As of Aug. 6, 2021, the Zhurong rover has worked on the Martian surface for 82 Martian days and has traveled a cumulative distance of 808 meters, the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program (CLEP) said Friday.
The Tianwen 1 probe carrying Zhurong was successfully launched on July 23, 2020, from the southern Chinese city of Wenchang, Hainan Province.
The orbiter of Tianwen 1 has been in orbit for 379 days with a one-way orbiter-Earth communication time delay of about 21 minutes and 23 seconds, and all systems are in normal working condition, CLEP said.
The Zhurong Mars rover is currently traversing complex terrain with a dense distribution of rocks, impact craters and sand dunes.
Ground flight controllers will control the rover's safe passage through this complex terrain based on daily navigation terrain imagery for visual positioning and movement path planning.
As it passes by science targets of interest, the rover will conduct detailed surveys using instruments including the Surface Composition Probe and the Multispectral Camera.
During the traverse, the Surface Magnetic Field Probe, Mars Meteorological Surveyor, and Subsurface Sounding Radar on the rover are powered on to acquire science data, according to CLEP.
(Photo source: the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program)
