The reporter learned from the Lunar Exploration and Aerospace Engineering Center of the National Space Administration that currently, the area where the "Zhurong" rover is located has entered winter.
According to the measurements, the local maximum temperature at noon on the rover has dropped to -20°C, and the ambient temperature at night is as low as -100°C.
In addition, due to the presence of sand and dust weather, the light intensity is further weakened, which affects the power generation capacity of the solar wing battery array of the Mars rover.
Recently, the engineering team adopted the rotation of the solar wing to adjust the light angle, reduce the daily work items and time, and achieve energy balance.
The rotation period of Mars is close to that of Earth, and a Martian day is only about 40 minutes longer than that of Earth. Therefore, Mars also has the same day and night alternation and seasonal changes as Earth.
The orbital period of Mars is about 687 days, that is, 1 Martian year is equivalent to 1.9 Earth years, which means that the average duration of each season on Mars is about twice as long as on Earth.
In the next two months, the direct sun point will continue to move to the south of Mars, reaching around the Tropic of Cancer around mid-to-late July, when Mars' northern hemisphere will enter the coldest season of the year.
In order to safely survive extreme weather such as Martian winter and sandstorms, the "Zhurong" rover has designed working modes such as autonomous sleep. When the energy is reduced to a certain level, it will automatically enter the sleep mode. After the environmental conditions gradually improve, it will return to normal. Operating mode.
After the "Zhurong" Mars rover completed the 90-Mars day inspection mission on August 15, 2021, it will continue to carry out the expansion inspection and exploration mission.
Image of rocks distributed near impact craters on the surface of Mars taken by its Navigation Terrain Camera on April 10, 2022, the 323rd Martian day after landing.
During the orbit around Mars, all seven payloads carried by the "Tianwen-1" orbiter were powered on, and continued to carry out global remote sensing exploration of Mars.
The 0.8-meter-per-pixel image of Mars' Triolle crater taken by a high-resolution camera on April 17, 2022, shows a "seasonal slope pattern" on the crater wall.
The local landform image of the Martian Valle de la Marine taken by the Moderate Resolution Camera on April 1, 2022, with a resolution of about 65 meters per pixel.
As of May 5, 2022, the "Tianwen-1" orbiter has been in orbit for 651 days and is 240 million kilometers away from the earth. The "Zhurong" rover has worked on the surface of Mars for 347 Martian days, driving a total of 1921 meters, two The device has accumulated about 940GB of original scientific data and is running normally.
Headquarters CCTV reporter丨Cui Xia Xu Jing Tao Jiashu
Video丨The Headquarters Sky and Sky Chasing Dream Rong Media Creative Studio