space Administration (CNSA) shows a selfie of China's first Mars rover Zhurong with the landing platform. (CNSA/Handout via Xinhua)

BEIJING, July 23 (Xinhua) -- China's Mars rover Zhurong has traveled 585 meters on the surface of the red planet as of Friday, according to the Lunar Exploration and Space Program Center of the China National Space Administration.

On Friday, the Mars orbiter marked its first anniversary of working in orbit about 378 million km away from Earth. The delay of its one-way communication was around 21 minutes, said the center.

Both the rover and orbiter are working in normal conditions, with their subsystems operating normally.

China's Tianwen-1 spacecraft, consisting of the orbiter and the rover as well as a lander, was launched on July 23, 2020. The lander carrying the rover touched down in the southern part of Utopia Planitia, a vast plain in the northern hemisphere of Mars, on May 15.