North Pole of Mars, as imagined by the Tianwen-1 orbiter from an altitude of about 340 km (211 miles). Image using CNSA.
The National Space Administration of China (CNSA) released new images of the Tianwen-1 mission earlier this month, March 4, 2021. The color image shows the North Pole of Mars and the two images in black and white show other striking features of the surface of Mars, acquired by an independent high-definition camera capable of revealing details up to 7 meters.
The Tianwen-1 orbit captured these images at an altitude above Mars of 340 km. This is comparable to the height of the International Space Station on Earth (400 miles or 400 km).
The surface of Mars seen from Tianwen-1’s high-definition camera. The resolution of this image is 7 meters (23 feet). Image using CNSA.
Tianwen-1 is China’s first Mars exploration mission. It is so called because of the meaning of an ancient Chinese poem Heavenly Questions. It was launched in July 2020 from the Wenchang Space Launch Center in China’s Hainan Province, initiating the country’s planetary exploration program. This launch took place in July in the same launch window as two other missions, the UAE Hope and NASA Perseverance. Tianwen-1 arrived in orbit around Mars on February 10, 2021, just one day after the Hope mission had 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 neighboring red planet, after the United States, India, the former Soviet Union, Europe (through the European Space Agency) and the United Arab Emirates.
The surface of Mars seen from Tianwen-1’s high-definition camera. Image using CNSA.
Like Perseverance, the Tianwen-1 spacecraft has a lander carrying a rover and is scheduled to separate from orbit in May or June 2021, after three months in orbit. The landing is planned to land on a large plain called Utopia Planitia which is located within Utopia, the largest impact basin in the solar system. This is also where one of Mars’ first exploratory missions, Viking 2, landed in 1976. After the touchdown, the lander will deploy a ramp to let the rover out, which will then roll to the surface of Mars and begin next part of the mission. If successful, China will be the second country to deploy a rover to Mars – the sixth rover after NASA’s previous five – and the third country, after the United States and the Soviet Union, to make a soft landing on its surface.
The Tianwen-1 rover is smaller than Perseverance and weighs about 240 kg (530 lbs), which is about a quarter of the SUV-sized Perseverance rover. It has six wheels and four solar panels and can move at a leisurely speed of 200 meters per hour (just over a tenth of a mile per hour). During the planned three months of work on the surface of Mars, it will use its six instruments, which include a multispectral camera, a radar that penetrates the earth and a weather meter, to collect data on its scientific objectives.
Including both orbiting and surface time, Tianwen-1’s scientific objectives include mapping the geology and morphology of Mars in order to produce surface maps, observing the composition of Martian soil, and exploring the distribution of ice. Martian water. . It will also examine Mars ’atmosphere, particularly the planet’s ionosphere. You can find a long list of Tianwen-1 mission objectives in this article in Nature Astronomy.
Summary: Images of the surface of Mars from China’s Tianwen-1 mission were released earlier this month.
Via CNSA
