News from our newspaper (Reporter Zhang Hang) The "Tianwen No. 1" Mars rover carrying out my country's first Mars exploration mission is getting closer and closer to its destination.
The reporter learned from the National Space Administration yesterday that the total flight mileage of the "Tianwen-1" probe is currently more than 450 million kilometers, about 170 million kilometers from the earth.
It is expected that around February 10th, the "Tianwen-1" probe will conduct near-fire braking and start a journey around Mars.
Mars is the fourth closest planet to the sun, close to the earth and most similar to the environment, so it has become the preferred target for human exploration.
On July 23, 2020, my country successfully launched the "Tianwen-1" probe with the Long March 5 Yaosi carrier rocket at the Wenchang Space Launch Site, taking the first step towards independent interplanetary exploration.
According to the plan, the Mars exploration mission will realize the "circumnavigation, patrol, and patrol" of Mars, that is, Mars circumnavigation, Mars landing, and Martian surface inspections.
The "Tianwen-1" probe with a total mass of about 5 tons is composed of an orbiter and a landing patrol. The landing patrol includes an entry module and a Mars rover.
Since the start of the journey to Mars, the "Tianwen-1" probe has successfully completed the Earth-Moon photo, the probe's “self-portrait”, three midway corrections, deep-space maneuvers, and payload self-checking. The probe’s attitude is currently stable. Each system is working normally.
The reporter learned that the "Tianwen-1" probe will perform near-fire braking around February 10, and then start a trip around Mars for about two and a half months to conduct preliminary exploration of the landing area. When the weather conditions are good The landing was carried out again, and the landing area was selected in the Utopia Plain in the northern hemisphere of Mars.
Experts from the Fifth Academy of China Aerospace Science and Technology Group told reporters that the Mars exploration mission is extremely technically difficult, because the farthest distance from the Earth to Mars is about 400 million kilometers, the communication time is extended by more than 20 minutes, and the Martian atmosphere is thin and the terrain is complicated. , There are risk points in the detector near fire braking and buffer landing.
Many countries have implemented Mars exploration missions before, and the success rate is only about half.
The "Tianwen-1" probe also carried my country's first Mars rover.
The call for names for this rover is currently underway. There are ten shortlisted names, namely: Hongyi, Qilin, Nezha, Chitu, Zhu Rong, Seeking, Hot Wheels, Chasing Dreams, Tianxing and Xinghuo.
The final name of China's first Mars rover will be announced on the occasion of the "Tianwen-1" rover landing on Mars.