The Chinese rover Zhurong left the lander today to start its trek along the Mars plain. “The six-wheeled solar-powered rover, resembling a blue butterfly and with a mass of 240 kg, slowly trundled off a ramp on the lander to hit the red, sandy soil of Mars, starting its journey to explore the fourth planet from the Sun,” Xinhua reports.
With an expected lifespan of at least 90 Martian days, or sols, (about 92.5 Earth days), Zhurong, named after the Chinese god of fire, will record the Martian landscape with high-resolution three-dimensional images, analyze the material composition of the planet’s surface, detect its subsurface structure and magnetic field, search for traces of water ice and observe the surrounding meteorological environment.
It is the first Mars rover with an active suspension system. It could help the rover get out of trouble by moving like an inchworm on the complicated Martian surface with both loose sandy soil and densely distributed rocks, said Jia Yang, deputy chief designer of the Tianwen-1 probe, from the China Academy of Space Technology. Zhurong can also walk sideways like a crab. Each of its six wheels can turn in any direction, which could be used for avoiding obstacles and climbing slopes.
