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Scott Manley's excellent new video China's Mars Rover Zhurong Has Completed Its Primary Mission, Reaches New Milestone is chock-full of space-sleuthing goodies and interesting information about the mission, its spacecraft, and some of its engineers.

Below is a screenshot of the Tianwen-1 lander. While the context is the speculation that post-landing remaining fuel was spent by actually firing thrusters on each side resulting in the dipolar bright spots seen from orbit, I noticed that next to the Chinese flag there are some cartoon-like characters.

Question: Who are these cartoon-like characters displayed on the side of the Tianwen-1 lander?

Screenshots (some cropped, sharpened and otherwise "enhanced" unscientifically) from the video:

Screenshots (some cropped, sharpened and otherwise "enhanced" unscientifically) from Scott Manley's video China's Mars Rover Zhurong Has Completed Its Primary Mission, Reaches New Milestone https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSSs6FfBlgY Screenshots (some cropped, sharpened and otherwise "enhanced" unscientifically) from Scott Manley's video China's Mars Rover Zhurong Has Completed Its Primary Mission, Reaches New Milestone https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSSs6FfBlgY

Screenshots (some cropped, sharpened and otherwise "enhanced" unscientifically) from Scott Manley's video China's Mars Rover Zhurong Has Completed Its Primary Mission, Reaches New Milestone https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSSs6FfBlgY

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    $\begingroup$ Well, .. it's definitely not Winnie the Pooh $\endgroup$
    – Fred
    Commented Aug 26, 2021 at 5:07
  • $\begingroup$ @Fred well my first thought was about the Soviet Winnie the Pooh. That one seems to have even less resemblance of the Chinese president. $\endgroup$
    – Ruslan
    Commented Aug 27, 2021 at 23:14
  • $\begingroup$ @Ruslan: Thanks! ;-) I never knew there was a Soviet Pooh Bear. Despite the lack of resemblance to the Chinese president I don't think the Soviet Winnie would be any more acceptable - guilt by name association. $\endgroup$
    – Fred
    Commented Aug 28, 2021 at 3:17

1 Answer 1

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The cartoon characters are the mascots for the 2022 Winter Olympic games & the Winter Para Olympic games.

The panda figure on the left is for the Olympic Games and the red figure of the right is for the Para Olympic Games.

enter image description here

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  • $\begingroup$ Which leads to the question, why is a Mars lander sporting the image of the 2022 Winter Olympics mascots? Seems kind of obscure for an advertisement. $\endgroup$
    – Seth R
    Commented Aug 26, 2021 at 15:13
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    $\begingroup$ @SethR: It could be another display of national pride. $\endgroup$
    – Fred
    Commented Aug 26, 2021 at 15:18
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    $\begingroup$ @SethR Olympic references in space contained in space.stackexchange.com/q/54591 $\endgroup$
    – uhoh
    Commented Aug 27, 2021 at 3:46

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