Reported from SpaceWednesday (23/3/2022), though MRO orbiting 288 kilometers above, HiRISE managed to take about 1.5 km of the track that Zhurong had made on its southbound journey since landing in May 2021, a cropped image with increased contrast.
The photo shows that the rover visited the parachute and shell slowing Zhurong’s descent through the thin Martian atmosphere while also observing surface features, including sand dunes.
Zhurong is part of the mission Tianwen 1 China, which also includes orbits. Last month, the orbiter marked a full year (Earth) orbiting the Red Planet. (Zhurong remained attached to the orbiter for several months before parting for a May 2021 landing).
Previously, on January 1, 2022, China released a number of photos of the planet Mars which was the fruit of the Tianwen-1 Mission. The image was captured and transmitted by the device used in the mission.
China’s National Space Administration (CNSA) said the images show the various working conditions of the orbiter and rover probe, as well as the topography of the Martian surface obtained by the tools.
“The images include group photos of the orbiter and Mars, close-ups of the orbiter, ice sheets in the Arctic area of Mars, and the surface landscape taken by the Zhurong rover,” CNSA said. Xinhua News AgencySaturday (1/12).
China’s Tianwen-1 mission is a space mission consisting of a Mars orbiter, lander and rover that China launched on July 23, 2020. The lander successfully landed in the southern part of Utopia Planitia, a vast plain in the northern hemisphere of Mars, on May 15.
After a successful landing, it was the turn of the Zhurong rover over the surface of Mars. Zhurong sped off its landing platform onto the surface of Mars on May 22. According to CNSA, as of December 31, 2021, Zhurong had worked on the surface of the Red Planet for 225 Martian days and traveled 1,400 meters. The Tianwen-1 orbiter has worked in orbit for 526 days at a distance of about 350 million km above Earth.
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