China’s First Mars Spacecraft Enters Orbit Around the Red Planet
BEIJING (China National Space Administration PR) — At 19:52 on February 10, 2021, China’s first Mars exploration mission, Tianwen-1, carried out near-fire capture braking. The 3000N orbital control engine of the orbiter ignited for about 15 minutes, and the probe successfully entered the near-fire altitude.
A large elliptical orbit of 400 kilometers, with a period of about 10 Earth days and an inclination of about 10º, has become my country’s first man-made Mars satellite, achieving the goal of “orbiting, landing, and patrolling.” Zhang Kejian, director of the National Space Administration and commander-in-chief of the first Mars exploration mission, announced the success of orbiting Mars.
Zhang Kejian said that in the early hours of this morning, the UAE “Hope” has successfully entered the orbit of the ring fire. I would like to congratulate the UAE colleagues and wish the U.S. “Perseverance” a successful landing on Mars in the coming days! Exploring the vast universe is the common dream of all mankind. We will cooperate sincerely and go hand in hand with countries all over the world to make mankind’s exploration of space go further. On the occasion of the New Year holiday, on behalf of the first Mars exploration mission engineering headquarters, I would like to extend Chinese New Year blessings to all the participants in the research! I hope that everyone will keep in mind General Secretary Xi Jinping’s “starting a new journey of interstellar exploration one step at a time”, and make persistent efforts, meticulous organization, and precise implementation to ensure the complete success of the “Tianwen No. 1” project mission of “circumnavigation, patrol”.
After the first Mars exploration mission entered the Mars capture phase from the ground fire transfer phase, the medium-resolution camera, high-resolution camera, magnetometer, mineral spectrum analyzer, ion and neutral particles and energy particles carried by the Tianwen-1 orbiter The payloads such as sounding instruments will continue to work to carry out multi-dimensional exploration of Mars.
Since its successful launch on July 23, 2020, the Tianwen-1 probe has accumulated 202 days of flight, completed 1 deep-space maneuver and 4 midway corrections, and had a flight mileage of approximately 475 million kilometers upon reaching Mars, and a distance of approximately 1.92 from Earth. 100 million kilometers, the one-way delay of device-to-ground communication is about 10.7 minutes, and each system is in good condition. Subsequent Tianwen-1 will undergo several orbital adjustments, enter the Mars mooring orbit, and carry out pre-selected landing zone exploration. It is planned to choose an opportunity to land on Mars from May to June 2021 and carry out inspections.
10 responses to “China’s First Mars Spacecraft Enters Orbit Around the Red Planet”
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Well, looks like we’d better hurry up if we want things to develop our way there.
Congrats to China – perhaps already better than Russia/the Soviets ever managed? I do remember off the top of my head that the Soviets had a lander that survived a few seconds on the surface, so there was probably an initial Mars orbit stage to the flight?
Both the USSR Mars 2 and Mars 3 missions left orbiters in Mars Orbit. The Mars 2 lander crashed while the Mars 3 land made a soft landing but they lost communications with it.
China is at the razor edge of exceeding the achievements of the space program of the Soviet Union.
By the time China finishes construction of their manned space station in 2022, I think it will be fair to say they arrived.
SLS delenda est
If their (China’s) Mars rover works and their space station goes into permanent operation, then they’ll at the very least be approximately on par with the Russians, Europeans and Japanese.
At that point, besides what SpaceX is doing (a big “besides”), it may well be a slo-mo race to the Moon to show who is really ahead anymore. And if we’re racing the Chinese, that’ll show that they are approximately on par with us, too.
We’ve traded our lead for jobs programs. In fairness, we were so far ahead, with no one to challenge us and many competing priorities, we’ve lacked focus.
Well, if China actually accomplishes all those things they’re working on, even if we don’t partner with them, we should probably try to get them onboard with some Artemis Accords-like agreement to share information on what operations are being conducted and respect each others’ equipment and zones of operation. They’re not gonna be just going away
Agreed on all points. But the Chinese are free to sign the Artemis Accords any old time they care to. I don’t think they care to.
where are we all racing to?
In the context of the above, a crewed (né manned) lunar landing.
In the bigger picture, probably a race toward being taken over by AI, perhaps preempted by a race towards a horrific confrontation over Taiwan
A Chinese move to grab off Taiwan is one they’d best try fairly soon while they’ve got a lapdog in the White House. I think that will prove to be a limited window of opportunity and, in all likelihood, not one they’re actually ready to try to exploit.
Maybe. In order to not be just going away, they first have to be get there and settle in. Given China’s economic and demographic challenges, that is far from a sure thing. The Russkies were great shakes in space once too. But now, whaddayaknow, they’re in the process of just going away a little at a time.
Congratulations to both China and the UAE, as their Hope also entered Mars orbit.