Tianwen-1- Development, China's 2020 Mission Options

[Stu]

Sounds like one is planned...

[remcook]

Next year already! It looks like it's been planned for a while then. And so far, China has been pretty good in actually doing what they say the will do. Very interesting...!

[Guest_Zvezdichko_*]

During the press conference in BAS it was confirmed that China will send an orbiter around Mars during the Phobos-Grunt mission. And yes, this is one of the things that can put off the launch till 2011.

[mps]

already discussed in Phobos-Grunt topic two years ago:
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...=1844&st=75

EDIT: for more details about Chinese Mars orbiter check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yinghuo-1

[remcook]

aaah yes I forgot about that. I imagined a stand-alone mission. d'oh

[Guest_Zvezdichko_*]

There may be in the future, but the Chinese space program is focused on lunar exploration

[mps]

Some new details about Yinghuo-1:

designers were still puzzling over how to keep the solar-powered probe functioning during seven "long shadow periods."
The probe would have to pass through seven periods of 8.8 hours in darkness when the sun would be obscured by the red planet, with temperatures plunging to 200 degreesbelow Celsius. While it could turn itself off to conserve energy, the concern was that it might "freeze to death" and not be able to turn itself back on.

Link

[Paolo]

Apparently, the Chinese delegation at this year's International Astronautical Congress declared that a wholly Chinese, CZ-3 launched probe is planned for 2013, but it has not yet received go-ahead by the government.

[Paolo]

A rather technical paper on YH-1 "An Emulation Research on the Radio Occultation Exploration of Martian Ionosphere" is available (free of charge) on the first 2010 issue of Elsevier's Chinese Astronomy & Astrophysics

[Paolo]

Lots of papers (freely accessible but in Chinese) on Yinghuo have been published in the Chinese Journal of Space Science. I think others in the forum may be interested in the paper giving a description and specs of the YH-1 camera.
A few of these are being published in English in Chinese Astronomy and Astrophysics, but for subscribers only (anybody has access to the pdfs? I would be quite interested...).
Note also than an informative paper on YH-1 (in English) and papers on Chang'E 1 and its preliminary results are also available for free on the Chinese Journal of Space Science (vol 28 n 5)

[Paolo]

I was finally able to get a copy of the two papers on YH-1 "Scientific Objectives of China-Russia Joint Mars Exploration Program YH-1" and "The Key Techniques and Design Features of YH-1 Mars Probe"
Quite a few interesting details: the camera will have a resolution of 500 m at periapsis and Mars will fill its field of view below 10,000 km. It could be used to image Fobos-Grunt just after separation and will collect and store internally up to 10 pictures on each orbit.
As for the spacecraft itself, its bus can be adapted to a number of missions, and with the addition of a propulsion module it could become a small completely autonomous Mars, Venus or Moon orbiter

[Paolo]

I have long been monitoring Chinese technical publications for papers on deep space missions, and this is one of the first I see on an independent Mars mission.
Research on precise design of the Mars probe ballistic trajectory

[Paolo]

A short, popular article (in French) on Chinese Martian ambitions
http://www.futura-sciences.com/fr/news/t/a...98/#xtor=RSS-19
two things to retain: it predicts a first independent mission in 2016 and mentions a possible use of CE2 in solar orbit to test long distance communications techniques

[Paolo]

in preparation for the flight, the Chinese have put up a PDS-like YH-1 mission science archive
http://demo.bjzxcw.cn/yh2/index.html

[Paolo]

I found these pictures on a French forum. I think they were taken at the Asian Aerospace 2011 airshow.

[Paolo]

another Chinese Journal of Space Science paper on the scientific objectives of YH-1, in English, for once... A revisit of the phobos events

[Paolo]

two fantastic pdfs found on the Novosti Kosmonavtiki forum and presented at the 7th UK - China Workshop on Space Science and Technology
Chinese Mars Exploration Mission Analysis
Concept Research of Mars Penetrator
I just love the Yinghuo with penetrators proposal, and the small lander has that ExoMars-esque look...

[Paolo]

a Chinese Journal of Space Sciences paper on Mars airplanes (which are completely out of fashion in the US and Europe) Mission Planning and Modeling Analysis for Unmanned Aerial Exploration Vehicle on Mars

[yaohua2000]

2018 Mars mission

http://www.nrscc.gov.cn/nrscc/kjcg/kjcsjs/...0331_30356.html

Objectives:

Orbiter
• Probing the Martian surface topography and geomorphology
• Probing the Martian physical and atmospheric environment
• Imaging the Martian surface mineral material distributions

Lander
• Probing the landing area topography and geomorphology
• Probing the suprastructure and underground water ice
• Martian surface chemical composition in situ analysis
• Martian surface climate monitoring and scientific research

Mars probe:


Deep space navigation optical sensor:


High-precision dynamic celestial body simulator:


Deep-space autonomous navigation experimental verification system:


Digital small-scale deep-space responder:



Lightweight high-gain directional antenna:

[monty python]

Do I see aerobreaking down the orbit? It would help probe the atmosphere. (my translator isn't clear on this)

[Paolo]

by the way, the probe and its mission look remarkably similar to those in this presentation I posted one year ago. the launch date appears to have slipped to 2016 and 2018. I guess the mission is still in the project phase and has not yet received the governmental go-ahead

Chinese Mars Exploration Mission Analysis

[Cosmic Penguin]

I have recently seen rumors that a 2018 Chinese Mars mission has recently passed critical reviews - flying an orbiter and a rover (no, I am not kidding! ) at the same time! That's with the ExoMars rover landing at the same window and MAX-C take 2 coming only 2 years later......

I have the links for the source of rumors here.

[Paolo]

JPL rover driver Scott Maxwell has a nice analysis of the Chinese Mars rover design recently unveiled in Shanghai
https://plus.google.com/+ScottMaxwell/posts/jQDggja1WJb
see http://english.cri.cn/12394/2014/11/07/53s851410.htm for pics of "the beast"

[tolis]

JPL rover driver Scott Maxwell has a nice analysis of the Chinese Mars rover design recently unveiled in Shanghai
https://plus.google.com/+ScottMaxwell/posts/jQDggja1WJb
see http://english.cri.cn/12394/2014/11/07/53s851410.htm for pics of "the beast"

The two flat circular solar panels (reminiscent of Phoenix?) make it ideal for serving drinks at conferences!

[elakdawalla]

JPL rover driver Scott Maxwell has a nice analysis of the Chinese Mars rover design recently unveiled in Shanghai

I was wondering, reading Scott's analysis and looking at the photos, whether this prototype Mars rover is meant to look like an actual thing that would get sent to Mars, or whether it's more akin to JPL's FIDO rovers, which was a rover explicitly designed for working on Earth to test systems being developed as prototypes for future Mars systems.

[nprev]

It seems kinda streamlined, for some odd reason. Maybe it's a more efficient use of volume for encapsulation or something.

[Paolo]

ESA too was showing a streamlined ExoMars rover at one time
http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/20..._artist_s_view2

[Yeh]

It looks like the Mars 2020 mission has got a GO from SASTIND:

http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2014-11-29/061031220714.shtml

An orbiter and a rover is planned for the 2020 mission. Nothing new from earlier rumors, except the go-ahead message from SASTIND.

[Paolo]

the Chinese Mars mission has been officially approved by the government last January, for launch in 2020 (the same launch window as the new US rover, the UAE orbiter and possibly ExoMars "2018"). It will likely consist of an orbiter, some sort of lander and a rover
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-04/22/c_135303964.htm

[tolis]

the Chinese Mars mission has been officially approved by the government last January, for launch in 2020 (the same launch window as the new US rover, the UAE orbiter and possibly ExoMars "2018"). It will likely consist of an orbiter, some sort of lander and a rover
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-04/22/c_135303964.htm

A "Crimson Rabbit" roving Mars. Cool!

[Paolo]

lots of papers on Mars exploration in the latest issue of the Chinese Journal of Deep Space Exploration (in Chinese, of course)
http://jdse.bit.edu.cn/sktcxben/ch/reader/...mp;quarter_id=2

[colin_wilson]

Hi - A few news outlets are carrying stories about the 2020 Chinese Mars rover.
This one talks about "13 payloads" - http://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-po...ed-mission-mars
From the article:

The probe will carry 13 payloads including a remote sensing camera and a ground penetrating radar which can be used to study the soil, environment and atmosphere of Mars.
It can also study the distribution of water and ice and the planet’s inner structure.

Does anyone have more information, or links to public documents about what these payloads are?

[Steve G]

Nothing concrete on the experiment package that I could find. I'm wondering if the lander will act as a stationary laboratory, or at least photograph the rover.

[Explorer1]

Interesting that the egress is the same as the lunar rovers (two thin rails like a ramp). They look so fragile! Though to be fair so do airbags and skycranes until one sees them in operation.
I do like the 'wings' in the style of MER, aesthetics is always helped by symmetry....

[bobik]

Candidate Landing Sites

[Phil Stooke]

Is this the only thread we have on this mission? Time for an update. Launch in July, and now a name.

From a thread on the 9ifly forum:

http://www.9ifly.cn/thread-93048-6-1.html

-------------------
China News Network
2 minutes ago from Weibo weibo.com
[Scheduled! # China ’s first Mars exploration mission named Tianwenyihao #] April 24 is the fifth “Chinese Space Day”, the name of China ’s first Mars exploration mission and the mission logo will be launched at the 2020 China Space Day Announced on. The Chinese planetary exploration mission was named "Tianwen" series, the first Mars exploration mission was named "Tianwen-1", and the subsequent planetary missions were numbered sequentially. According to reports, the name is derived from Qu Yuan ’s long poem "Questions of Heaven"*, which expresses the tenacity and perseverance of the Chinese nation in the pursuit of truth, and embodies the cultural inheritance of the exploration of nature and cosmic space. Endless. The mission logo symbolizing "Lan Xing Jiutian" shows the image of the unique letter "C", which brings together the multiple meanings of China's planetary exploration (China), international cooperation spirit (Cooperation), and the ability of deep space exploration into space (C3). Demonstrated the concept and attitude of China's open space cooperation. (People's Daily Client)

* or 'To ask the Heavens'

Phil

[nprev]

Topic renamed to reflect mission name. Thanks, Phil!

[Xerxes]

-yihao is just how you pronounce -1 in Chinese. The written form of the mission name should be Tianwen-1.

Noted. Title changed. Thanks!

[Phil Stooke]

Assuming we have a successful landing, I will be monitoring surface activities as usual in a map thread.

Phil

[Steve G]

I've been unable to find if the lander will be active after rover deployment. Even Andrew Jones tweeted me saying he hasn't heard of anything. I'd suspect they'd want to keep it active for a few days at least to photograph the rover. Have any of you heard otherwise?

[Phil Stooke]

As far as I can tell from images of the lander, there is no camera like the Terrain Camera on Chang'e 3 and 4. At most there might be small monitoring cameras which the lunar landers carried to show rover egress. It's not clear to me that there is any power on the lander after landing, at least after any batteries are exhausted. I'm assuming, possibly wrongly, that the lander is powered by the orbiter during cruise and orbit, and probably lands under battery power, and then it's done.

What we may see, then, would be one or more monitoring camera shots or videos of egress, preceded by a panorama from the rover camera and followed by a look back from the rover, but then nothing from the lander.

Phil

[vjkane]

As far as I can tell from images of the lander, there is no camera like the Terrain Camera on Chang'e 3 and 4. At most there might be small monitoring cameras which the lunar landers carried to show rover egress. It's not clear to me that there is any power on the lander after landing, at least after any batteries are exhausted. I'm assuming, possibly wrongly, that the lander is powered by the orbiter during cruise and orbit, and probably lands under battery power, and then it's done.

What we may see, then, would be one or more monitoring camera shots or videos of egress, preceded by a panorama from the rover camera and followed by a look back from the rover, but then nothing from the lander.

Phil

I've interpreted no solar panels on the lander in the images as it's mission is over after it lands and deploys the ramps. There may be a power cable from the rover to the lander to allow some functions after the landing, but once the rover moves away...

[nogal]

Searching Alan Boyle's twitter posts I chanced upon a post by Thomas Schumann. At the EPSC-DPS 2019 Joint Meeting the late Dr. Wei Yan gave a presentation about China's first Mars mission. One of the slides clearly shows two landing sites in Utopia Planitia. Thomas also says "As far as I've understood, the Chinese will evaluate final landing sites once in orbit."

Here is a Google Mars globe with the CTX map made available by Google (see the side bar for how to enable the CTX global map) and those two areas marked, and a closer view that shows Area A has very little coverage. However, Google has not mapped every CTX image, so other images may be available (as well as from the HiRISE camera).





This is the kmz file I used to mark the areas.  Tianwen_1_CandidateLandingAreas.kmz ( 876bytes ) Number of downloads: 594


Fernando

[Phil Stooke]

The slide with those landing sites shows two boxes and two sets of coordinates. They don't match up exactly. It's not clear which is correct. Most likely the written coordinates are correct and the drawn boxes were only approximate.

CTX now has essentially global coverage.

Phil

[nogal]

Thank you Phil. Do keep me honest!

The boxes from my kmz are drawn with the coordinates, themselves marked as approximate, shown in the slide. The boxes seen in the slide appear to be smaller than the GE file ones.
GE's CTX map does not have complete coverage, it is obvious. I have come across many CTX images not included in GE's "CTX global map" while searching for polygonal ridges for a Zooniverse project. Glad you confirm CTX coverage is now nearly complete. Cheers

Fernando

[Antdoghalo]

Searching Alan Boyle's twitter posts I chanced upon a post by Thomas Schumann. At the EPSC-DPS 2019 Joint Meeting the late Dr. Wei Yan gave a presentation about China's first Mars mission. One of the slides clearly shows two landing sites in Utopia Planitia. Thomas also says "As far as I've understood, the Chinese will evaluate final landing sites once in orbit."

Here is a Google Mars globe with the CTX map made available by Google (see the side bar for how to enable the CTX global map) and those two areas marked, and a closer view that shows Area A has very little coverage. However, Google has not mapped every CTX image, so other images may be available (as well as from the HiRISE camera).





This is the kmz file I used to mark the areas.  Tianwen_1_CandidateLandingAreas.kmz ( 876bytes ) Number of downloads: 594


Fernando

Quite true, Google's CTX layer is 9 years old and MRO has since mapped almost the entire planet with it aside from a couple tiny areas in the poles
https://themis.asu.edu/maps I used this site to find HiRise and CTX images that are not available in GE, (though I wish you could sort by year it's hard to find pre-post landing pictures when there's 100s of HiRISE images saturating a location)

[Phil Stooke]

http://murray-lab.caltech.edu/CTX/

This is a link to the global mosaic. I think you can get it a tile at a time, not sure if you can also navigate the mosaic like the lunar and Mercury Quickmaps.

Phil

[nogal]

Many thanks for the link Phil.
Laura Kerber had mentioned to me that creation of a global mosaic was ongoing, which might be useful to another project I'm working on, but I never got to use it.
Looking at the linked LPSC abstract I feel very sure this is the one she mentioned. There is a lot to explore here, it is truly gigantic! Thanks again

Fernando

[Hungry4info]

There's a video here talking about the rover -- very general information. Of interest is driving tests, and apparently the fact that the rover has steering motors on all six wheels. They showed a demonstration rover driving "sideways."

The Tianwen-1 Mars rover
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KquNADst7r8

[Phil Stooke]

http://9ifly.spacety.com/forum.php?mod=vie...ge=84#pid756198



This post on the Chinese 9ifly forum says (Google translation):

"The landing site was mentioned in the article "Running the Fire: Flying to "Utopia"" published by the China Aerospace Journal.

The preferred landing site for the "Tianwen-1" Mars exploration mission is located at the southern end of the Martian Utopia Plain, which belongs to the lowland unit of the late Hesperia period (110.318 degrees east longitude, 24.748 degrees north latitude). The alternative location is located in the southeastern part of the Utopia Plain, in the Erythian Volcanic magma flow zone, close to the entrance of the Erythian Volcanic magma into the Utopian Plain."

I have not been able to find the article but if anyone has a source i would like to know about it. This is within the western of the two boxes Nogal mentioned.

Phil

[Paolo]

I don't think this paper on TW-1 has been mentioned yet:

Overview of China’s 2020 Mars mission design and navigation

Scheduled for an Earth-to-Mars launch opportunity in 2020, the China’s Mars probe will arrive on Mars in 2021 with the primary objective of injecting an orbiter and placing a lander and a rover on the surface of the Red Planet. For China’s 2020 Mars exploration mission to achieve success, many key technologies must be realized. In this paper, China’s 2020 Mars mission and the spacecraft architecture are first introduced. Then, the preliminary launch opportunity, Earth–Mars transfer, Mars capture, and mission orbits are described. Finally, the main navigation schemes are summarized.

you can download the pdf from researchgate https://www.researchgate.net/publication/31..._and_Navigation

[Phil Stooke]

http://9ifly.spacety.com/thread-93048-85-1.html

Picture of Earth and Moon taken by TW1 from 1.2 million km.



Credit: CNSA

EDIT: oops, not Mars! Thanks Lucas...

Phil

[Lucas]

Neat! Hopefully that’s the Moon or else we’re in a lot of trouble!

http://9ifly.spacety.com/thread-93048-85-1.html

Picture of Earth and Mars taken by TW1 from 1.2 million km.



Credit: CNSA

Phil

[Phil Stooke]

Quick look at the coordinates recently suggested in Chinese media:

This is Mars Odyssey THEMIS infrared with inverted shading -white areas would be dark, or cool, in THEMIS and most are associated with small craters so they are probably blocky. The circle is the site mentioned in recent posts. It's smaller than their landing ellipse, only designed to show the area noted in the media post.



That corresponds to this MRO CTX image (image number is in file name if you save it):



The site is in the upper right corner of this image.

Phil

[Phil Stooke]

This is the area around that identified point - the image is about 10 km wide. There should be visible crater rims to provide relief in the panoramas. We don't know this will be the site and this is a lot smaller than the landing ellipse.

Phil

[nprev]

Hmm. Looks a bit dusty (shocker). All those short white streaks are more than a bit intriguing in this view; hopefully they'll be able to reach one.

[vikingmars]

There are lots of pingos south of this site : maybe an hint to the presence of sub-surface ice and/or permafrost

[spacepoint]

Here is some info about mission and rover itself.
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-07-24/Tech-...Yjh6/index.html
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-07-25/Tech-...7B2U/index.html

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[Phil Stooke]

"All those short white streaks are more than a bit intriguing"

They are dust drifts, perpendicular to the prevailing wind. HiRISE would show them more clearly than CTX does. I expect we will see one up close eventually.

Phil

[volcanopele]

Thanks for posting the central coordinates, Phil, I've been wanting to see if CaSSIS has any coverage of the landing site. Any chance for a landing ellipse? The best image I could find was a bit to the southeast.

[marsophile]

https://twitter.com/Tschnn/status/1174667085915598848

Twitter post by Thomas Schumann that has an image of two potential landing sites at

23-28 N x 108-112 E
24-30 N x 129-133 E

So it seems it could possibly land at
30 N x 134 E

That would put it at 18 degrees due south of the Viking 2 landing site at
48 N x 134 E
which I think is about 1100 km distant.

Assuming it could travel at 300 meters per day, I estimate it could reach Viking 2 in about 10 years of steady driving! If it didn't have something better to do, of course

[tolis]

Even if it were possible to land or rove to the VL2 site, would you really want to? I'm no expert, but based on the area density of large rocks,
this is probably one of the worse sites that we've seen up close so far in terms of rover trafficability.

Using a helicopter would probably be a better idea (hint, hint).

[JRehling]

Or just land there in the first place.

[Phil Stooke]

Viking 2 would never have gone to its site if the science team knew how rocky it was. They thought it was covered with sand. Now we know, it's absolutely off limits.

Phil

[Hungry4info]

The Tianwen-1 rover will be named .... Perseverance?
https://twitter.com/Cosmic_Penguin/status/1...186698928074755

[Phil Stooke]

Fear not, people of Earth. Yutu 2 didn't get the name that was most popular in its shortlist and this one probably won't either. Personally I like the name which translates as 'Red Hare', though in the old tale 'Red Hare' was actually a horse.

Phil

[HSchirmer]

Personally I like the name which translates as 'Red Hare', though in the old tale 'Red Hare' was actually a horse.
Phil

So, they're actually going to be doing "Operation Barbarossa"...

[Xerxes]

Since 弘毅 is pronounced "Hongyi" and not "Perseverance", I think the rover would probably be named Hongyi. It means literally "great will", and oddly enough is best known for being the name of a venture-capital firm. I wonder if advertising shenanigans are involved.

[Phil Stooke]

Mars from Tianwen-1:

https://9ifly.spacety.com/data/attachment/i.../38_640_480.jpg

from this 9ifly forum page:

https://9ifly.spacety.com/thread-93048-121-1.html


Phil

[Paolo]

b&w and better resolution
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/qy_M1IHgzP9OCThP-TnyOQ

[nprev]

Congratulations to CNSA! Exciting times indeed ahead for this mission!

Now that it's arrived please move the discussion to the new Tianwen-1 At Mars thread.