[Bumped -- Sunday Afternoon.] China's Space Agency Has Named Its Mars Rover After The Ancient Fire God, Zhu-rong...

It will be many days yet, before China selects a landing site and touches down, on the surface. The Tianwen 1 Mars craft is surveying various sites, close up -- as it orbits above Mars. But it will eventually -- in late May 2021 -- set the lander, and the rover, down on Barsoom. The current leading candidate for a landing site is the southern part of Utopia Planitia, near the edge of what is thought to be a long desiccated lakebed. [That same open, vast plain. . . is also the final resting place of what was the Viking 2 Mars lander -- from 1976-era NASA efforts.]

And so, when she rolls off the platform, she will be the Zhu-rong (or "fire god") rover. Here's the latest, from CSNA:

. . .Zhurong is the god of fire in ancient Chinese mythology, which echoes with the Chinese name of the red planet, Huoxing (meaning the planet of fire).

Fire brought warmth and brightness to the ancestors of humankind, and fire lit up human civilization. Naming China's first Mars rover after the god of fire signifies igniting the flame of China's planetary exploration, according to Wu Yanhua, deputy director of the CNSA.

Literally, Zhu (meaning wish) expresses the good wishes for humankind's exploration of the universe. Rong (meaning integration and cooperation) reflects China's vision of the peaceful use of space and the building of a community with a shared future for humanity, Wu said. . . .

China launched its Mars probe, Tianwen-1, on July 23, 2020. The spacecraft, consisting of an orbiter, a lander and a rover, entered the parking orbit of Mars on Feb. 24.

The most challenging part of the mission will be the soft landing in May, an autonomous process of the probe lasting seven to eight minutes. The probe will use its aerodynamic shape, parachute and retrorocket to decelerate and buffer legs to touch down, according to the CNSA. . . .

Now you know -- but Perseverance and Ingenuity and Opportunity and Spirit and Sojourner (all NASA Mars rovers, current -- and now silenced by countless frigid Barsoomian nights) will have some. . . company, from a new interplanetary space-faring nation. I'm grinning ear to ear, on a sunny Spring Saturday afternoon here. . . be excellent ot one another.

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