The North Pole of Mars, as imaged by the Tianwen-1 orbiter from an altitude of approximately 340 km (211 miles). Image via CNSA.
The China National Space Administration (CNSA) released new images of the Tianwen-1 Mars mission earlier this month, on March 4, 2021. The color image shows the north pole of Mars, and the two black and white images show other striking surface features of Mars, captured by a separate high-definition camera that can reveal details as small as 7 meters.
The orbiter Tianwen-1 captured these images at an altitude of about 340 km above Mars. That’s comparable to the height of the International Space Station above Earth (250 miles or 400 km).
The surface of Mars as seen from the Tianwen-1 high-definition camera. The resolution of this image is 7 meters (23 feet). Image via CNSA.
Tianwen-1 is China’s first exploration mission to Mars. It is named after the meaning of an ancient Chinese poem Heavenly questionsIt was launched in July 2020 from Wenchang Space Launch Center in Hainan Province of China and kicked off the country’s planetary exploration program. This launch took place in the same July launch window as two other missions, Hope from the UAE and NASA’s Perseverance. Tianwen-1 arrived in orbit around Mars on February 10, 2021, just one day after the Hope mission also successfully entered orbit around the red planet. Perseverance came and landed on the surface of Mars eight days later.
China thus became the sixth nation / organization to successfully reach our red neighboring planet, after the United States, India, the former Soviet Union, Europe (through the European Space Agency) and the UAE.
The surface of Mars as seen from Tianwen-1’s high-definition camera. Image via CNSA.
Like Perseverance, the Tianwen-1 probe has a lander carrying a rover and is scheduled to detach from the orbiter in May or June 2021, after three months in orbit. The lander is planned to land on a large plain called Utopia Planitia that lies in Utopia, the largest impact basin in the solar system. This is also the location where one of the earliest Mars discovery missions, Viking 2, landed in 1976. After landing, the lander will unfold a ramp to release the rover, which will then roll to the surface of Mars and begin the next part. of the mission. If successful, China will be the second country to ever deploy a rover on Mars – the sixth rover after NASA’s previous five – and the third country, after the US and the Soviet Union, to land a soft landing on its surface. makes.
The Tianwen-1 rover is smaller than Perseverance and weighs about 240 kg (530 pounds), which is about a quarter of the size of the SUV-sized Perseverance rover. It has six wheels and four solar panels and can move at a steady speed of 200 meters per hour (just over a tenth of a mile per hour). During its planned three months of work on the surface of Mars, it will use its six instruments, including a multispectral camera, ground-penetrating radar and meteorological meter, to collect data for its scientific purposes.
Including both time in orbit and time on the surface, the scientific goals of Tianwen-1 include mapping the geology and morphology of Mars to create surface maps, view the composition of the soil of Mars, and to investigate the spread of water ice on Mars. . It will also look at the atmosphere of Mars, in particular the planet’s ionosphere. You can find a long list of Tianwen-1’s objectives in this article at Nature Astronomy.
In short, images of the surface of Mars from China’s Tianwen-1 mission were released earlier this month.
Via CNSA
