On July 23, my country's first Mars exploration mission "Tianwen-1" probe successfully launched from China's Wenchang Space Launch Site, officially starting the Chinese journey of autonomous exploration of Mars. After the successful launch, the National Space Administration held a press conference at the Wenchang Space Launch Site in China to introduce my country’s first Mars exploration mission.
Liu Tongjie, spokesperson for China's first Mars exploration mission and deputy director of the National Space Administration's Lunar Exploration and Space Engineering Center, said that the Tianwen-1 probe will fly for about 6.5 months to reach Mars, implement capture braking, and enter the ring fire orbit. After about 2.5 months of circumnavigation, it will choose an opportunity to implement a down-orbit maneuver in May 2021. After the landing patrol is separated from the orbiter, the orbiter returns to the parking orbit. The Landing Patrol will perform a soft landing in a predetermined area in the southern Utopia Plain of Mars. The probe consists of a landing patrol device and an orbiter, and the launch vehicle adopts the Long March 5 Yao 4 launch vehicle. This launch is also the first applied launch mission of the Long March 5 rocket.
(Edit Zhou Jing)
Editor in charge: [Li Yuxin]