So I was excited to see this post the other day, as I had heard some days before that it had driven off the lander… Only to be disappointed by what I found, which is below. It seems it has not gone anywhere yet. Maybe a meter? Sigh. Hope it gets better.
China’s Zhurong rover takes first drive on Mars
Photos from the BBC article:
Looking down at the ground from on top of the lander.
And looking back up at the lander.
Found r/ZhuRonga new subgroup on reddit. So new that as of yesterday afternoon they didn’t have a post yet! They did, though, pin this this vid on Zhurong’s instrument package as a header of sorts:
Tianwen-1 – Zhurong’s Instruments
MarsTalk
May 14, 2021It’s happening…. the Tianwen-1 Mission is about to touch down on Mars! The Zhurong rover – named after the Chinese god of fire, will attempt the landing on Mars. A historic event for China and planet Earth!
This god of fire is carrying some pretty advanced instruments to the Red Planet. These instruments will study Mars and send back valuable data for studying Martian climate and geology as well as exploring Utopia Planitia, a large plain within Utopia, the largest recognized impact basin on Mars with an estimated diameter of 3300 km.
So, in this video, Joe and Igor did a quick rundown of the instruments of Zhurong which are:
1) Mars Surface Compound Detector
2) Multi-Spectrum Camera
3) Subsurface Penetrating Radar
4) Navigation and Topography Camera
5) The Mars Surface Magnetic Field Detector
6) Mars Meteorological Measurement InstrumentAnd who knows, maybe “The God of Fire” will meet “Viking” on its Martian path.
Credits: Special thanks to tttian for allowing us to use images from their 3D model of the entire Tianwen-1 mission! Check it out here:
www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/…
www.edmundoptics.com/knowledg…
www.princetoninstruments.com/…Depicts: Artist’s impression of water under the Martian surface Copyright: ESA 2001. Illustration by Medialab
mars.nasa.gov/mer/spotlight/2…
Music: soundcloud.com/juqboxmusic/su…
Hey, ETA:
Further space news from China…
China Successfully Launches Core Module for Tianhe their long term LEO space station
posted by anzha in Space Exploration