China landed a spacecraft on Mars for the first time last Saturday. This makes China the first country to make a successful landing on Mars on its first mission to Mars. China’s Zhurong rover (探测车), named after a traditional Chinese fire god, has touched down on the martian surface, the China National Space Administration confirmed on the morning of Saturday, May 15.

The rover is part of the Tianwen-1 mission, which consists of an orbiter, a probe, and a lander. The mission was launched in summer last year, and took seven months to complete its journey to the red planet. It arrived at Mars in February this year, and since then the spacecraft has been performing operations such as capturing images of Mars.

Believe it or not, traveling to Mars is actually the easy part of such a mission. The truly hard part is landing on the planet’s surface, as landers must contend with factors like the planet’s thin atmosphere, its variable dust storms, and a communication delay between Mars and Earth. This delay makes it impossible for people in mission control on Earth to control a craft in real time as it approaches the planet, so the landing must be performed autonomously.

To slow its speed as the lander approached the surface, it used both a parachute (降落伞) and a retrorocket (减速火箭) in its own “seven minutes of terror” as it moved through the atmosphere. It then landed in the Utopia Planitia area, a large impact basin, part of which was exploded by NASA’s Viking 2 lander in the 1970s.

According to China’s state news agency Xinhua, President Xi Jinping said he was sending “warm congratulations and sincere greetings to all members who have participated in the Mars exploration mission.”

The rover will now begin its three-month mission to explore the Utopia Planitia area, where it will be searching for surface and subsurface ice. The mission will involve both the rover and the orbiter working in concert to create a map of water ice, with the orbiter focusing on the planet’s polar regions.

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1.Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the passage?

A The Tianwen-1 mission includes four space missions.

B Zhurong was known as a great astronomer in ancient China.

C The spacecraft has carried out a series of experiments in advance.

D China achieved success in landing on Mars creating a new record.

解析：选D。D细节理解题。根据第一段China landed a spacecraft on Mars for the first time last Saturday. This makes China the first country to make a successful landing on Mars on its first mission to Mars.可知，上周六中国火星探测器首次着陆火星，使中国成为首个首次且一次性成功登陆火星的国家，故选D。

2.What should be carefully considered when landing on Mars? a.Mars’s atmosphere. b.Mars’s bad weather. c.The landing instructions. d.The communication delay.

A a, b, c

B b, c, d

C a, b, d

D a, b, c, d

解析：选C。C细节理解题。根据第三段可知，真正困难的部分是着陆在火星表面，因为着陆器必须应对诸如火星稀薄的大气层、多变的沙尘暴及火星与地球之间的通讯延迟等因素。故选C。

3.What does the author imply in Paragraph 4?

A The landing way is quite different.

B The landing process is full of danger.

C The landing site is unknown to NASA.

D The landing time is calculated precisely.

解析：选B。B推理判断题。根据第四段To slow its speed as the lander approached the surface, it used both a parachute and a retrorocket in its own “seven minutes of terror” as it moved through the atmosphere.可知，为了使着陆器在接近地面时减速，在降落过程中同时使用了降落伞和减速火箭，这是它进入大气层的“恐怖七分钟”，推断着陆过程危机四伏，故选B。

4.Which of the following missions will be launched in three months?

A The analysis of ice samples.

B The mapping of the Mars’s polar regions.

C The exploration of the Utopia Planitia area.

D The collection of surface and subsurface ice.

解析：选C。C细节理解题。根据最后一段The rover will now begin its three-month mission to explore the Utopia Planitia area ...可知，探测车将开始为期三个月的任务，探索乌托邦平原地区，故选C。