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China has said its “Tianwen-1” spacecraft has entered a temporary orbit around Mars in preparation for landing on the Red Planet in the coming months, and China’s National Space Administration has reported that the spacecraft space had carried out a maneuver to adjust its orbit on Wednesday. morning, and it will stay in the new orbit for about three months before attempting to land.
Meanwhile, the spacecraft will work on mapping the surface of Mars using its cameras and other sensors to collect more data, especially on the potential landing site, according to the Associated Press, and this comes after the last landing of the American spacecraft “Preserve”. Thursday near an ancient river delta in the Jiezero crater to look for signs of ancient microscopic life.
China’s successful landing attempt will only make China the second country after the United States to install a spacecraft on the surface of Mars, and the Chinese solar-powered rover will collect groundwater data and research evidence that the planet may have already had life. .
Landing a spacecraft on the surface of Mars is difficult, as around 12 orbiting vehicles failed to complete this mission, and a Chinese spacecraft in 2012, which was heading to Mars and was part of a Russian mission, could not get out of Earth orbit.
It should be noted that the proposed Chinese landing site is a vast rocky plain called “Utopia Planetia”, in which the American landing craft, “Viking-2”, landed in 1976.
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