With the Tianwen-1 mission, China landed a spacecraft on Mars for the first time in May 2021, becoming the second country in the world to land and operate a rover on the Red Planet. PolyU researchers played a vital role in the mission, in collaboration with the China Academy of Space Technology.
PolyU developed the “Mars Landing Surveillance Camera” for capturing images of the Red Planet, and identified possible landing sites using topographic mapping and geomorphological analysis technologies.