The first images from a Chinese probe on the surface of Mars were published on May 19. This sparked a plea from the recently appointed NASA chief to allocate more funds to keep America at the forefront at the space frontier.
China’s Zhurong rover, which landed on the Red Planet on May 14, sent images back as it sat on its landing platform in the flat plain of the Utopia Planitia. One image provides a rover view of the ramp the six-wheeled robot uses to roll onto the surface.
The probe also returned video clips captured by China’s Tianwen-1 orbiter during the lander’s separation.
In a statement, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson congratulated the Chinese space agency on the images of the Zhurong rover.
“As the international scientific community of robotic explorers grows on Mars, the United States and the world look forward to the discoveries Zhurong will make to improve human knowledge of the Red Planet,” said Nelson, a former US official Senator who was sworn in as NASA chief two weeks ago. “I look forward to future international discoveries that will help inform and develop the skills required to land human boots on Mars.”
NASA has been sending rovers to Mars since 1997 and currently has two Red Planet rovers in operation: Curiosity, which landed in 2012; and perseverance that arrived in February. Each of these machines is twice the size of China’s Zhurong rover.
Nelson’s statement may have sounded collegial with China, but during a hearing on the budget committee of the House of Representatives’ subcommittee, he warned lawmakers that China was “a very aggressive competitor” in space exploration. Nelson said China’s space achievements should raise concerns about the level of funding for NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to send astronauts to the moon by the mid-2020s and then on to Mars.
The administrator pointed out China’s plans to send future countries to the polar regions of the moon, which are believed to be home to water ice deposits. Such deposits could be converted into rocket fuel as well as drinking water and breathable air for future lunar inhabitants. Because of this, China – and NASA – are targeting the lunar south polar region for robotic missions and, ultimately, human exploration.
In March, China and Russia announced that they would jointly build an international research station near the south pole of the moon.
China’s success on Mars and its pursuit of future lunar missions “adds a new element to whether we want to get serious and get lots of activity going to land people back on the lunar surface,” said Nelson.
“You will land people on the moon,” Nelson said of the Chinese. “That should tell us something about our need to get off our duff and get our human landing system going.”
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson shows a photo of the Chinese rover on Mars and says they are pushing to get to the moon’s south pole. That should ask the US to “get serious and get a lot of activity going and land people back on the lunar surface”. pic.twitter.com/jHmDVNjki1
– Christian Davenport (@wapodavenport) May 19, 2021
NASA’s Human Landing System program is currently controversial. The space agency had organized a three-way competition for proposals for lunar landers, with the intention of selecting two companies for the next phase. However, Congress provided only a fraction of the money NASA had requested for the current fiscal year. As a result, NASA chose SpaceX’s spaceship as the only choice.
The other two competitors – Dynetics and a team led by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ space company Blue Origin – have protested against NASA’s decision. It is up to the Government Accountability Office to decide whether the competition needs to be repeated.
Meanwhile, Congress is considering laws requiring NASA to select a second vendor for lunar landers to encourage competition and provide redundancy. Nelson called on Congress to allocate $ 5.4 billion to its infrastructure and employment bills to bolster the lander program and meet NASA’s other infrastructure needs.
Although NASA’s award for SpaceX remains unchanged, Nelson promised that the space agency would run a follow-up competition for commercial lunar landing services that would come into play after the astronauts in the Artemis program made the first moon landing. “Under the law, I will insist on this future competition,” he said.
Main Photo: An image of China’s Zhurong rover shows spacecraft hardware in the foreground and Mars terrain in the background. Photo credit: CNSA via Twitter / Cosmic_Penguin
A version of this story was originally published on Cosmic Log.
Like this:
Loading…
Comments are closed.