China's first Mars exploration mission

It is reported by China News that at 23:00 on the 9th of this month, under the control of the flight control team of China's first Mars exploration mission, the main engine of the "Tianwen 1" Mars rover ran for more than 480 seconds, successfully completing the deep space maneuver.

According to the experts, “The orbit control which aims to reduce flight deviation and make the detector fly along the predetermined trajectory is called “correction”, while the one which will change the trajectory of the detector into a new orbit is called “maneuvering”. This time, orbital ing was carried out in deep space about 29.4 million kilometers from the earth.

On July 23, "Tianwen 1" was successfully launched into space, and was directly sent into the transfer orbit between Earth and Mars by the "Long March 5" carrier rocket. During the flight, it took a "group photo" of the earth and the moon, corrected the trajectory twice, and automatically checked the payload. In the future, Tianwen 1 plans to fly in its current orbit for about four months, and it will correct its orbit 2-3 times while crossing Mars.

庞佳琪 译