Photograph of a Tianwen 1 probe entering a Martian obit. [Photo provided to China Daily]
China’s Tianwen 1 robotic probe entered the pre-positioned parking orbit above Mars on Wednesday and will maintain that orbit for about three months before releasing the landing capsule, China’s National Space Administration said.
The spacecraft, which has entered a major milestone in China’s first interplanetary exploration mission after a seven-month space mission, made its third orbit near Mars at 6:29 am and then it moved into orbit with a perigee-point orbit. closest to a planet-of about 280 kilometers, the administration said in a brief statement.
The seven mission payloads on the orbiter of the probe will be gradually activated during a three-month stay in orbit to perform scientific tasks and also to observe and study landscapes and weather the best landing site, he said.
Tianwen 1, the country’s first independent Mars missionary, was launched by a heavy-duty rocket launcher March 5 on July 23 from the Wenchang Space Launch Center in Hainan province, starting the country’s planetary exploration program.
The 5-metric-tonne probe, which consists of two main parts – an orbiter and a landing capsule – has flown for 215 days and about 475 million km on its journey to Mars. The average flight speed was around 100,000 km per hour.
Currently, it is about 212 million km from Earth, the space administration said.
The ultimate goal of Tianwen 1’s mission is to land in May or June on Mars’ Utopia Planitia – a large area within Utopia, the largest known impact basin in the solar system – for scientific studies .
Weighing in at about 240 kilograms, the rover, which has not yet been named, has six wheels and four solar panels, and will be capable of maneuvering 200 meters per hour on Mars. It carries six scientific instruments including a multi-view camera, a passing radar and a meteorological meter, and is expected to work for about three months on the planet.
If the truly autonomous machine works well, it will become the sixth human rover to be launched on Mars, following five natives of the United States.
Tianwen 1 is the 46th Mars exploration mission in the world since October 1960, when the former Soviet Union launched the first spacecraft attached to Mars. Only 19 of these missions have been successful.
If Tianwen 1 achieves its three goals – orbiting Mars for a complete observation, landing on the surface of the planet and using its rover to carry out scientific activity – it will be Mars’ first trip to Earth. -world to achieve all three goals with one probe, mission scientists said. before.