China completes the objectives of its first mission to Mars

June 30. () –

China has completed the specific scientific exploration missions of the Tianwen-1 probe orbiter and rover, first on Mars of the Asian giant.

As of Wednesday, the Tianwen-1 orbiter has been operating normally for 706 days. It has acquired the medium-resolution image data covering the entire globe of Mars, with all its scientific payloads conducting a global survey, added the China National Space Administration (CNSA), quoted by Xinhua.

Until now, the orbiter has circled Mars 1,344 times. For future missions, it will continue to conduct the remote sensing survey around the world and expand technology experiments.

The Tianwen-1 probe consists of an orbiter, a lander and a Zhurong rover.. On May 15, 2021, it touched down at its preselected landing area on Utopia Planitia, a vast Martian plain, marking the first time China has landed a probe on the planet.

The Zhurong rover began patrolling Mars on May 22, 2021.

As of August 15, 2021, Zhurong had completed the designed 90 Martian-day mission and was continuing to work toward further exploration.

THE ROVER WILL BE WORKING AGAIN IN DECEMBER

Having traveled about 1,921.5 meters above the surface of Mars, Zhurong switched to sleep mode on May 18 this year due to the cold winter and dusty weather on the Red Planet. It will be back in operation around this December when working conditions improve.

After two years of flight and exploration, the rover and orbiter have acquired 1,040 gigabytes of raw science data. with its 13 scientific payloads on board.