China’s first homegrown Mars mission, Tianwen-1, launched today to its launch pad at the Wenchang Space Launch Center in southern China’s Hainan Province (July 17).
A Largo March-5 The rocket will launch Tianwen-1 in late July or early August, according to the China National Space Administration. It is speculated that takeoff is scheduled for July 23, the opening of the launch window.
It took about two hours to vertically transport the Long March-5 and its precious payload to the downtown launch area on Friday morning, the state of China. Xinhua News Agency reported. The launch team will conduct final tests on the rocket before takeoff.
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The Long March-5 has a handful of experimental launches to its credit, but the takeoff of Tianwen-1 will mark the rocket’s operational debut, the Xinhua story added. The rocket is expected to send Tianwen-1 into an Earth-Mars transfer orbit, another first for March 5 long.
Tianwen-1 is ambitious, aiming to complete orbit, landing, and travel in a single mission, and obtain scientific exploration data on the Red Planet.
“Test of all the technical elements in the rocket, the Mars the rover and launch area have been completed so far, “Li Benqi, a command member for the March 5 launch mission, told Central China Television (CCTV).” While the rocket is in the launch area, our preparations are focused on filling fuel in the rocket and ensuring a good end condition of the rocket and rover. Then we’ll go into the launch procedures. “
Ge Xiaochun, chief engineer at the China National Space Administration, told CCTV: “The Mars probe is the first step in China’s planetary exploration project. The upcoming launch mission has been highly recognized and supported by the international community “
Ge said that “the vertical transport of the rocket to the launch area has shown that we have made good preparations for the launch mission. We will remain in a strict and careful working attitude for the next few days.”
Long Lehao, an expert on carrier rockets at the Chinese Academy of Vehicle Launch Technology, told CCTV: “The rocket will simultaneously transport the orbiter, lander, and rover from Mars into space. Such a comprehensive launch mission for the Mars exploration will also be the first in the world, so we look forward to it. “
You can see the launch in this CGTN video.
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Candidate landing site: Utopia Planitia
A new Nature Astronomy article, “China’s first mission to Mars“, describes details about Tianwen-1, including:
- The Tianwen-1 probe has a mass (including fuel) of approximately 5 tons.
- The orbiter will provide a relay communication link to the rover, while making its own scientific observations during a Martian year. The orbit during the scientific observation stage is a polar elliptical orbit that measures 165 miles by 746 miles (265 by 12,000 kilometers).
- Tianwen-1 is expected to reach Mars around February 2021, and the scientific observation phase will begin in April 2021.
- The lander / rover will make a soft landing on the Martian surface two to three months after the arrival of the spacecraft, with a candidate landing site in Utopia Planitia. This is the Martian region where NASA Viking 2 lander It landed on September 3, 1976.
13 scientific instruments
The approximately 530 pounds. (240 kilograms) of solar powered rover is almost double the mass of China Yutu Lunar Rovers and is expected to be operational for about 90 Martian days. (A Martian day, or sun, is approximately 40 minutes longer than an Earth day.)
There are 13 science charges on the Tianwen-1 mission in total.
The seven instruments on board the orbiter are two cameras, the Mars orbiting subsurface scanning radar, the Mars mineralogy spectrometer, the Mars magnetometer, the Mars ion and neutral particle analyzer, and the energy particle analyzer. from Mars.
The six instruments installed in the rover are the multispectral camera, the terrain camera, the Mars-Rover subsurface exploration radar, the Mars surface composition detector, the Mars magnetic field detector and the Mars meteorology monitor .
Comprehensive mission
According to the authors of the new article, “Tianwen-1 will orbit, land, and launch a rover all on the first attempt, and will coordinate observations with an orbiter. No planetary mission has been implemented in this manner. If successful, it would mean a breakthrough. Scientifically, Tianwen-1 is the most comprehensive mission to investigate the morphology, geology, mineralogy, space environment, and distribution of ice and water on Mars. “
China developed a probe from Mars before Tianwen-1, an orbiter called Yinghuo-1 that launched with the Russian mission Phobos-Grunt in November 2011. Phobos-Grunt suffered a lunch failure and never left Earth orbit.
Leonard David is the author of “Moon Rush: The New Space Race,” which was published by National Geographic in May 2019. David, a longtime writer for Space.com, has been reporting on the space industry for more than five decades. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook. This version of the story posted on Space.com.
