According to Chinese state media, China has successfully landed its rover on Mars, making it the second country in history to do so.

According to the state-run Xinhua news agency, the rover Zhurong, named after a Chinese god of fire, landed Saturday morning at a pre-selected location in Utopia Planitia on Mars.

The solar-powered Zhurong rover has six science instruments and weighs around 240 kilograms (529 pounds). It will be launched from the lander for a three-month mission on Mars's surface in search of life.

During its journey, the Tianwen-1 Mars orbiter will send a signal to the rover and then perform a one-year global survey of the earth. Until releasing the rover to the earth, the probe spent three months in orbit reconnoitering the landing area.

Tianwen-1 was launched on July 23 last year by a Long March 5 rocket from Hainan's Wenchang space launch center and spent seven months en route to Mars before entering orbit in February.

From a distance of over a million kilometers (621,371 miles), the spacecraft sent back its first photo of the earth.

Before the rover's landing, the scientific team behind Tianwen-1 stated that the probe would "orbit, land, and release a rover all on the first attempt, and coordinate observations with an orbiter."

The team claims that "no planetary missions have ever been conducted in this way."

Tianwen-1, along with NASA's Perseverance rover, which landed on Mars in February, and the United Arab Emirates' Hope Probe, which entered orbit around Mars in February, are three international Mars missions that launched last summer. Unlike the US and Chinese missions, the UAE probe will not land on Mars, but will instead research the planet from space.

Since Earth and Mars are on the same side of the sun, all three missions launched at the same time, allowing for a more effective journey to Mars.

Tianwen-1, whose name translates to "Quest for Heavenly Reality," aims to learn more about the Martian soil, geology, climate, and atmosphere, as well as look for signs of water.

Last weekend, China's ambitious space program made headlines when an out-of-control 40,000-pound rocket crashed into the Indian Ocean, prompting a NASA rebuke for failing to "meet accountability requirements regarding (its) space debris."

In late April, the Long March 5B rocket launched a portion of China's new space station into orbit, but it was left to hurtle through space uncontrollably before Earth's gravity pulled it back in.