China's Tianwen 1 Mars mission will be inactivated for about 50 days from
mid-September due to an expected disruption of its communications with Earth
caused by solar electromagnetic radiation, the mission's chief designer
said.
During the period, which will end in early November, the Zhurong rover and
the mission's orbiter will suspend their working mode, Zhang Rongqiao of the
China National Space Administration told reporters on Monday. The rover had
been operating on the Red Planet for 100 days as of Monday, while the
orbiter has been circling Mars since February.
"During that time, the Earth, Mars and the sun will almost be in a straight
line and the distance between Earth and Mars will be farthest," Zhang said.
"The sun's electromagnetic radiation will greatly affect the communication
between the rover, the orbiter and ground control."
After they resume operation, the rover will continue traveling southward
toward an ancient coastal area on Utopia Planitia, a large plain within the
largest known impact basin in the solar system, for scientific exploration
while the orbiter will enter a new Mars orbit to carry out a remote-sensing
global survey of the Red Planet and will continue relaying signals between
Zhurong and Earth, Zhang said.
As of Monday, Zhurong had traveled 1,064 meters on the Martian surface and
was in good condition with sufficient energy, Zhang said.
The core component of the Tianwen 1 mission, the country's first
interplanetary adventure, the 240-kilogram Zhurong has outlived its
three-month life expectancy with all of its predetermined tasks completed.
The 1.85-meter-tall rover, which is now about 392 million kilometers from
Earth, is the sixth rover on Mars, following five others launched by the
United States.
Tianwen 1, named after an ancient Chinese poem, was launched on July 23 last
year from the Wenchang Space Launch Center in Hainan province and traveled
more than 470 million km and carried out several trajectory maneuvers before
entering Martian orbit on Feb 10. Zhurong touched down on the planet on May
15 and separated from its landing platform a week later.
The mission has generated more than 420 gigabytes of primary data, with
Zhurong alone having obtained about 10 GB of primary data, according to
sources at the space administration.
To mark the mission's achievement, the administration and the People's Bank
of China issued a set of gold and silver commemorative coins on Monday.
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Space & Astrophysics