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A giant antenna built in northern China is now ready to support the Tianwen-1 mission to Mars and future undertakings in deep space.
With China’s first interplanetary mission Tianwen-1 set to reach Mars, the newly constructed 70-meter-diameter satellite dish in Tianjin city has been tested and is ready to receive data from the spacecraft. .
Tianwen-1 is scheduled to enter orbit on Mars Wednesday, February 10, and begin scientific and imaging observations shortly thereafter. However, bringing this valuable information back to Earth from up to 250 million kilometers away from deep space presents its own challenges.
Related: Photos of China’s Tianwen-1 mission to Mars
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“The construction of the antenna is intended to receive weak scientific exploration data from Mars which is 400 million kilometers from Earth,” said Li Chunlai, deputy chief designer of the first Mars exploration project in China, to Chinese media.
Construction of the facility began in October 2018 and the massive 2,700-ton dish was raised to a height of 236 feet (72 m) last April.
The dish includes 1,328 high precision panels and covers an area of 49,000 square feet (4,560 square meters), or approximately nine basketball courts. It was officially handed over to the National Astronomical Observatory of China (NAOC), the operator of the antenna, on February 3.
Related: The latest news on the Chinese space program
“With the distance [getting farther], the [signal’s] the energy will become attenuated and denser, that is, less energy than we will receive per unit area. So we need [an antenna] with a large area in order to collect enough energy, “Li added.
The mobile antenna can be rotated and tilted to follow Mars as its position in the sky changes. The new Tianjin facility joins a line of smaller diameter satellite dishes across the country to support its space activities.
The five-ton Tianwen-1 spacecraft consists of both an orbiter and a rover. The pair are expected to enter orbit on Mars around 7:00 a.m. EST (12:00 p.m. GMT, 8:00 p.m. Beijing time) on Wednesday, February 10.
After entering orbit, Tianwen-1 will begin preparing for a subsequent landing attempt by the mission rover, scheduled for around May.
The approximately 530 pounds. (240 kilograms) solar-powered rover is intended to land and explore an area called Utopia Planitia, a huge impact basin.
The Tianwen-1 orbiter will image the landing zone in preparation for landing. On Friday, February 5, the spacecraft’s high-resolution camera returned a stunning image of Mars from a distance of 1.36 million miles (2.2 million km).
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