China’s space agency has released video and images of its Zhurong rover trundling across the surface of Mars. The pictures were acquired by a wireless camera that the robot had placed on the bottom.
The new media release also includes sequences from Zhurong’s landing in May, showing the deployment of its parachute system and therefore the moment of touchdown. The six-wheeled robot is probing a region known as Utopia Planitia.
The videos and photos show the lander deploying a parachute before touching down on the Mars surface and the rover driving away from its landing platform onto the land.
The China National Space Agency (CNSA) says Zhurong has driven 236m in 42 Mars sols (as of 27 June). A sol is a Martian day. It lasts slightly longer than an Earth day, at 24 hours and 39 minutes.
“When we were designing, we wanted to obtain some visual states of the rover, which could be used as a basis for further improvement of the project,” Rao Wei, deputy chief designer of the Tianwan-1 Probe, said.
“According to the telemetry, we can see that the landing point is only 3 kilometers away from our designed position,” Rao added.
The rover, named after the Chinese god of fire, Zhurong, is expected to be deployed for 90 days to search for evidence of life on Mars.
China is the second country to land and operate a spacecraft on Mars, following the United States. The space mission comes as the Chinese Communist Party celebrates its 100-year anniversary.
