Can the rover retrieve the camera for reuse at a different location? Does it have a manipulator arm for the purpose?
China's Space Program News Thread
- Thread starter crazyinsane105
- Start date
- Status
under the rover there is a detachable camera, rover moved 10 meters away from lander, throw the camera there and back to the side of the lander, that's where the selfie comes from
I don't think so. the rover doesn't have a robotic arm. Interesting to see that's three separate Mars vehicles. Tianwen-1 Orbiter; Tianwen-1 Deployable camera ;Tianwen-1 Lander ;Zhurong Rover; Tianwen-1 Drop Camera; 5 Spacecraft, one flyby, one orbiter, one rover, two landers.
Maybe the rover can drive back over the camera and pick up the camera magnetically? If this is the only detachable camera the rover has, one might expect the mission plan to save the camera for later use?
Normally a rover should first do the things necessary to complete its core mission, taking care not to endanger the rover or any of its equipment. Once the core mission is complete Then the controllers can be a little more adventurous and go for bonus results that might be difficult and endanger the rover. It seems a third eye that can be set on the ground might be more useful at a time when the rover is doing difficult things that might endanger the rover by getting it stuck.
And what and how is the third eye going to be useful?
Stream an image of the rover that gets stuck?
The camera can't save the rover from its plight.
This camera is for a selfie. And it clicked a damn good one.
It will still be interesting to know how the camera was placed. It can't be just dropped from a certain height and then stays in place to take a nice photo. There must be a mechanism to lower the camera. If that's the case, then the same mechanism could be used to retrieve the camera.
The Zhurong's eyes are staring at the cam, should have more pics in the future
The third eye can give a perspective of the wheel, the ground near wheel and the contact between rover wheel and ground impossible to obtain with a camera attached to an mast on the rover, This can be particularly important if the rover travels out of the easy view of the lander.
NASA’s Spirit and opportunity rovers had both gotten stuck. Spirit became permanently stuck in 2010. During efforts to get it unstuck some of the wheels behaved in ways not understood based on wheel motor telemetry. These efforts made situation worse. If there was a camera that can image these wheels and live stream what happened when torque were applied to free the wheel, it is possible the rover could have been successfully extricated.
Last edited:
Is this really part of the rover's design?
- Status