The Chinese rover on Mars is likely to attempt to land on northeast Mars, according to a new document released a few days before the mission launched.
The paper, which was published last week in the journal Nature Astronomy, written through team members of the Chinese Tianwen-1 Mars project, which aims to send an orbiting duo and a lander/rover to the red planet.
The exam shows new main points about Tianwen-1, which describes its planned landing zone, clinical objectives and tool names aboard the spacecraft. It also highlights the ancient nature of the project: Tianwen-1 China is not only the first local project on Mars, but also the first to bring a planetary orbiter and a rover. (The first Chinese spacecraft of its kind on Mars, an orbiter named Yinghuo-1, was introduced to a Russian rocket with the Russian Phobos-Grunt project in November 2011. The launch failed and all the spacecraft on board nevertheless returned to Earth.)
Related: This is the Chinese mars explorer’s first launch in 2020
Tianwen-1 means “questions to heaven” and taken from the name of a poem through Qu Yuan (340-278 aC). The project is expected to be presented on a Long March 5 rocket last July or early August from Wenchang on Hainan Island, according to the newspaper. Current unofficial estimates recommend a release around July 23.
The ship will succeed on Mars in February 2021, along with NASA’s Perseverance rover and the United Arab Emirates’ Hope orbiter, which was unveiled on Sunday, July 19. However, the Chinese rover will remain attached to the orbiter for two or three months before making an attempt to land, according to the newspaper.
The selected landing zone is Utopia Planitia, a huge primary-shaped basin that had an effect on the history of Mars that was also the region where NASA’s Viking 2 airstrip landed in 1976. According to the spaces explained in previous landing zones statements, China had a remote component of the vast plain as a candidate landing zone, ranging from Isidis Planitia to the giant volcano Elysium Mons.
Low domain elevation means there will be more time and environment for the input spacecraft to slow down and safely descend to the surface. Latitude, between about 20 and 30 degrees north, is also suitable for receiving enough sunlight to force about 530 pounds. (240 kilograms) rover. The elegant surface will also be suitable for wick. The project also benefits from the technical legacy of Chang’e’s lunar exploration program in China, the newspaper notes.
The rover is expected to run for about 90 Martian days, or soils, and is almost twice the mass of the Chinese Rover Yutu-2, which lately finds itself on its twentieth lunar day on the other side of the moon. The Tianwen-1 orbiter will provide a relay communication link with the mobile while making its own clinical observations in a Martian year, according to the document. (A floor is approximately 40 minutes longer than a Earth day. A Martian year is equivalent to 687 Earth days).
The orbiter will operate in a polar orbit to map the morphology and geological design of Mars, while it will also be the underground exploration radar tool orbiting Mars to examine soil characteristics and water ice distribution. It will also measure the ionosphere and electromagnetic and gravitational fields, the new article reported.
The vehicle will explore the characteristics of the soil and the distribution of water ice with its own underground scanning radar. It will also analyze the composition of the surface tissues and the characteristics of the Martian climate and the surface environment.
One of the paper’s authors was Wan Weixing, the chief scientist for Tianwen-1. Wan died in May, just a couple of months before the coming launch. He is described as a world-leading space scientist and a pioneer in China’s planetary science program in an obituary published last month, also by Nature Astronomy. His given name, Weixing, literally means “satellite.”
As well as detailing his career in space, science and academia, the obituary gives insight into Wan’s other interests. He often stayed up late to watch English Premier League or Italian Serie A soccer matches, sometimes causing him trouble in getting to academic meetings the next morning, obituary author Yong Wei recalls.
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