Discovery and exploration of the Solar System

China's probe to Mars touched down on the Red Planet on May 15 to deploy its Zhurong rover, state media reported, a triumph for Beijing's bold space ambitions and a history-making feat for a nation on its first-ever Martian mission.

At the Center for Space Control in Beijing, there was big jubilation when China made a successful landing on Mars early on Saturday.

The landing has taken place blindly for them down to the surface of the planet. The rover is programmed to make the landing on its own.

As exciting as the entire Perseverance mission to Mars is, one of the events most looked forward to by us Earthlings must be the first flight of Ingenuity. After conducting numerous checks and double-checks, the Perseverance team has set April 8 as the date on which they hope to attempt the first controlled powered flight on another planet.

NASA's Mars Perseverance rover went on its first drive across the planet's surface after landing there in mid-February, the US-based National Aeronautics and Space Agency announced in a statement.

The Perseverance rover touched down the Red Planet's surface in the area of Jezero Crater on February 18. All the operations were conducted in the automatic mode.

NASA's newest Mars rover hit the dusty red road this week, putting 21 feet on the odometer in its first test drive.

The Perseverance rover ventured from its landing position on March 4, two weeks after setting down on the red planet to seek signs of past life.

The spacecraft facilities could also function as hubs to facilitate rocket travel to different places on Earth

The US space agency NASA on Monday released the first audio from Mars, a faint crackling recording of a gust of wind captured by the Perseverance rover.

NASA also released the first video of last week's landing of the rover, which is on a mission to search for signs of past life on the Red Planet.

NASA on Feb. 22 released the first high-quality video of a spacecraft landing on Mars, a three-minute trailer showing the enormous orange and white parachute hurtling open and the red dust kicking up as rocket engines lowered the rover to the surface.

The footage was so good, and the images so breathtaking, that members of the rover team said they felt like they were riding along.

After seven months in space, NASA's Perseverance rover overcame a tense landing phase with a series of perfectly executed maneuvers to gently float down to the Martian soil on Feb. 18 and embark on its mission to search for signs of past life.

After hurtling hundreds of millions of miles through space since last summer, three robotic explorers are ready to hit the brakes at Mars.

The stakes, and anxiety, are sky high.