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China’s Tianwen-1 spacecraft took its first image of Mars as the mission made its final approach; the probe will enter orbit around the red planet in less than a week.
The Chinese National Space Administration (CNSA) released the image on February 5, demonstrating that the Tianwen-1 spacecraft’s powerful high-resolution camera is working properly.
The grayscale image was captured at a distance of 1.36 million miles (2.2 million kilometers) from Mars, according to the CNSA.
Related: Photos of China’s Tianwen-1 mission to Mars
A labeled version of the image indicates the location of notable features exhibited, namely Acidalia Planitia (1), Chryse Planitia (2), Meridiani Planum (3), Schiaparelli Crater (4) and Valles Marineris (5).
Tianwen-1, a combined orbiter and rover, has since approached the Red Planet and was 1.1 million km away on Friday. The spacecraft is expected to enter orbit on Mars on Wednesday (February 10). The five-ton spacecraft will burn its engines to slow the vehicle enough to be captured by the gravitational pull of Mars.
The CNSA also said that Tianwen-1 performed a fourth course correction maneuver on February 5 at 7 a.m. EST (12 p.m. GMT, 8 p.m. Beijing time) to ensure the spacecraft was on course. good way to enter orbit on Mars.
The spacecraft traveled 289 million miles (465 million km) during its 197 days in space and was approximately 114 million miles (184 million km) from Earth at the time of the corrective maneuver. path. All of the spacecraft’s systems are in good working order, CNSA said.
The great distance between Earth and Tianwen-1 means a communication delay of about 10 minutes. This means that the spacecraft will have to execute commands to start the braking on its own, with instructions sent in advance by the Beijing Aerospace Control Center.
After entering orbit, Tianwen-1 will begin to prepare for an attempted landing of the mission rover. The orbiter will begin imagining the main candidate landing site in the massive Utopia Planitia impact basin, south of NASA’s Viking 2 landing site, ready for a landing attempt around May.
China is currently holding a 40-day public vote to select the name of its Mars rover. The three most popular names will be sent to a committee for final selection.
So about 530 pounds. (240 kilograms) of solar-powered rover lands safely, he will examine the characteristics of the surface soil and the potential distribution of water ice with his underground exploration radar instrument. The rover also carries panoramic and multispectral cameras and instruments to analyze the composition of the rocks.
Meanwhile, the Tianwen-1 orbiter will study the surface of the Red Planet with medium and high-resolution cameras and sounding radar, and perform other detections with a magnetometer and particle detectors.
Tianwen-1 launched in July and will arrive on Mars a day after the UAE’s Hope mission and a week before NASA’s Perseverance rover.
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