Beijing joins Mars club after ‘nine minutes of ter­ror’ By William Zheng This article was first published on May 16, 2021 After seven months of space travel, three months in orbit and “nine minutes of ter­ror”, China has become the third coun­try in the world to safely land a rover on Mars. The China National Space Admin­is­tra­tion (CNSA) said its rover Zhu Rong – named after the Chinese god of fire and war – suc­cess­fully landed on Mars yes­ter­day after “nine minutes of ter­ror”, refer­ring.