Mars: China Mars Rover "zhurong" is coming
Tianwen-1, China's first autonomous Mars exploration probe, was launched on July 23, 2020 at Wenchang space launch site in Hainan Province and sent to Mars by Long March 5 yao-4 carrier rocket. After flying for seven months, it arrived near Mars in February 2021 and entered the Mars orbit on February 10. When will tianwen-1 land on Mars?
Tianwen-1 is China's first Mars exploration mission. It will break through the key technologies of Mars circling, landing and patrol exploration, and realize the three steps of "circling, landing and patrol" of Mars exploration at one time. Now it has been orbiting Mars for three months in near fire orbit, observing and exploring the geological surface and atmosphere of Mars, and the circling mission has been basically realized, The next step is to carry out the mission of "landing" and "patrol", but only after landing successfully can we carry out the patrol, so the mission of landing on Mars and landing on the surface of Mars is very important.
When will tianwen-1 land on Mars? First of all, we have to correct a common sense mistake in this sentence, that is, the probe that lands on Mars according to the plan is not tianwen-1, but the lander it carries. When the lander lands on the surface of Mars, the main body of tianwen-1 will actually orbit around Mars. When the lander lands on the surface of Mars, It will also release a rover that can walk around the surface of Mars. This rover has been named "zhurong".
At the time when tianwen-1 entered Mars orbit, China's space Department had already said that the lander would land on Mars in May this year. Now it has entered the middle of May, so in terms of time schedule, tianwen-1 is actually making preparations before landing.
Since its entry into Mars orbit in February 2021, tianwen-1 has been orbiting Mars in near fire orbit, and all kinds of Mars exploration work have been carried out at the same time, such as collecting Mars meteorological data, scanning the surface of Mars, photographing and exploring the predetermined landing site, and looking for the most suitable landing location. Now, the landing location is likely to have been basically determined. A professional named Edgar Kaiser said that the current orbit period of tianwen-1 around Mars through radio exploration is 49 hours, 14 minutes and 45 seconds, which is the length of two Martian days, and tianwen-1 will fly over the same area every time it reaches the point of near fire, Therefore, it is believed that the place below the near fire point is the confirmed place for the lander to land on Mars and for the inspection of the zhurong spacecraft. However, the longitude and latitude coordinates of the near fire point on Mars are not given. According to the original report, this place is likely to be the utopian plateau of the northern hemisphere of Mars.
According to the relevant information, Mr. Niu estimated that in the next 10 days, when the landing conditions are met, the landing order will be issued to tianwen-1. At that time, tianwen-1 will adjust its attitude, and the lander will enter the Martian atmosphere. After the speed is reduced by 90%, the parachute will be opened, and the parachute will be dropped when it reaches the height of about 100 meters from the Martian surface, The large thrust reverser engine carried by the lander starts to slow down further and search for the best landing place on the ground. When it approaches the ground, the speed will be reduced to nearly 0 meters per second, and it will hover or take off to avoid obstacles and land on the flattest ideal ground. After landing, the thrust reverser engine will shut down and the lander will start self-test and turn on the solar panel. If everything is normal, about half an hour later, the "zhurong" rover will be released to the surface of Mars.
Next is the performance time of "zhurong", which will become China's first "Mars messenger" to reach the surface of Mars and complete China's first scientific research mission on the surface of Mars. If these actions can be successfully implemented, China will become the second country in the world after the United States to land on the surface of Mars and carry out Mars surface inspection.
Mr. Li of gmtlight Technology Department said that zhurong used a lot of high-tech materials and technologies, and many product manufacturing industries paid close attention to it. If a good product has aerospace high-tech cooperation, it will win users and the market.
