{"id":11622,"date":"2021-06-11T23:46:47","date_gmt":"2021-06-11T15:46:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/nasa-spacecraft-spots-chinese-rover-on-martian-surface\/"},"modified":"2021-06-11T23:46:47","modified_gmt":"2021-06-11T15:46:47","slug":"nasa-spacecraft-spots-chinese-rover-on-martian-surface","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/nasa-spacecraft-spots-chinese-rover-on-martian-surface\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA spacecraft spots Chinese rover on Martian surface"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
The HiRISE camera aboard NASA\u2019s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured this aerial view of China\u2019s Tianwen 1 lander and Zhurong rover June 6. Credit: NASA\/JPL\/University of Arizona<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The sharp-eyed camera on NASA\u2019s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has spotted China\u2019s Zhurong rover on the Red Planet, showing the craft next to its landing platform, with pieces of its heat shield and parachute nearby.<\/p>\n

The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, or HiRISE, instrument on the NASA orbiter is the largest telescopic instrument ever flown to another planet. The camera has captured views of NASA\u2019s rovers and landers on Mars, but the images of the Zhurong rover is the first time HiRISE has seen an intact Mars lander from another country.<\/p>\n

Flying in orbit averaging around 186 miles, or 300 kilometers, above the planet, MRO\u2019s HiRISE camera acquired its first image of the Chinese rover June 6.<\/p>\n

\u201cClearly visible are what we interpret as the lander surrounded by a blast pattern, and the rover itself a bit to the south after it descended from the lander,\u201d the HiRISE science team wrote.<\/p>\n

\"\"
China\u2019s Zhurong rover sits atop the Tianwen 1 mission\u2019s landing platform on Mars. Credit: CNSA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The HiRISE instrument was built by Ball Aerospace and is managed by a team at the University of Arizona. The camera\u2019s telescope measures about 19.6 inches (50 centimeters) in diameter. From the orbiter\u2019s altitude, the HiRISE camera produces images with a pixel size of about 12 inches (30 centimeters).<\/p>\n

The Zhurong rover landed May 14 in southern Utopia Planitia, a broad plain in the northern hemisphere of Mars, making China the second nation to successfully land and operate a spacecraft on the Red Planet.<\/p>\n

Designed for a three-month mission, the six-wheel robot drove down a ramp from its stationary landing platform May 21 (U.S. time) to begin exploring the Martian surface.<\/p>\n

Zhurong traveled to Mars as part of China\u2019s Tianwen 1 mission, the country\u2019s first robotic interplanetary probe. Tianwen 1 launched from China last July on a heavy-lift Long March 5 rocket and entered orbit around Mars in February, before releasing the entry, descent, and landing craft last month.<\/p>\n

MRO\u2019s HiRISE camera imaged the Zhurong rover just south of its lander. Part of the lander\u2019s aeroshell and parachute are visible farther to the south in the image below.<\/p>\n

\"\"
The HiRISE camera on NASA\u2019s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured this view of China\u2019s Zhurong rover and lander (upper right) and the mission\u2019s backshell and parachute (lower left). Credit: NASA\/JPL\/University of Arizona<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The rover weighs about a quarter-ton, as measured in Earth\u2019s gravity, and stands about 6 feet (1.8 meters) tall. The Chinese craft is slightly larger than NASA\u2019s defunct Spirit and Opportunity rovers, which landed on the Red Planet in 2004. Zhurong is significantly smaller than NASA\u2019s Curiosity and Perseverance rovers currently driving across the surface of Mars.<\/p>\n

MRO\u2019s HiRISE instrument has captured views of the NASA rovers on Mars, and taken perfectly-timed pictures of U.S. spacecraft descending to the Red Planet\u2019s surface under parachutes.<\/p>\n

In addition to three-dimensional cameras and a subsurface radar to search for underground water ice, the Zhurong rover carries sensors to measure the composition of Martian rocks, a magnetic field monitor, and a weather station to collect atmospheric data at the Utopia Planitia location.<\/p>\n

Email the author.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The HiRISE camera aboard NASA\u2019s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured this aerial view of China\u2019s Tianwen 1 lander and Zhurong rover June 6. Credit: NASA\/JPL\/University of Arizona The sharp-eyed camera on NASA\u2019s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has spotted China\u2019s Zhurong rover on the Red Planet, showing the craft next to its landing platform, with pieces of its […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11622"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11622\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}