"Tianwen-1" has submitted its homework! Please check it

The reporter learned from the National Space Administration that as of today (June 29), the orbiter and rover of the Tianwen-1 mission have completed their established scientific exploration missions. The orbiter of the Tianwen-1 mission has flown normally for 706 days, acquired medium-resolution image data covering the entire planet of Mars, and all scientific payloads have achieved global exploration of Mars.

The Tianwen-1 probe was successfully launched on July 23, 2020. After 202 days of deep space flight and a distance of 475 million kilometers, it rendezvoused with Mars on February 10, 2021, and successfully implemented capture braking to enter the orbit around Mars. After a three-month detailed investigation of the pre-selected landing area, the Tianwen-1 probe successfully landed on Mars on May 15. On May 22, the Zhurong Mars rover successfully drove onto the surface of Mars and began patrol exploration.

On August 15, 2021, the Zhurong Mars rover successfully completed the 90-day scientific exploration mission and continued to carry out the expansion exploration mission, having traveled a total of 1,921.5 meters on the surface of Mars. Affected by the severe cold and dust weather in the landing area in winter, the rover entered the winter hibernation mode on May 18, 2022 as designed. Around December 2022, the Zhurong landing area will enter the early spring season, and normal work will resume after the environmental conditions improve.

The orbiter has circled Mars 1,344 times, achieving global coverage, and is currently in normal condition. In the future, it will continue to carry out global remote sensing detection, and conduct expansion technology experiments at an appropriate time to carry out preliminary technical verification for related tasks.

After nearly two years of flight and exploration, the 13 scientific payloads of the Mars rover and orbiter have obtained about 1,040 GB of raw scientific data. After ground reception and processing, the standard scientific data products are submitted to the scientist team for analysis and interpretation on a monthly basis. The relevant scientific results have been published in well-known academic journals at home and abroad. These scientific data will be opened to scientists around the world at an appropriate time. Scientists around the world are welcome to actively apply for research and jointly promote human exploration of the universe.

In the spirit of openness and sharing, the National Space Administration actively promotes cooperation with space agencies and scientific communities of various countries, shares orbital data of its Mars orbiter with NASA and ESA, and conducts collision warning cooperation; the Zhurong Mars rover conducts data relay communication experiments with the Mars Express orbiter of the European Space Agency, realizing the China-Europe Mars science data relay cooperation; before and after the solar eclipse of Mars, the Tianwen-1 orbiter and the Mars Express orbiter are used to jointly conduct occultation observations of the sun and conduct scientific research on solar wind with observatories in Russia, Germany, Italy, Australia, South Africa and other countries. These collaborations have achieved good results, enriched human knowledge, and made positive contributions to building a community with a shared future for mankind in the field of science.

Mars images recently taken by Tianwen-1

The orbiter's center camera captured images of Mount Askla, which has a diameter of 456km and a height of 18km. The images show the crater features on the top of Mount Askla, and there have been multiple crater collapse events.

The orbiter's center camera took images of the Antarctic ice cap, which showed the Martian South Pole polar cap. Studies have shown that the long-term and permanent polar caps at both poles of Mars are mainly composed of dry ice (solid carbon dioxide) and water ice.

The center camera of the orbiter captured images of the western landforms of the Mariner Canyon. The Mariner Canyon extends more than 4,000 km from east to west, is 150-700 km wide from north to south, and can reach a maximum depth of 7 km.

The orbiter's center camera captured images of impact craters in the Arabian Highlands, showing the geomorphic features of dozens of impact craters distributed in the area.

The orbiter's high-resolution camera captured images of the edge of the Maunder crater with a spatial resolution of about 0.5 m. The diameter of the crater is about 91 km. The image shows the geomorphic features of the rim of the Maunder crater. The lower left part of the image is the interior of the crater, where the rim can be seen collapsing significantly into the crater.

"Zhurong" took images of the patrol area. The images were taken before the rover entered winter hibernation, showing the local features of a sand dune landform in the patrol area.

Source: Science Popularization China WeChat Official Account