An uncrewed Chinese spacecraft has successfully landed on the surface of Mars on Saturday, state news agency Xinhua reported, making China the second space-faring nation after the United States to land on the Red Planet.

The Tianwen-1 spacecraft landed on a site on a vast plain known as Utopia Planitia, “leaving a Chinese footprint on Mars for the first time”, Xinhua said.

China’s Tianwen-1 probe, consisting of an orbiter, a lander and a rover, was launched from southern China’s island province of Hainan in July, around the same time as a US mission.

The landing is a major milestone for China's space agency, which has advanced rapidly in just a few decades.

The Tianwen-1 spacecraft landed on a site on a vast plain known as Utopia Planitia, “leaving a Chinese footprint on Mars for the first time”, Xinhua said.

It said the landing process consisted of “nine minutes of terror” as the module decelerates and then slowly descends

The spacecraft sent back its first picture of Mars in February. A photo released by the China National Space Administration showed geological features including the Schiaparelli crater and the Valles Marineris, a vast stretch of canyons on the Martian surface.

The rover, named Zhurong after the Chinese god of fire, will now survey the landing site before departing from its platform to conduct inspections. Named after a mythical Chinese god of fire, Zhurong has six scientific instruments including a high-resolution topography camera.

The rover will study the planet’s surface soil and atmosphere. Zhurong will also look for signs of ancient life, including any sub-surface water and ice, using ground-penetrating radar.

Several US, Russian and European attempts to land rovers on Mars have failed in the past, most recently in 2016 with the crash-landing of the Schiaparelli joint Russian-European spacecraft.

The latest successful arrival came in February, when US space agency Nasa landed its rover Perseverance, which has since been exploring the planet.

The US rover launched a small robotic helicopter on Mars which was the first ever powered flight on another planet.

The country has come a long way in its race to catch up with the US and Russia, whose astronauts and cosmonauts have decades of experience in space exploration.