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An image of Mars taken from China’s Tianwen-1 probe, released on February 5.
China’s first interplanetary probe is now close to Mars and its camera can make out small craters on the surface of the red planet.
The Tianwen-1 spacecraft, a suite of robots launched by the China National Space Administration (CNSA) in July, has sped through space for the past six months. Just 2.2 million kilometers from its destination, the probe transmitted its first photo: a black and white snapshot of Mars.
The CNSA released the image on Friday. In a press release, the agency said the probe had fired an engine as part of its fourth “orbital correction” or adjustment of its trajectory through space. Now Martian gravity should bring the mission into the correct orbit around the planet.
The five-ton probe is scheduled to perform a braking operation to slow its high-speed space flight and enter orbit around Mars on February 10. After that, the spacecraft will spend a couple of months inspecting a landing site on Utopia Planitia, a vast field of ancient volcanic rock.
The orbiter is supposed to drop a landing-rover combo to the planet’s surface in May, the CNSA said. If the rocket-powered descent goes smoothly, the lander will deploy a two-way ramp for the rover to roll over Martian soil. The rover’s radar system will help Chinese researchers search for underground sources of liquid water. (The orbiter, meanwhile, will continue to circle the red planet and transmit data to Earth.)
Such ancient water reservoirs could be remnants of a time billions of years ago when Mars flowed with rivers, courtesy of a much thicker and more protective atmosphere than exists today. During this era, Mars looked a bit like Earth, and scientists believe that it may have harbored extraterrestrial microbial life. Any pocket of groundwater, shielded from the unfiltered radiation of the sun and the vacuum of space, could still host such species, if they exist at all.
If successful, Tianwen-1 will be the first mission to Mars to send a spacecraft into orbit, drop a landing pad, and deploy a rover, all in one expedition. It will also mark China’s first landing on another planet and help the nation prepare for a future mission that could return a sample of Martian soil or rock to Earth in the late 2020s.
As of Friday, the CNSA said Tianwen-1 is only 1.1 million kilometers from its destination.
Two other missions launching around the same time as Tianwen-1, NASA’s Perseverance rover and the United Arab Emirates’ Hope probe, will also arrive on Mars in the next two weeks. All three missions take advantage of a window when Mars passes close to Earth, reducing travel time and cost.
China tried to send an orbiter to Mars in 2011, but the Russian spacecraft that was supposed to take it there stalled in Earth’s orbit and never left.
Tianwen-1 is the closest China has ever been to another planet. Hopefully, and the proper engineering to weather the harrowing “seven minutes of terror” as it hurtles toward Mars, it will reach the surface.
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