The orbiter of China’s Tianwen-1 Mars mission, the country’s first artificial Mars satellite,
lately sent back new images of the inspection area of the Zhurong Mars rover with a
resolution of 0.5 meters when it traveled past the area again at the periareion, the point in the
orbit that is closest to Mars. Track marks left by the Mars rover are clearly visible in the
pictures.
On March 7, the orbiter also captured images of the Perseverance Mars rover sent by the U.S.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
China’s Tianwen-1 Mars probe conducted precise braking near Mars and successfully entered
orbit around the red planet on Feb. 10, 2021. Then, on May 15, 2021, it touched down at its
pre-selected landing area on the northern hemisphere of Mars. Seven days later, the Zhurong
Mars rover drove down from its landing platform to the Martian surface to search for signs of
water and life.
As of March 24, 2022, the Tianwen-1 orbiter had been operating in orbit for 609 days at a
distance of 277 million kilometers from Earth, and the Zhurong Mars rover had worked on
the surface of Mars for 306 Martian days and traveled over 1.78 kilometers. Both the Mars
orbiter and rover are functioning normally.
Zhurong also sent back selfies from Mars. Compared with the images taken shortly after it
landed on the planet, the new photos showed a thin layer of dust had accumulated on its
surface.
Considering that dust can reduce rovers’ power supplies, Chinese scientists specially designed
the rover’s solar wing so that it can take multiple measures to offset the decline in its power
generation efficiency caused by dust coverage.
The China National Space Administration said there is no need to employ such measures yet
as the rover has sufficient energy to continue its exploration on Mars.
The Martian northern hemisphere is entering the autumn season, during which there will be
frequent dust storms, as previous Mars exploration data suggested.
The engineering team of the Tianwen-1 mission has been constantly monitoring dust storms
on Mars through images captured by the medium-resolution camera of the Tianwen-1 orbiter,
which has detected dust activities above 60-degree latitude north of Mars since late January
this year.
Pictures sent back by the orbiter showed that a local sandstorm occurred in this area in
February 2022, during which typical surface features of the red planet were covered by a large
amount of sand and dust and became indistinguishable.
According to the administration, no obvious dusty weather has been observed in the Zhurong
rover’s inspection area.
So far, countries across the world have launched over 50 Mars probes, among which only 18
successfully landed on the planet, including Tianwen-1.
The orbiter of Tianwen-1 will continuously carry out remote sensing of Mars, focusing on
obtaining high-resolution images of craters, volcanoes, canyons, dry riverbeds and other
typical landforms and geological units.
By around 2030, China will carry out asteroid exploration, Mars sample return, Jupiter system
exploration and other missions, with Mars exploration as the main task, according to the
overall planning of the Planetary Exploration of China (PEC).
