Mission Atlas
← Mission directory

Mission record

Tianwen 1

Also known as Tianwen-1, Huoxing 1, Huoxing1, China Mars 2020, HX-1, Zhurong

China National Space Administration · Launched

Explore trajectory

Active · Active

Tianwen 1 (formerly Huoxing 1) is a Chinese Mars mission comprising a lander/rover and orbiter that launched on 23 July 2020 and reaches Mars in February 2021. The scientific objectives of the mission are to study martian topography and geology, characterize the soil and its water-ice content, determine the composition of the surface material, profile the martian ionosphere, climate, and environment, and constrain the gravity and magnetic fields and the interior structure. The lander and the Zhurong rover separated from the orbiter and made a landing in the Utopia Planitia region on 14 May 2021. No page fetched for this record states the mission's state later than the August 2025 capture it cites.

Destinations
Launch vehicle
Long March 5
Launch site
Wenchang, Peoples Republic of China
Countries
Peoples Republic of China
Mission types
Orbiter, Lander, Rover

Chronology

Mission timeline

  1. Launch

    Launched on a Long March 5 from Wenchang

    Tianwen 1 launched from Wenchang launch complex on a Long March 5 Y-4 booster on 23 July 2020 at 04:41 UT, and the launch/orbital information page gives the same instant as 2020-07-23T04:41:00Z. The committed launch vehicle is the Facts in Brief value Long March 5; the fuller Long March 5 Y-4 the page's own text prints is recorded here.

    Earth

  2. Orbit insertion

    Went into orbit with a period of 10 days

    The mission made a 7 month trip to Mars, arriving and going into orbit on 10 February 2021. Orbit was achieved at about 12:18 UT Earth Received Time (Time delay was 10 min., 40 sec.) or 20:18 Beijing Time after a 14-15 minute braking thruster firing. The initial orbit has an inclination of 10 degrees and an altitude of 400 x 180,000 km with a period of 10 days. The committed time is the Earth-received one the page publishes, because the page publishes no spacecraft time.

    Mars

  3. Landing

    Lander and rover made a landing in Utopia Planitia

    The orbiter used high-resolution cameras to search for the nominal landing site for the lander and rover. They separated from the orbiter and made a landing in the Utopia Planitia region at 23:18 UT on May 14, 2021 (7:18 a.m. May 15 Beijing Time). The orbiter then went into a 265 x 12,000 km altitude polar orbit, from which it will make scientific measurements and act as a relay for the rover communications with Earth. The Zhurong rover rolled down a ramp onto the martian surface on 22 May at 2:40 UT (10:40 a.m. Beijing time); that instant is not a committed event because no page cited here prints its year beside it, and this catalog does not commit a date it would have to assemble from two sentences. The rover was scheduled to operate on the surface for about 3 months, but this period was extended due to the rover's nominal operability. Zhurong was put into a one month hibernation from late September to late October due to the solar conjunction, after which operations continued. THIS RECORD'S STATUS RESTS ON THAT SENTENCE AND ON NOTHING MORE RECENT. The page carrying it was fetched on 2026-09-02 through a capture dated 20 August 2025; the China National Space Administration's English site was fetched the same day and its news index carries no Tianwen 1 item, and no page giving this mission a present state could be reached.

    Mars

Mission architecture

Vehicles

  • Tianwen-1 Orbiter · Orbiter

    Destinations: Mars

    • Tianwen-1 Lander · Lander

      Destinations: Mars

      • Zhurong · Rover

        Destinations: Mars

Trajectory record

Trajectory dataset not yet available

No verified trajectory dataset is committed for this mission, so Mission Atlas renders no path.

Provenance

Sources

Each source is listed once and labeled with the mission, event, trajectory, or destination/body context it supports.

Data verified through September 2, 2026