China is about to try a high-stakes landing on Mars

[mood]

China is about to try a high-stakes landing on Mars

Tianwen-1, China’s first mission to orbit the red planet, is set to release a rover called Zhurong on a harrowing descent to the surface.

 

China's Mars landing platform and Zhurong rover are seen in an illustration released in 2016 by the Chinese State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense. The rover is named after the god of fire in ancient Chinese mythology, which echoes the Chinese name of the red planet, Huoxing, meaning the planet of fire.

ILLUSTRATION BY XINHUA VIA GETTY IMAGES

 

China is all set to attempt its first landing on another planet. After months in orbit around Mars, the Tianwen-1 spacecraft will deposit a rover called Zhurong on the surface of Mars. If successful, China will become the second country in history to explore the Martian surface with a rover.

 

Tianwen-1 arrived at Mars on February 10, marking the arrival of China’s first independent interplanetary mission. Since then, Tianwen-1 has been making close approaches to Mars every 49 hours as it flies in an elliptical orbit around the planet, each time taking high-resolution images of the landing site in Utopia Planitia, a vast plain that may once have been covered by an ancient Martian ocean.

 

Chinese officials have said the landing attempt would take place in mid-to-late May, and a report on Twitter quoted Ye Peijian of the China Association for Science and Technology saying the landing will take place on May 14 at 7:11 p.m. ET. This aligns with estimates from amateur radio astronomers tracking the spacecraft.

 

Landing zone

China’s Tianwen-1 is targeting the

broad, flat expanse of Utopia Planitia

as its landing site.

Matthew W. Chwastyk, NGM Staff

Sources: NASA/JPL; CNSA/PEC

 

Mission scientists have been analyzing the topography and geology of Utopia Planitia to guide the spacecraft’s landing attempt, and if they decide not to attempt a landing on May 14, they will have additional opportunities on May 16 and May 18. 

 

Named for an ancient Chinese fire god, the 529-pound Zhurong rover is similar in size to NASA’s Spirit and Opportunity rovers, which landed on the red planet in 2004 and sent back exciting images and data about the planet’s surface conditions. China’s rover could make additional important discoveries concerning water and past habitability on the planet, paving the way for future human missions to Mars.

“Landing safely on Mars is a huge challenge, especially for China's first soft landing attempt,” says Long Xiao, a planetary scientist at the China University of Geosciences. “But it is a necessary step for Mars and deep-space exploration.”

A harrowing descent

Successfully descending to the surface of Mars is an extraordinary challenge. Only NASA has safely landed and operated spacecraft on the Martian surface; in 1971, the Soviet Mars 3 lander transmitted half of a photo before falling silent about 100 seconds into the mission. By landing and roving on Mars, China hopes to jump ahead of a number of spacefaring peers.

 

But first, the Zhurong rover must make it through the so-called “seven minutes of terror,” the time from atmospheric entry to landing on the surface. The China National Space Administration (CNSA) can only watch the autonomous landing unfold from nearly 200 million miles away—so far away that it takes 18 minutes to receive a signal from Mars—and hope everything goes to plan.

 

Zhurong sits attached to its orbiter companion, encased in an aeroshell designed to protect the vehicle on its way through the Martian atmosphere. After it gets released and endures a fiery atmospheric entry, a huge parachute will deploy to further slow the rover’s descent.

 

Then a landing platform holding the rover will fire up rocket engines to make the final descent to the surface. A laser range finder and 3D scanner will provide altitude and terrain data while cameras are used to autonomously choose a place to land. 

 

As part of its Chang'e-3 mission to the moon, China successfully set down a robotic lander and deployed its first lunar rover in 2013.
PHOTO MOSAIC BY CHINESE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, CHINA NATIONAL SPACE ADMINISTRATION, THE SCIENCE AND APPLICATION CENTER FOR MOON AND DEEPSPACE EXPLORATION, EMILY LAKDAWALLA OF THE PLANETARY SOCIETY AND ANDREW BODROV, VIA GETTY IMAGES
 

Mars is significantly harder to land on than the moon, says Michel Blanc at the Research Institute in Astrophysics and Planetology in France. But China has had a series of successful lunar missions that bode well for the Mars landing. Chang’e-4, history’s first landing on the lunar far side in 2019, required “high technological capacity” in artificial intelligence and autonomous hazard avoidance, Blanc notes. As well, the rocket engines on Zhurong are similar to those China used to safely land three spacecraft on the moon.

 

Those technologies, along with the supersonic parachutes China has used to return astronauts from Earth orbit in space capsules, set up CNSA to make the attempt at a Martian touchdown.

A new rover on Mars

Once Zhurong’s six wheels roll off the landing platform and onto the Martian dust, the rover will expand its foldable, butterfly-like solar panels and explore the area for a primary mission lasting three months. The vehicle could work well beyond this conservative goal however—the solar-powered Spirit and Opportunity rovers had primary missions of about 90 days, and they each ended up exploring Mars for years.

 

Utopia Planitia, thought to be the site of an ancient sea, has sedimentary layers that could contain evidence of past water. Even more exciting, these layers of rock could contain traces of any past life on Mars, says James Head III, a planetary scientist at Brown University.

“Because the pre-selected landing site is close to an ancient ocean shoreline, and distinct from others, the science data will uncover more secrets of Mars,” Long says. The site compliments the research being carried out by NASA’s Curiosity and Perseverance rovers in the ancient lakes of Gale and Jezero craters, respectively, Head adds.

 

The Zhurong rover carries a suite of six instruments. A pair of panoramic cameras and a multispectral imager will provide information about the terrain and its composition, while an instrument with a laser will vaporize rocks to analyze their makeup, similar to the laser spectrometers aboard Curiosity and Perseverance. A magnetometer will measure magnetic fields in tandem with an instrument on the orbiter, and a climate station will measure the local atmosphere, temperature, pressure, wind, and sound on Mars.

 

One of the most exciting instruments aboard the rover, however, is a ground-penetrating radar, which will be used to search for pockets of water or ice below the surface. Head notes that NASA’s Viking 2 lander, which set down in a region slightly north of Zhurong’s landing site in 1975, imaged fascinating phenomena, including ice contractions and frosts on the surface of Mars, and polygon patterned terrain which may have been created by contractions of subsurface ice with changing seasons.

 

Zhurong’s ground-penetrating radar will ping the surface with two different frequencies and pick up echo data from layers below, peering down to 33 feet to search for ices or briny waters underground.

“Tianwen-1 is likely to be able to explore and detect any subsurface snow and ice using its payload,” Head says. Such pockets of ice could prove valuable for future crewed missions, and any pockets of water or brine, shielded from radiation on the surface, may provide habitats for simple lifeforms.

The next chapter of Chinese space exploration

China will openly share the data from Tianwen-1 and Zhurong the same way it has shared data from its lunar exploration missions, Long says, benefiting planetary scientists around the world.

 

The mission will also set the stage for China’s next planned voyage to Mars—an audacious sample-return attempt scheduled to launch around 2028. Beyond Mars, the country has plans to launch a Jupiter probe, including a possible landing on the moon Callisto, to collect samples from a near-Earth asteroid, and to send a pair of Voyager-like spacecraft toward the edges of the solar system.

“In the age of ocean exploration, China has a history of Zheng He's voyages to Southeast Asia and Africa,” says Zhang Xiaoping, associate professor at the State Key Laboratory of Lunar and Planetary Sciences of the Macau University of Science and Technology, referring to early 15th-century expeditions. Zhang views China’s Mars mission as a continuation of these Ming Dynasty journeys.

 

Tianwen-1 and Zhurong, he says, are ”of great significance for studying the unknown universe, stimulating the scientific enthusiasm of young people, stimulating the creativity of the whole country, enhancing the ability to explore the unknown, and expanding the living space of humanity.”

 

 

Source: China is about to try a high-stakes landing on Mars

[Karlston]

China has successfully landed on Mars [Updated]

China has become only the second nation to make a soft landing on the red planet.

Enlarge / Photo taken on Dec. 4, 2020, shows the model of China's first Mars probe Tianwen-1 lander and Zhurong rover at the Zhejiang International Intelligent Transportation Industry Expo 2020.

Costfoto/Barcroft Media via Getty Images

10pm ET Friday Update: In what can aptly be described as a tremendous success, China has become only the second nation to soft land a spacecraft on the surface of Mars.

 

Chinese media report that the Zhurong rover is expected to roll off the lander within the next three Martian days to begin its exploration of the red planet.

 

Original post: As early as Friday evening in the United States, China will attempt to set its Tianwen-1 lander down on the surface of Mars. After weeks of speculation, the China National Space Administration confirmed that the country will seek to land the mission, including its "Zhurong" rover, sometime between 23:00 UTC on Friday, May 14 and May 19.

 

Named after an ancient fire god in Chinese mythology, the Zhurong rover has a mass of about 240 kg. This means the Chinese rover is comparable in size to the Spirit and Opportunity rovers that NASA landed on Mars in January 2004.

 

There is a lot of intrigue surrounding the high-risk mission. Before this mission, China had never sent a spacecraft to Mars. In this single spacecraft, the country packed both an orbiter and a modest-sized lander with a rover. Moreover, no country other than the United States has successfully soft-landed a spacecraft on Mars or deployed a rover. Other countries have tried and failed multiple times.

 

So will China succeed? I've informally asked experts in planetary science and missions what the chances of success are for the landing. Most of these sources are based in the United States or Europe, so they don't have deep insight into China's space program, at least not deep enough to have a probabilistic risk assessment of the landing attempt.

 

That said, the consensus among my sources is that the landing probably has slightly better than a 50 percent chance of total success, meaning the lander touches down softly and the Zhurong rover is able to wheel away and do some meaningful science. It is designed for a nominal mission of 90 days, but it may last longer.

 

The Tianwen-1 spacecraft arrived in orbit on February 10, 2021, and has spent the last three months collecting images of the area where it is due to land, the large Utopia Planitia impact basin. This relatively smooth site in the Martian mid-latitudes is where NASA landed the Viking 2 mission in 1976.

 

If Zhurong survives the entry through the Martian atmosphere using a combination of parachutes and a powered descent, it will be able to explore an interesting area that may once have been covered by an ocean. The rover will study the soil and the nature of the rocks on the surface and search for signs of water or ice below the surface with its ground-penetrating radar. The mission will also test technologies needed for a potential Mars sample return mission late in the 2020s.

 

Typically, China does not provide a live feed or video of its space operations. Given the high-profile nature of the Zhurong landing, that may change with this mission. This post will be updated if a feed becomes available.

 

 

China has successfully landed on Mars [Updated]

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< View nine (9) photos at the source page. >

 

BEIJING (AP) — China landed a spacecraft on Mars for the first time on Saturday, a technically challenging feat more difficult than a moon landing, in the latest step forward for its ambitious goals in space.

 

Plans call for a rover to stay in the lander for a few days of diagnostic tests before rolling down a ramp to explore an area of Mars known as Utopia Planitia. It will join an American rover that arrived at the red planet in February.

 

China’s first Mars landing follows its launch last month of the main section of what will be a permanent space station and a mission that brought back rocks from the moon late last year.

 

“China has left a footprint on Mars for the first time, an important step for our country’s space exploration,” the official Xinhua News Agency said in announcing the landing on one of its social media accounts.

 

The U.S. has had nine successful landings on Mars since 1976. The Soviet Union landed on the planet in 1971, but the mission failed after the craft stopped transmitting information soon after touchdown.

 

A rover and a tiny helicopter from the American landing in February are currently exploring Mars. NASA expects the rover to collect its first sample in July for return to Earth in a decade.

 

China has landed on the moon before but landing on Mars is a much more difficult undertaking. Spacecraft use shields for protection from the searing heat of entering the Martian atmosphere, and use both retro-rockets and parachutes to slow down enough to prevent a crash landing. The parachutes and rockets must be deployed at precise times to land at the designated spot. Only mini-retro rockets are required for a moon landing, and parachutes alone are sufficient for returning to Earth.

 

Xinhua said the entry capsule entered the Mars atmosphere at an altitude of 125 kilometers (80 miles), initiating what it called “the riskiest phase of the whole mission.”

 

A 200 square meter (2,150 square foot) parachute was deployed and later jettisoned, and then a retro-rocket was fired to slow the speed of the craft to almost zero, Xinhua said. The craft hovered about 100 meters (330 feet) above the surface to identify obstacles before touching down on four buffer legs.

 

“Each step had only one chance, and the actions were closely linked. If there had been any flaw, the landing would have failed,” said Geng Yan, an official at the China National Space Administration, according to Xinhua.

 

Touchdown was at 7:18 a.m. Beijing time (23:18 Friday GMT; 7:18 p.m. EDT), although more than an hour passed before ground controllers could confirm the landing was a success, Xinhua said. The rover had to open its solar panels and antenna, and then it took more than 17 minutes for its signals to traverse the distance between Mars and Earth.

 

Chinese President Xi Jinping, in a congratulatory letter to the mission team, called the landing “an important step in our country’s interplanetary exploration journey, realizing the leap from Earth-moon to the planetary system and leaving the mark of the Chinese on Mars for the first time. ... The motherland and people will always remember your outstanding feats!”

 

NASA Associate Administrator Thomas Zurbuchen tweeted his congratulations, saying, “Together with the global science community, I look forward to the important contributions this mission will make to humanity’s understanding of the Red Planet.”

 

China’s Mars landing was the top trending topic on Weibo, a leading social media platform, as people expressed both excitement and pride.

 

The Tianwen-1 spacecraft has been orbiting Mars since February, when it arrived after a 6 1/2-month journey from Earth. Xinhua described the mission as China’s first planetary exploration.

 

The rover, named after the Chinese god of fire Zhurong, is expected to be deployed for 90 days to search for evidence of life. About the size of a small car, it has ground-penetrating radar, a laser, and sensors to gauge the atmosphere and magnetic sphere.

 

China’s space program has proceeded in a more cautious manner than the U.S. and the Soviet Union during the height of their space race.

 

The launch of the main module for China’s space station in April is the first of 11 planned missions to build and provision the station and send up a three-person crew by the end of next year. While the module was successfully launched, the uncontrolled return to Earth of the rocket drew international criticism including from NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.

 

China has said it wants to land people on the moon and possibly build a scientific base there. No timeline has been released for these projects. A space plane is also reportedly under development.

___

Associated Press researcher Henry Hou, news assistant Caroline Chen and video journalist Sam McNeil contributed to this report.

 

Source

[Karlston]

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