Landed on Mars in mid-May, the Zhurong rover has just completed its main mission of 90 sols. Still in very good condition, the vehicle will continue to explore its environment in order to learn more about the red planet.
On May 15, around 4 a.m. (Beijing time), the Chinese Tianwen-1 probe dropped its lander and its Zhurong rover, completing the most perilous stage of his ten-month mission. A few hours later, the two machines then landed safely in a vast rocky plain called Utopia Planitia, after slicing through the atmosphere of Mars at more than four kilometers per second nestled inside their capsule. China then became the third country to achieve this technical feat , after Russia and the United States.
This mission, which was originally scheduled to last 90 Martian sols (about 92 Earth days), was officially extended on August 15 , according to the China National Space Administration (CNSA).
The CNSA does indeed claim that Zhurong's scientific instruments still work very well. Thanks to its Tianwen 1 orbiter acting as a relay, the rover would have already returned ten gigabytes of raw data. The goal is to learn more about the geology of this environment that may have been the shore of an ocean several billion years ago.
To operate, Zhurong is equipped with two cameras that aim to take images of nearby rocks. A multispectral camera and a spectrometer equipped with laser technology also make it possible to study their constitution. Like Perseverance, Zhurong also offers ground penetrating radar. It aims to reveal the geological processes that led to the formation of the regions through which it moves.
Since landing, the rover has traveled nearly 890 meters , analyzing different rocks, dunes and other features on its way.
The rover and its orbiter will however go into sans mode failure mid-September to late October due to solar conjunction . During this period, Mars will be positioned on the other side of the sun from Earth, thus preventing communications between the two planets. US rovers Curiosity and Perseverance will also go into safe mode between October 2 and October 14 for the same reason.
The Tianwen 1 orbiter will change course shortly after operations resume to allow it to begin a global study of Mars with its own instruments while still being able to relay Zhurong's data.
