China News Service, Shanghai, February 10th, question: "First Experience in the Mars Workplace": What "unique skills" has "Tianwen No. 1" acquired in one year?
Reporter Zheng Yingying
China is the second country in the world to successfully land on Mars.
The Tianwen-1 probe successfully carried out braking capture on February 10 last year, and then entered the orbit around Mars, becoming China's first artificial Mars satellite, and set foot on the "Mars workplace".
In a blink of an eye, "Tianwen-1" has been "working" on Mars for a year.
This year, it has trained a lot of "workplace skills" on Mars.
"Looking from a distance" and "Looking up close" work at the same time is different from other country models
In an interview with a reporter from Chinanews.com, Chu Yingzhi, deputy commander of the Tianwen-1 Mars orbiter of the Eighth Academy of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, informed that the "Tianwen-1" has a feature that simultaneous detection can be achieved in the sky and on the ground; There is the Zhurong rover on the surface of Mars. The two work at the same time and can compare and refer to each other.
He said that other countries' Mars exploration is "shifting" at different times. "Even if the same place is observed, there may be some changes at different times. The 'simultaneous detection' mode is expected to yield more scientific discoveries."
According to reports, the orbiter has completed the shooting of part of Mars and is currently running on an elliptical orbit. The closest place is about 400 kilometers away from the surface of Mars, and the farthest place is 10,000 kilometers away from the surface of Mars.
The Zhurong rover walked about 1.5 kilometers.
Chu Yingzhi said that the "simultaneous detection" mode of the two refers to: for example, after the orbiter takes pictures of the world of Mars, it feels that there is a discovery. If the Zhurong rover is not far away, you can drive over to take a look. "Looking from a distance" and one "looking up close", and cooperate to give "double observation".
In general, there are two exploration missions for "Tianwen-1" to Mars: in engineering, it is mainly to achieve the technical capabilities of reaching Mars, landing on Mars, and patrolling the surface of Mars; scientifically, China needs to obtain first-hand scientific data on Mars, Including taking pictures of Mars around the world, detecting the composition of the surface of Mars, the topography of Mars, the surrounding space environment, etc.
The senior "orbit change expert" changed the orbit ring to "shoot" Mars
The Tianwen-1 probe consists of an orbiter and a landing rover. The landing rover also includes the Zhurong rover and the entry module.
Surrounder is already a veteran "track changer" and has undergone many track adjustments.
Chu Yingzhi said that after landing on Mars, the orbiter must maintain communication with the Zhurong rover. There is a "large antenna" between the orbiter and the Zhurong rover, and the "Zhurong" will be obtained by "relay method". of scientific data "curves" back to Earth.
But the orbiter did not stay in the "relay orbit" all the time. After completing the phase task, it was "promoted" and changed its orbit to the "remote sensing orbit".
Chu Yingzhi said that the orbiter currently orbits Mars in about 8 hours.
In the remote sensing orbit, the Tianwen-1 orbiter can not only properly take into account the "relay mission" of the "Zhurong", but also conduct global coverage of Mars, that is, to photograph the entire Mars.
He said that this "global photo" is different from "turn around and take a panorama" that the public may understand. The pictures taken by the Tianwen-1 orbiter are taken one by one, and then stitched together one by one, and it is necessary to check whether there are any There are no places that have not been photographed. If there is a "seam" between the pictures, you have to take supplementary shots.
He said that there are two kinds of resolution cameras on the orbiter. The medium-resolution camera is responsible for taking pictures of the entire planet of Mars. On the basis of the former, the high-resolution camera takes in-depth pictures of some areas of interest to scientists and obtains more detailed information. , a clearer picture.
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