Mars Journey: China's Zhurong Rover | NASA MRO

Mars Journey: China's Zhurong Rover | NASA MRO

The Chinese Zhurong rover landed on Mars in May 2021. This NASA Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) HiRISE camera image, acquired on March 11, 2022, from an altitude of 288 km, shows how far the rover has traveled in the 10 months since it landed. China is the first country to carry out a Mars orbiting, landing, and rover mission successfully on its initial attempt.

In fact, the Zhurong rover's exact path on Mars can be traced from the wheel tracks left on the surface. It has traveled south for roughly 1.5 kilometers (about 1 mile). This cutout highlights the rover and the rover’s path (with contrast enhanced to better reveal the tracks).

The Zhurong rover is part of the Tianwen-1 Mission to Mars conducted by the China National Space Administration (CNSA). The Tianwen-1 spacecraft was launched on July 23, 2020 and inserted into Martian orbit on February 10, 2021. The lander, carrying the rover, performed a successful Mars soft-landing on May 14, 2021, making China the third country to successfully soft-land a spacecraft on Mars and to establish communications from the surface, after the Soviet Union (Russia) and the United States.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The University of Arizona, Tucson, operates HiRISE, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colorado.

Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

Image Date: March 11, 2022

Release Date: March 18, 2022

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