After reaching the Martian orbit, China’s Tianwen-1 mission reached a major milestone and successfully mapped the entire planet. The spacecraft has captured images ranging from the poles of Mars to surface features, valleys and craters after orbiting the planet more than 1,300 times in the space of just one year.
The spacecraft was successfully put into an orbit around Mars in February 2021 in China’s first attempt at an interplanetary mission. Chinese scientists not only managed to enter Mars orbit on the first attempt, but also landed a rover on the Red Planet and got around.
The images taken from space were China’s first pictures of Mars’ south pole, where almost all of the planet’s water resources are locked up. In 2018, an orbiting probe operated by the European Space Agency discovered water beneath the ice of the planet’s south pole.
An image of Mars taken by China’s Tianwen-1 unmanned probe shows the crater surface. (Photo: CNSA)
Other Tianwen-1 images include photographs of the 4,000-kilometre (2,485 mi) long valley Wallace Marineris, and the impact craters of the highlands north of Mars known as Arabia Terra. According to details released by the Chinese space agency, the orbiter has insured high-resolution imagery of the edge of the giant Maunder crater as well as a top-to-bottom view of the 18,000-metre (59,055-foot) Ascraeus Mons. A large shield volcano was first detected by NASA’s Mariner 9 spacecraft more than five decades ago.
The orbiter is orbiting the planet three times every Martian day or Seoul while relaying communications between Earth and the Zurong rover on the ground. Chinese engineers increased the orbiter’s speed to 78 meters per second and shifted the time of orbit around the planet in November 2021 to begin a mapping campaign.
Prior to the change in orbit, the orbiter was primarily responsible for the relay communication function of the Zurong rover. The remote sensing mission will help China develop a comprehensive topographic model of the Red Planet as the search for life on the surface continues.
An image of Mars taken by China’s Tianwen-1 unmanned probe. (Photo: CNSA)
While the orbiter is flying over the planet, the Zurong rover is in the large plains within the largest known impact basin in the Solar System. The robot weighing 240 kg is the main component of the Tianwen-1 mission. It is the sixth rover to visit the surface of Mars, after five from the United States.
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