The Chinese Tianwen-1 spacecraft snapped its first image of Mars while the mission made its final approach; the sin will orbit the Red Planet in less than a week.
The China National Space Administration (CNSA) released the image on February 5, showing that the powerful high-resolution camera on the Tianwen-1 spacecraft is working properly.
The image of the gray scale was captured at a distance of 1.36 million miles (2.2 million kilometers) from Mars, according to CNSA.
Related: China’s Tianwen-1 Mars mission on photos
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A marked version of the image indicates the location of striking features displayed, namely Acidalia Planitia (1), Chryse Planitia (2), Meridiani Planum (3), Schiaparelli Crater (4) and Valles Marineris (5).
Tianwen-1, a combined orbit and rover, has since closed on the Red Planet and was 1.1 million km away on Friday. The spacecraft is expected to enter Mars orbit on Wednesday (February 10). The five-ton spaceship will burn some of its engines to slow down the vehicle so that it can be captured by Mars’ gravity.
CNSA also stated that Tianwen-1 completed a fourth orbital correction maneuver on February 5 at 07:00 EST (1200 GMT, 20:00 Beijing time) to ensure that the spacecraft is on course to enter the Mars orbit go.
During its 197 days in space, the spacecraft traveled 289 million miles (465 million km) and was approximately 184 million miles (184 million km) from Earth during the correction of the orbit. All of the spacecraft’s systems are in good working order, CNSA said.
The large distance between Earth and Tianwen-1 means a delay of about 10 minutes. This means that the spacecraft must execute commands to start the brake firing on its own, with instructions sent in advance from the Beijing Aerospace Control Center.
After entering its orbit, Tianwen-1 will begin preparing for a mission landing attempt. The orbit will launch the candidate’s main landing site in the enormous impact basin Utopia Planitia, south of NASA’s Viking 2 landing site, images, ready for a landing attempt in May.
China is currently holding a 40-day public vote to choose the name for its Mars rover. The three most popular names will be sent to the committee for final selection.
If the approximately 530 lbs. (240 kilograms) powered by solar, land safely, it will investigate the surface soil properties and potential distribution of water ice with its Subsurface Exploration Radar instrument. The wanderer also has panoramic and multispectral cameras and instruments to analyze the composition of rocks.
Meanwhile, the Tianwen-1 orbit will study the surface of the Red Planet with medium- and high-resolution cameras and a sounding radar, and perform other detections with a magnetometer and particle detectors.
Tianwen-1 was launched in July and will arrive on Mars a day after the United Arab Emirates’ Hope mission and a week ahead of NASA’s Perseverance Rover.
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