In a bid to enhance the scientific field through enriched human knowledge, today, the National Space Administration has revealed that both the Tianwen-1 mission orbiter and the Mars rover have completed the establishment of scientific exploration tasks.
The Tianwen-1 mission orbiter flew regularly for 706 days, collecting medium-resolution photographic data of Mars’ whole surface. All scientific payloads have completed global Mars exploration.
The Tianwen-1 Mission Journey
On July 23, 2020, the Tianwen-1 probe was successfully launched. It arrived at Mars on February 10, 2021, after 202 days of deep space voyage of 475 million kilometers, and successfully implemented the capture and braking to enter the orbit around Mars.
On May 15, the Tianwen-1 probe successfully landed on Mars after three months of meticulous assessment of the pre-selected landing spot. The Zhurong rover safely landed on the surface of Mars on May 22 and began patrolling and exploring.
The Zhurong rover completed the 90 Martian scientific research missions on August 15, 2021, and continued to carry out extended exploration missions. It has traveled 1,921.5 meters on the surface of Mars.
The rover will enter winter hibernation mode on May 18, 2022, as planned, despite the harsh winter cold and dusty conditions in the landing region. The Zhurong landing area will enter the early spring season around December 2022. will return to normal work
The orbiter has circled Mars 1,344 times, providing worldwide coverage, and is now in good working order. It will continue to carry out worldwide remote sensing detection in the future and will select an opportunity to conduct expansion technology experiments to carry out preliminary technology verification for related activities.
The 13 scientific instruments configured by the rover and orbiter have collected around 1040GB of original scientific data after nearly two years of flight and exploration for the Tianwen-1 mission.
The standard scientific data products are submitted to the team of scientists every month for analysis and interpretation after being received and processed on the ground. The relevant scientific findings have been published in prestigious academic journals both in the United States and abroad.
At the right moment, these scientific data will be made available to scientists all across the world. Scientists from all over the world are encouraged to apply for research grants and to work together to advance the cause of human space travel.
Image of Mars taken by Tianwen-1
Meanwhile, with the Tianwen-1 fulfilling the establishment of a scientific exploration mission, some images of Mars are taken recently, they include:
Mount Askela, which has a diameter of 456 kilometers and a height of 18 kilometers, was photographed by the orbiter’s camera in the middle. The graphic depicts the characteristics of the crater on Mount Askela’s summit, as well as many crater collapse occurrences.
The orbiter’s main camera captured photographs of the Antarctic ice sheet. The image depicts the South Pole cap of Mars. According to the research, the long-term and permanent polar cap of the Martian poles is primarily formed of dry ice and water ice.
The camera in the center of the surround captures images of the Sailors Grand Canyon’s western formations. The Sailors Grand Canyon stretches around 4000km from east to west, is 150-700km broad from north to south, and has a maximum depth of 7km.
The midway camera on the orbiter obtained photographs of the Arabian Highlands impact crater, revealing the geomorphological features of dozens of impact craters distributed around the region.
With a spatial resolution of about 0.5m, the orbiter’s high-resolution camera acquired an image of the edge of the Mond ring crater. The ring crater has a diameter of around 91 kilometers. The image depicts the topographic aspects of the Mond ring crater’s crater edge. The phenomenon of collapse into the pit exists.
The image was captured before the rover went into winter hibernation, and it depicts the local peculiarities of a dune landform in the inspection region.
