Zhurong sets foot on the surface of Mars, and the inspection tour begins! Don't think it's small, it's actually huge

One week after the Tianwen-1 lander landed on Mars (May 15), good news came on May 22. The National Space Administration announced that the Zhurong Mars rover had left the lander platform and set foot on the surface of Mars.

May 22

At 10:40, the signal data from the Tianwen-1 orbiter showed that the Zhurong rover had followed the instructions and walked off the platform along the sliding track in front of the landing platform, reached the surface of Mars, and touched the rocks and soil on the surface of Mars. The next step is to start patrolling.

The Tianwen-1 Mars exploration mission has come to this point, and its three-step orbiting, landing, and patrolling have all been successfully completed, and only the inspection and detection on the surface of Mars is left. Since the Zhurong Mars rover can be safe If you step down from the landing platform steadily, then the inspection and detection on the surface of Mars should not be a problem.

The arrival of the Zhurong rover on the surface of Mars also means that there are three rovers on the surface of Mars, and the other two are American rovers, Curiosity and Perseverance.

The scientific goal of the Tianwen-1 Mars exploration mission is to study the topography and geological tectonic characteristics of Mars, the composition of materials on the surface of Mars, the characteristics of soil and the distribution of water ice, the characteristics of the environment and climate of Mars, the conditions of the atmospheric ionosphere, the physical field and internal structure of Mars, etc. .

The Tianwen-1 Mars probe was launched on July 23, 2020. It took 7 months of flight to reach the orbit of Mars in February this year, and orbited Mars for another 3 months. The orbiter was configured during the fire. Seven scientific payloads, including medium and high-resolution cameras, mineral spectrum analyzers, and magnetometers, have been launched successively for exploration, obtaining first-hand scientific data for close-up observations of Mars in my country.

On May 15, the Tianwen-1 lander landed on the surface of Mars. A week later, the rover Zhurong finally stepped on the surface of Mars. After that, the rover will use the terrain camera, many Six payloads, including spectroscopic cameras, subsurface detection radars and surface composition detectors, carried out detailed detection and survey of the Martian surface on the patrol route.

The Zhurong rover weighs 225 kilograms. Although it is not particularly heavy, it is equivalent to twice the weight of the Yutu-2 lunar rover. Although it looks small from the photos, it is actually 3.3 meters long. It is 3.2 meters wide and 1.85 meters high, which is close to the volume of a family car. When the solar panel is opened, it looks like a butterfly from the top down, and it has 6 wheels, which makes it more flexible to walk and has great obstacle avoidance ability. powerful.

The survey data of the Zhurong rover will be sent back through the Tianwen-1 orbiter that is still in the relay orbit around Mars. At the same time, the instructions sent by the Tianwen-1 control center to the Zhurong rover will be relayed to Zhurong. Mars rover, command it for better detection.

The orbiter will revolve around Mars in the relay orbit for about three months, and then it will return to the near-fire orbit, which is likely to perform another mission. This is also because the Zhurong Mars rover is designed to have a lifespan of three months, so currently I also know that the plan works like this, but three months is not the actual available time of the Zhurong Mars rover. The design life of the American Spirit and Opportunity probes is also three months, but Spirit actually used it for 7 years, and Opportunity has actually been used for 16 years, and the actual use time of the Zhurong Mars rover should be much longer than three months. However, since there is currently only one orbiter orbiting Mars in my country, after the orbiter leaves the relay orbit, the Data from the Zhurong rover will not be communicated by it, so even if Zhurong can still be used, work may have to be suspended for a while.

Next, we look forward to the Zhurong rover to continue to bring us surprises!