By China’s Rover Films Itself Driving on Red Planet, Making History
Reprinted with permission from World in general, a news website on nature, politics, science, health and travel.
Like NASA that landed its fifth Martian rover in February, China’s Zhurong rover landed on the Red Planet this year.
It brought to Mars a suite of scientific instruments including a weather station, a ground-penetrating radar, and a laser spectroscopy device to destroy rocks and measure their mineral content.
She also brought in a deployable Wi-Fi camera, which she left in the dust before starting, to create images of her driving from the lander and doing a series of maneuvers. This was the first footage of a rover driving on Mars that any nation has produced.
Audio clips of its metal wheels scraping the landing ramps were also collected, which according to Chinese space authorities demonstrate the characteristics of the Martian atmosphere.
“With the files we released this time, including the sounds recorded when our Mars rover left the lander, we can perform an in-depth analysis of the environment and condition of Mars, for example the density of the atmosphere on Mars, “Liu Jizhong, deputy commander of China’s first Mars exploration program, said Chinese media.
MORE: See amazing photos and hear the Martian winds from the red planet, thanks to Perseverance Rover
Earlier this year, NASA’s perseverance compiled video of his Martian helicopter ingenuity conducting a flight test, and of the spectacular parachute deployment and landing called the “7 Minutes of Terror”. China also compiled its own video of the parachute deployment and landing.
Big Zhurong Update – Here are full images of the Zhurong rover EDL, showing the parachute deployment, rear shell separation, and landing, including a very cool hover during the hazard avoidance phase. [CNSA/PEC] pic.twitter.com/iWUXrFKf40
– Andrew Jones (@AJ_FI) June 27, 2021
The solar-powered Zhurong, which was named after an ancient Chinese fire god, has traveled 236 meters since it landed on June 15, and continues to perform system checks prior to starting in search of data.
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It was landed as part of the Tianwen-1 interplanetary mission, which also included a lander and an orbiter, all three of which were the first of their kind for the nation, making China the world’s first nation to succeed with all three the first time. -around.
Some of the videos taken may remind some readers of the images prior to the Special Edition of Star Wars: A New Hope, when a brave young Luke Skywalker cruises his Tatooine desert home on his landspeeder. Enjoy the show.
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