Tianwen-1 At Mars Options

[Huguet]

New Photos from medium-res camera. Detail of mars tiny limb.

https://mobile.twitter.com/AJ_FI/status/1375401463682306051

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[kymani76]

Map of Tianwen-1 landing site in Utopia Planitia based on coordinates published in an article by Andrew Jones.
Landing ellipse is 100x40 km, ellipse azimuth orientation estimated from orbiter's orbital inclination of 87.7 degrees.

[kymani76]

A close-up of the central area.

Once the mapping thread for the mission is established the maps can be moved there.

[Phil Stooke]

Very nice maps! Once we are safely down I will start a map thread and these can be the first posts.
Phil

[Art Martin]

A close-up of the central area.

Once the mapping thread for the mission is established the maps can be moved there.

Wow, that's a gutsy first landing given how tough it is just to set down safely on a Martian surface with almost no obstacles and they are aiming for a spot adjacent to a rather scary looking crater. Wouldn't take much during that 7 minutes or so of "terror" timing to be off by a significant amount. I wonder how much hover and maneuver time they have built into the lander to be able to spot and avoid large obstacles at the last minute.

[Antdoghalo]

There are also a lot of pseudocones and lava wrinkles/channels in the landing ellipse too.

[john_s]

Given the size of the landing ellipse, there's very little chance of landing next to that crater right in the center of the ellipse. I suspect it's just coincidence that the ellipse center is on the rim of that crater.

John

[djellison]

Yeah - the landing ellipse is almost certainly larger than that entire image.

[kymani76]

I guess there are many uncertainties, but this map is a start, based on limited data available.
Landing ellipse could certainly be bigger, I got 100x40 km from Twitter source, so far from 100% reliable. Couldn't find this information
in any Chinese source to confirm it's really true. The landing coordinates precision (24,748N, 110,318E) by itself carries about 100 meters imprecision in any direction.
CTX camera images are also not absolutely referenced, although I did check different images to confirm that the coordinates really work out to be at crater's rim.

On the other hand the two high resolution images published so far do show area at the center of the map, so they could be working towards landing near the center of the ellipse.

And thank you Phil. It is always nice to get encouraged by the best.