In the year since China's first independent interplanetary mission reached Mars, Tianwen 1 has made significant progress while also surprising us with a number of surprises.

On February 10, 2021, the Tianwen 1 spacecraft reached orbit around the Red Planet. Following that, the China National Space Administration released spectacular footage of the event, showing the orbiter slowing down and entering orbit as it passed behind Mars as it fired up its engines.

The mission's orbiting, on the other hand, was simply one component of it. With Tianwen 1 changing its orbit and delivering precise, high-resolution photographs of the target landing site in Utopia Planitia, teams on Earth prepared for the landing attempt of the rover that would come to be designated Zhurong for the next three months.

Following NASA's Perseverance rover's nine minutes of dread in February, Zhurong successfully landed on May 14 after a somewhat longer nine minutes of terror. China became only the second country in the world to land and operate a rover on Mars, establishing it as a significant player in deep space exploration.

"The ability to successfully orbit, descend, land safely and deploy a rover on the first try, is a stunning engineering and operational accomplishment," James Head III, a geologist at Brown University, told Space.com.

A week after touchdown, Zhurong joyously rolled down from its lander and onto the red Martian dust, following system checks and scouting out the area. For Zhurong's selfies with its partner on the landing platform, it also dropped a remote camera in front of them.

Since the landing, the Tianwen 1 orbiter has spent the most of its time supporting Zhurong, making daily passes overhead to transfer data from the rover to Earth. Beautiful crescent images of the Red Planet have also been provided by the orbiter.

As the sun obstructed communications with Earth in late September, Tianwen 1 put its work on hold; then, in early November, the spacecraft dropped its orbit to investigate more areas of Mars with its seven science payloads.

Two more amazing surprises were also dumped by the orbiter. A remote, disposable camera that photographed Tianwen 1 above Mars on New Year's Day, and more recently, breathtaking video footage taken using a selfie stick.

Tianwen 1 is expected to last at least one year on Mars, or around two years on Earth, with more research to come.