Skip to main content

See and hear China’s Zhurong rover exploring the surface of Mars

Zhurong’s sounds while descending onto Mars

The diminutive Zhurong rover is China’s first rover to land on and explore the surface of Mars, and it has been looking around its landing area in Utopia Planitia since it was deployed onto the surface last month.

Now, as reported by SpaceNews, the China National Space Administration (CNSA) has shared video and audio footage of the rover in action, showing parts of the landing process and clips of the rover moving around on Mars. The agency posted the video footage on its website along with an update on the rover’s progress.

The footage includes the rover being deployed on the Mars surface. A lander carried the rover through the atmosphere, then the rover rolled down a ramp so it could move freely around the environment.

Later, the rover left a wireless camera on the ground and filmed itself driving away. The rover then performed a turning maneuver which was also captured. The driving footage includes audio which was captured by an instrument designed to measure the Martian winds. “The audio includes live sounds during the process of turning on the driving mechanism of the rover, driving on a ramp, and driving onto the surface of Mars,” CNSA wrote. “The sound of the rover moving away mainly comes from the driving mechanism, friction between wheels and ramps, and friction between wheels and the ground.”

Further video footage shows the lander’s entry, descent, and landing phase including the deployment of the parachute and the lander moves through the thin Martian atmosphere and the separation of the shell which protects the lander and rover during the process.

Huge Zhurong update: Here's full footage of the Zhurong rover's EDL, showing parachute deployment, backshell separation, and landing, including very cool hover during hazard avoidance phase. [CNSA/PEC] pic.twitter.com/iWUXrFKf40

— Andrew Jones (@AJ_FI) June 27, 2021

CNSA also released an image captured by the rover, showing its tracks in the martian regolith as it explores Utopia Planitia. The agency says the rover has traveled 236 meters so far over 42 martian days since its deployment onto the surface. It also reports that both the rover and the orbiter and in good condition and that communications with Earth are stable.

Tracks in the Martian regolith captured by China's Zhurong rover.
Tracks in the Martian regolith captured by China’s Zhurong rover. CNSA

The rover will now continue its exploration of Mars, looking for indications of subsurface ice as well as recording information about the martian weather and other topics. The mission is projected to last for 90 Mars days.

Georgina Torbet
Georgina is the Digital Trends space writer, covering human space exploration, planetary science, and cosmology. She…
Mars rover Perseverance is heading for the Jezero delta
NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover used its Left Navigation Camera (Navcam) to acquire an image on Feb 24, 2022 (sol 361) of target Sid, a higher standing boulder seen here just above the rover’s arm. Scientists plan to sample this rock before the rover heads to the delta for the mission’s next science campaign.

Having recently passed the one-year mark in exploring Mars's Jezero Crater, the Perseverance rover will soon be packing up and heading off to a new and exciting location: The Jezero delta. As the site of an ancient river delta, this area is one of the most promising locations to search for evidence of ancient life, as it was once an area of warm, shallow water that would be the ideal conditions for the emergence of life.

Until now, the Perseverance rover has been exploring the floor of the Jezero crater and collecting rock samples which will be brought back to Earth for analysis by future missions. Now, the rover will perform a week of analysis before grabbing a sample of a type of rock called Ch’ał which hasn't been sampled so far. With that sample collected, Perseverance will then be heading to the delta to learn more about the history of water in the region.

Read more
All the things the Perseverance rover has achieved in its first year on Mars
Perseverance snapped this view of a hill called “Santa Cruz” on April 29, 2021. About 20 inches (50 centimeters) across on average, the boulders in the foreground are among the type of rocks the rover team has named “Ch’ał” (the Navajo term for “frog” and pronounced “chesh”). Perseverance will return to the area next week or so.

It's been one year since NASA's Perseverance rover made its remarkable landing on Mars. Twelve months on, NASA has shared a roundup of all the achievements the rover has made in its quest to understand the Jezero crater, where it landed, and in its quest to search for evidence of ancient life.

One of the rover's major achievements was collecting samples of Mars rock, which proved tricky at first due to the rock being more crumbly than expected. However, despite the challenges the rover has managed to collect six samples so far which are sealed up in tubes and will be left on the planet's surface for a future mission to collect and eventually bring back to Earth for study.

Read more
Relive NASA’s extraordinary Mars rover landing, one year on
Perseverance landing on Mars in February 2020.

On Friday, February 18, it will be a year to the day since NASA’s Perseverance rover made its extraordinary landing on Mars.

Extraordinary not only for NASA’s feat of successfully landing its most advanced rover to date on the red planet but also for the simply stunning video footage that showed the vehicle in its final stages of descent.

Read more