A Chinese probe is set to arrive in orbit around Mars today (10 February).
The Tianwen 1 Mars probe conducted its fourth orbital correction on Friday (5 February), preparatory to arrive in orbit today, according to the China National Space Administration.
In a brief statement, the agency sais the robotic vehicle ignited one of its engines to make an orbital correction and ensure it would be flying in the right direction toward the Martian gravitational field.
Tianwen 1 has flown for 197 days and more than 465-million kilometres on its journey to the planet.
It is currently around 185-million kilometres from Earth.
Depending on the two planets’ orbits, Mars is between 55-million kilometers and 400-million kilometres from Earth.
Tianwen 1, China’s first independent Mars mission, was launched by a Long March 5 heavy-lift carrier rocket on 23 July 2020 from the Wenchang Space Launch Center in Hainan province, kicking off the nation’s planetary exploration program.
It will conduct a “braking” operation to decelerate and make sure it will be captured by Martian gravity today, according to the agency.
The mission’s ultimate goal is to soft-land a rover in May on the southern part of Mars’ Utopia Planitia – a large plain within Utopia, the largest recognized impact basin in the solar system – to conduct scientific surveys.
Featured picture: The black-and-white photograph of Mars shown was taken by Tianwen 1 when the probe was about 2,2-million kilometres from the red planet, the first snapshot from the Chinese craft.