The North Pole of Mars, as imagined by the Tianwen-1 orbiter at an altitude of about 340 km (211 miles). Image via CNSA.
The National Space Administration of China (CNSA) released new images from the Tianwen-1 Mars mission earlier this month, March 4, 2021. The color image shows the north pole of Mars, and the two black-and-white images show other striking surface features. Mars, purchased by a separate high-definition camera capable of revealing details up to 23 meters (7 meters).
The Tianwen-1 orbiter captured these images at an altitude of about 340 km above Mars. This is comparable to the height of the International Space Station above Earth (250 miles or 400 km).
The surface of Mars, as seen from Tianwen-1’s high-definition camera. The resolution of this image is 7 meters (23 feet). Image via CNSA.
Tianwen-1 is China’s first Mars exploration mission. It is named after an ancient Chinese poem that means Heavenly questions. It was launched in July 2020 from the Wenchang Space Launch Center in China’s Hainan Province, launching the country’s planetary exploration program. This launch took place in the same launch window in July as two other missions, the United Arab Emirates Hope and NASA’s Perseverance. Tianwen-1 arrived in orbit around Mars on February 10, 2021, just one day after the Hope mission successfully entered orbit around the red planet. Perseverance arrived and landed on the surface of Mars eight days later.
China has thus become 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 UAE.
The surface of Mars, as seen from Tianwen-1’s high-definition camera. Image via CNSA.
Like Perseverance, the Tianwen-1 spacecraft has a rover-carrying lander and is scheduled to separate from its orbiter in May or June 2021, after three months in orbit. The lander is planning to land on a large plain called Utopia Planitia, which is located in Utopia, the largest impact basin in the solar system. This is also the location where one of the first exploration missions to Mars, Viking 2, landed in 1976. After the touchdown, the lander will run a ramp to let the rover out, which will then run on the surface of Mars and the next part of the mission will begin. If successful, China will be the second country to ever deploy a rover on Mars – the sixth rover after NASA’s previous five – and the third country, after the US and the Soviet Union, to land easily on its surface.
The Tianwen-1 rover is smaller than the Perseverance and weighs about 240 kg (£ 530), which is about a quarter of the SUV-sized Perseverance rover. It has six wheels and four solar panels and can travel at a calm speed of 200 meters per hour (just over a tenth of a mile per hour). During the three planned months of work on the surface of Mars, it will use its six instruments, which include a multispectral camera, a ground-penetrating radar and a meteorological meter, to collect data for its scientific objectives.
Including both orbit and surface time, Tianwen-1’s scientific objectives include mapping the geology and morphology of Mars to produce surface maps, examining the composition of Martian soil, and exploring the distribution of Martian water ice. . It will also analyze the atmosphere of Mars, especially the ionosphere of the planet. You can find a long list of Tianwen-1 mission objectives in this article at Nature Astronomy.
Bottom line: Images of the surface of Mars in the Chinese Tianwen-1 mission were released earlier this month.
Through the CNSA
