Zhurong Lander/Rover, Surface Operations at Utopia Planitia Options

[Phil Stooke]

I think I have seen it abbreviated to 'Rong'.

Phil

[Bill Harris]

That makes sense, but it doesn't have much of a ring to it.
Not complaining; just sayin'.

--Bill

[Huguet]

Zhu Rong is mythological and is a game character, "Said to be the daughter of the God of Fire" on Dynasty Warriors... It is just a name that don't need a nickname... One fun fact, as Zhurong rover is tall, it is almost the same height as the character, less then 10cm of difference and the hair of the character is mostly white...

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[Bill Harris]

"It is just a name that don't need a nickname..."
That makes sense, too. Americans tend to shorten names, especially multisyllabic names, to nicknames.
Op-por-tun-ity became Oppy and Curi-os-it-y became Cury.

[Xerxes]

Americans tend to shorten names, especially multisyllabic names, to nicknames.

It's not just Americans. The Chinese have an even greater tendency to shorten phrases to a few characters. However, as Zhurong is already the short form of 祝融号火星车 (Zhurong Hao Huoxing Che), shortening it further doesn't make a lot of sense. On the other hand, if one wanted to convey the same sort of baby-babble as Oppy, one might call it Zhuzhu.

[Huguet]

http://www.chinanews.com/gn/2021/07-17/9522472.shtml
Passed 500m... "the second dune is about to be reached, and detailed exploration of the dune and surrounding environment is planned" It apears they will release a better batch of scientific data (images by now) on the second dune then on the first one. Lots of interesting features here... If CNSA is receiving raw frames, would be interesting to see it. But i believe all the image processing are being made by zhurong and only stitched images are coming to control center... If im wrong i would love to see more raw frames... the 2 close-up images apears to be raw frames.

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[Phil Stooke]

https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/w4rLn3Hy47Ei9dLWknGXOQ

First Chinese map of Zhurong's travels and a new image of some dust drifts.

Phil

[Huguet]

First Chinese map of Zhurong's travels and a new image of some dust drifts.

Zhurong is making 20 meters a day, and keeping this pace with almost none long stop. Im thinking if they are trying to use the most its ground penetration radar, or have a target on south or are pushing the equipment to just increase the mileage and know what it can do, or all of that...

explanation

Adding explanation: Red line traced manually following the acumulated rover path, trying to make a guess on where it is going. Very nice article on Phil reply.

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[tolis]

Zhurong is making 20 meters a day, and keeping this pace with almost none long stop. Im thinking if they are trying to use the most its ground penetration radar, or have a target on south or are pushing the equipment to just increase the mileage and know what it can do, or all of that...

Moving much faster than Yutu-2, for instance.

[Phil Stooke]

Much faster! Yutu 2 can only drive about 6 days each month - 3 in the morning, 3 in the afternoon with no driving for about 6 days around lunar noon and of course no driving in the lunar night. Zhurong can drive every day. Also the surface is much smoother and they do not have to do the tricky maneuvering to place the body-mounted VNIS on a target.

Phil

[Hungry4info]

Here's a link to a full-resolution view of the new image.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E69n8QIVoAAu2ui...;name=4096x4096

Given the distortion at the bottom of the image, it appears to be a segment of a larger panorama.

[Bill Harris]

I assume that the red line in the image in Post293 is just a bearing from the lander to the E. Rim of that large crater.
Zhurong is moving at a fairly good clip. Do we suppose autonomous Obstacle Avoidance, or are they doing planned short segments?

--Bill

[Huguet]

I assume that the red line in the image in Post293 is just a bearing from the lander to the E. Rim of that large crater.

just a line traced by the acumulated rover direction.
I have read but can't find now the source, they explaining that the best direction was south, in direction of ancient ocean border.

[Phil Stooke]

Here's an article previously linked to which describes possible targets.

Phil

https://news.have8.tv/2863778.html

[Bill Harris]

just a line traced by the acumulated rover direction.

That is reasonable. I don't recall seeing an explanation, and my Chinese is rusty enough that I can't go to a first-hand source.
As I said, the rover is making good progress.

--Bill