"First experience of the Martian workplace": "Tianwen No. 1" what "unique skills" have been practiced in one year?

The development process of "Tianwen-1" (data map) Courtesy of the Eighth Academy of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation

China News Online Hai, February 10, 2019 Title: "The First Experience of the Martian Workplace": "Tianwen No. 1" What "Unique Skills" Have Been Practiced in One Year?

Reporter Zheng Yingying

China is the second country in the world to successfully soft land on Mars. The Tianwen-1 probe successfully implemented brake capture on February 10 last year, and then entered orbit around Mars, becoming China's first artificial Mars satellite, thus embarking on the "Mars workplace".

In the blink of an eye, "Tianwen-1" has been "working" on Mars for a year. This year, it has developed a lot of "workplace skills" on Mars.

"Looking from afar" and "looking up" operate at the same time is different from other countries' models

Chu Yingzhi, deputy commander-in-chief of the Tianwen-1 Mars Orbiter of the Eighth Academy of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, told in an interview with a reporter from China News Network that one of the characteristics of "Tianwen-1" is that the sky and the ground can be detected at the same time; there is an orbiter in the sky, and there is a Zhurong Mars rover on the surface of Mars.

He said that other countries' Mars explorations are "shifting" at different times, and "even if the same place is observed, there may be some changes at different times." The 'simultaneous detection' model is expected to yield more scientific discoveries. ”

According to reports, the orbiter has completed the shooting of part of mars, and is currently running in an elliptical orbit, the nearest place is about 400 kilometers from the surface of Mars, and the farthest place is 10,000 kilometers away from the surface of Mars. The Zhurong rover traveled about 1.5 kilometers.

Chu Yingzhi said that the "simultaneous exploration" mode of the two refers to: For example, after the orbiter photographed the mars world, it felt that there was a discovery, if the Zhurong rover was not far away, you could drive over to see, a "far look", a "close look", and cooperate to make "double observations".

In general, the "Tianwen-1" exploration mission to Mars has two: engineering, mainly to achieve the technical ability to reach Mars, land on Mars and mars surface inspection and exploration; scientifically, China should obtain first-hand Mars scientific data, including taking pictures of mars globally, exploring the material composition of Mars surface, Mars topography, and surrounding space environment.

Senior "orbit change master" to change the orbit ring "shoot" Mars

The Tianwen-1 probe consists of an orbiter and a landing rover, which in turn includes the Zhurong rover and the entry module.

The orbiter is already a veteran "track change master" and has undergone many track adjustments. Chu Yingzhi said that after landing on Mars, the orbiter should maintain communication with the Zhurong rover, and there is a "big antenna" between the orbiter and the Zhurong rover, and the scientific data "curve" obtained by the "Zhurong" will be transmitted back to the earth through the "relay method".

But the orbiter is not always in the "relay orbit", after completing the phase task, it "promoted", changing the orbit to the "remote sensing orbit".

Chu Yingzhi said that the current orbiter is about 8 hours around Mars. In the remote sensing orbit, the Tianwen-1 orbiter can not only properly take into account the "relay mission" of zhurong, but also carry out global coverage exploration of Mars, that is, photograph the entire Mars.

He said that this "global photography" is different from the "turn around and shoot the panorama" that the public may understand, and the pictures taken by the Tianwen-1 surroundor are taken one by one, and then spliced together one by one, and it is also necessary to check whether there are any places that have not been photographed, and if there is a "seam" between the pictures and the pictures, they have to make up for the shooting.

He said that there are two resolution cameras on the orbiter, medium resolution cameras are responsible for taking pictures of the Mars globe, and high-resolution cameras are based on the former, deeply shooting some areas of interest to scientists to obtain more detailed and clearer pictures. (End)