After NASA's recent Red Planning landing, China's Tianwen-1 is next in line, and the space agency recently shared how it will attempt to touch down on Mars.
Firstpost reported that for the first couple of months of 2021, the atmosphere on Mars was buzzy with new visitors from this planet. First, it was the Hope probe of the UAE Space Agency, followed by the Chinese Tianwen-1 to enter orbit.
Most recently, NASA touched down the largest-ever rover on the Red Planet, as well as its companion, an ingenious helicopter, both of which have been creating new milestones ever since.
As earlier mentioned, Mars' next visitor, Tianwen-1 mission's lander, will attempt to reach the Red Planet's surface in mid-May. To go into the Martian atmosphere, it will use a somewhat different approach to previous missions.
Mars Landing
Orbiters are intended to monitor the surface of a planet from orbit and function as a communications relay station.
When reaching the planet, the spacecraft is typically directed along consecutively smaller oblique orbits, slowing down every time until it approaches its aimed orbit.
This strategy can be used as well to lower the spacecraft's orbit ahead of the atmospheric entry of a lander.
The whole entire maneuver takes place over a couple of months and does not need any extra equipment, an effective way to save fuel.
Since it uses the upper atmosphere of the planet to apply brakes, the method is called "aerobraking." Essentially, aerobraking has been applied for various Mars missions, including ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, described in the European Space Agency website as a pioneer in the series of Mars missions to be carried out jointly by ESA and Roscosmos, as well as the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Rover 'Zhurong'
Specifically, the next Mars mission is the Chinese Tianwen-1 rover landing. What has been described as the ambitious mission has orbiting, roving, and landing components, the initial mission to comprise all three on its initial attempt.
It has already been encircling Mars since it got into the orbit of the Red Planet in February this year and will attempt to land its rover Zhurong which, according to this report, means 'fire got,' in the middle of May.
Zhurong is falling between Spirit and the Perseverance in terms of size, and it is transporting six pieces of scientific machines and apparatus.
After the touchdown, Zhurong will be surveying the surroundings to examine the soils of Mars, geomorphology, and the atmosphere, and will search for signs of the subsurface water ice.
Customarily, the Chinese authorities are not revealing too much information before the event. Nonetheless, based on the mission's early overview by some Chinese scientists, it is now known that the landing sequence the spacecraft is attempting to follow.
May 17 Space Event
Come May 17, Zhurong, shielded by an aeroshell, a protective shell surrounding the spacecraft that comprises the heat shield, will go into the atmosphere at a four-kilometer-per-second speed.
When it's slowing down enough, parachutes will be set out. In the sequence's last phase, rockets with variable thrust engines will be applied for additional deceleration.
Opposite its American counterpart, Tianwen-1, described by Space.com as China's pioneering "independent interplanetary mission, is employing two dependable technologies, a laser range finder to work out where it is comparative to Martian territory, as well as a microwave sensor to identify its speed more precisely.
These will be utilized for navigational modification during its parachuted descent stage. Meanwhile, during the powered descent stage at the end, optical and Lidar imaging will support hazard detection.
Finally, before the landing, an automated avoidance sequence will start for a soft touchdown. If successful, China will be considered the pioneering nation to land a rover on the Red Planet in its initial attempt. A couple of days following that, Zhurong will be all set to explore the surface.
The related report is shown on CGTN's YouTube video below:
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