Zhurong Lander/Rover, Surface Operations at Utopia Planitia Options

[Explorer1]

Apparently: 109.7 E, 25.1 N; (top middle of this map: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amenthes_quad...Region-mola.png )

A bit North of the crater called Bluff....

[Hungry4info]

From here.

On CCTV it was reported that "first opportunity to downlink photos will be around midday-afternoon BJT", i.e. within next few hours. The relay orbiter is currently on the opposite side of Mars.

[volcanopele]

CTX image of the landing site. scale is 5.7 m/pixel. The large crater at bottom is 1.8 km across.

[Guest_Steve5304_*]

WoW!!

Congrats to the Peoples Republic of China


What an amazing achievement for such a new space program!

I hope we start getting Chinese posters!

[Phil Stooke]

The coordinates have been moved a bit, to 25.1 N, 109.9 E. That moves it out of the CTX image volcanopele posted and puts it about here:



The hills seen in the first orbital image are at lower right.
Phil

[kenny]

Chinese news media are reporting "nine minutes of terror" during the landing, so two more than the usual American seven minutes!

The official landing time from CGTN was 23:18 UTC (GMT) so 7 minutes later than was being predicted by Chinese sources before the descent.

The whole craft (both orbiter and lander) started descending from orbit at about 17:00 UTC and entered the long descent trajectory. The landing module, consisting of the lander and the rover, separated from the orbiter after 3 hours at about 20:00 UTC according to the CNSA. Then, 30 minutes later, so about 20:30 UTC, the orbiter fired its engine to leave the decent trajectory (which it was also now on, temporarily, to drop off the lander) and returned to a safe orbit. After being dropped off the lander had a 3-hour voyage to entry interface. These announced times seem to be approximate.

I believe this is a new technique for Martian atmospheric entry, but was previously used by Galileo at Jupiter and Cassini at Titan.

[kenny]

Xinhua News Agency has reported more details of the landing. No pictures as yet.

It took ground controllers more than an hour to establish the success of the pre-programmed landing. They had to wait for the rover to autonomously unfold its solar panels and antenna to send the signals after landing, and there was a time delay of more than 17 minutes due to the 320-million-km distance between Earth and Mars.

"The Mars landing of the Tianwen-1 mission has been a total success," Zhang Kejian, head of the CNSA, announced at the Beijing Aerospace Control Center.

It will take a further 7 to 8 days for the rover to detect the surrounding environment and conduct self checks before moving down from the lander to the Martian surface.

Xinhua post-landing update

[ollopa]

Xinhua News Agency has reported more details of the landing. No pictures as yet.

It took ground controllers more than an hour to establish the success of the pre-programmed landing.

Xinhua post-landing update

Is there someone with some insight into the likely comms opportunities? For instance, I have seen speculation that on May 17 Zhurong will communicate with Tianwen-1 via ESA MarsExpress. I would have assumed that Tianwen-1 is over the horizon *much* longer than lower-orbit assets. Am I missing something? Is someone running the numbers?

[Huguet]

https://mobile.twitter.com/df2mz/status/1393617519257268225

"This screen shot from CCTV seems to show that the Zhurong rover already communicated with Earth, opened its solar panels and downloaded some data." Edgar Kaiser

"rover landed still; started to communicate with earth; communication finished; rover unlocked/lifted up; solar wings opened; obiter adjusted position . Data downloaded in last 3 lines"

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[rlorenz]

I believe this is a new technique for Martian atmospheric entry, but was previously used by Galileo at Jupiter and Cassini at Titan.

New for Mars orbiters, perhaps. But Beagle 2 was delivered this way on Mars Express' hyperbolic approach

[Hungry4info]

Some rough translations of the screenshot here... I think. Feel free to improve upon them with the times and copyable text.
8:01:24 火星车静态定姿 = Putting the rover in the proper attitude.
8:14:39 火星车对地通信开始 = Start of rover-to-ground comm.
8:32:04 火星车对地通信结束 = End of rover-to-ground comm.
8:38:04 火星车脱插分离，车体抬升 = Rover separation (from lander?) and body lifted.
8:59:04 火星车太阳翼展平 = Rover solar wing deployed.
9:48:39 环绕器-Z对日姿态调轨开始 = Orbiter Z-axis starts moving toward the sun.
12:00:39 固连遥测探头数据点播下传 = On-demand? telemetry download?
12:29:39 近距离遥测探头数据点播下传 = Short-range telemetry download?
13:15:39 降轨，两器分离数据点播下传 = Decrease orbit, separate the two devices? and download data on demand?

[tolis]

https://mobile.twitter.com/df2mz/status/1393617519257268225

"This screen shot from CCTV seems to show that the Zhurong rover already communicated with Earth, opened its solar panels and downloaded some data." Edgar Kaiser

"rover landed still; started to communicate with earth; communication finished; rover unlocked/lifted up; solar wings opened; obiter adjusted position . Data downloaded in last 3 lines"

Perhaps I am reaching, but is that a picture of a rock up on that screenshot?

[Huguet]

Perhaps I am reaching, but is that a picture of a rock up on that screenshot?

Mabe they are working with some visual data. But they didn't get it right yet. Hard to wait for the images...

[Hungry4info]

It looks like there's some sort of reflecting going on somewhere creating two image planes here -- one being the reflection of the screen in the glass(?) and the other being whatever is behind it. For some reason I can't quite make sense of what's going on. Just below the rock-like shape, there's this white jagged line. Is that a graphical representation of a radio signal? A reflected bit of light from somewhere? I'm not sure which is the original screen (the white line or the rock-like shape) and which is a reflection of something unrelated.

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[djellison]

Both Viking Landers were also deployed from orbit around Mars, like Tianwan - but I think what's unique here, and is more similar to ExoMars-TGO with Schiaparelli, Mars Express with Beagle 2, Galileo and Cassini Huygens compared to Viking - is that in those 4, the 'parent' spacecraft put itself on a collision course before deploying the lander and then doing a divert maneuver. In the case of Viking 1 and 2 - the landers themselves did their own deorbit burn to being entry into the atmosphere.

I think the only unique corner of all those boxes to be ticked yesterday is a parent spacecraft already in orbit putting itself into a trajectory for landing before deploying the lander and then doing a divert maneuver.

Phew.