China National Space Administration said Tuesday that as of August 15, the Zhurong Mars rover has completed its scheduled roving mission, acquiring about 10GB of raw data, according to CCTV.
China's first Mars exploration mission successfully landed on Mars on May 15, 2021.
As of August 15, the Zhurong Mars rover has operated on the surface of Mars for 90 Mars days (about 92 Earth days), traveling a total of 889 meters, with all science payloads powered on, according to China National Space Administration.
Currently, the rover is in good condition, stable and energetic, and will continue to travel to the ancient sea-land junction zone in the southern part of the Utopia Plain to carry out its expansion mission.
The rover has been on the surface of Mars since it was launched and has been traveling south to conduct a roving survey.
The navigation topography camera acquires topographic data along the route to support rover path planning and exploration target selection, and is used to carry out topographic features and geological structure research.
The Subsurface Sounding Radar (SSR) acquires subsurface stratified structure data for shallow surface structure analysis and exploration of possible subsurface water ice.
The meteorological measuring instrument acquires meteorological data such as temperature, pressure, wind speed, wind direction, etc., and is used to carry out research on the physical characteristics of the atmosphere.
The surface magnetic field detector acquires local magnetic field data and works with the surrounded magnetometer to explore the evolution of the magnetic field of Mars.
Surface composition probe, multi-spectral camera to obtain spectral data of specific rocks, soils and other typical targets, used for elemental and mineral composition and other analytical research.
The design life of the rover is 90 Mars days, and the rover is not designed to return, so there will be a period of overdue roving exploration after the end of its design life.
(Photo source: CCTV)
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