Tianwen-1 Mars mission

Context:

China launched the Tianwen-1 Mars rover mission.

About Tianwen-1:

It is China’s first fully home-grown Mars mission.
It was launched atop a Long March-5 carrier rocket.
It consists of an orbiter and a lander/rover duo, a combination of craft that had never before been launched together towards Mars.

News

It is especially striking given that it’s China’s first attempt at a full-on Mars mission.
China did launch a Mars orbiter called Yinghuo-1 in 2011, but the spacecraft accompanied Russia’s Phobos-Grunt mission. However, the launch failed, leaving the probes trapped in Earth's orbit.
Tianwen-1 is expected to arrive at the Red Planet in February 2021.
The lander/rover pair will touch down on the Martian surface two to three months later somewhere within Utopia Planitia.
Utopia Planitia is a large plain in Mars’ Northern Hemisphere.
NASA’s Viking 2 lander landed there in 1976.
The solar-powered rover will then spend about 90 Martian days (called sols, and slightly longer than Earth Days), studying its surroundings in detail.
The orbiter will eventually settle into a polar elliptical orbit.
The lander apparently will not do any substantive science work, serving as a delivery system for the rover.

Objectives of Tianwen-1:

To map the morphology and geological structure.
To investigate the surface soil characteristics and water-ice distribution.
To analyze the surface material composition.
To measure the ionosphere and the characteristics of the Martian climate and environment at the surface.
To perceive the physical fields (electromagnetic, gravitational) and internal structure of Mars.

Source: TH

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