The Chinese National Space Administration showed new selfies of the orbital probe "Tianwen-1", obtained by a detachable camera. In addition to the device itself, the northern polar region of Mars got into the frame, it is reported on the website Space.com .
Tianwen-1 was launched in the summer of 2020, becoming China's first project to explore Mars with automatic vehicles. The mission includes an orbiter and a landing platform with the Zhuzhong rover, which landed in the Utopia Plain in May 2021 and has traveled a total of more than 1,400 meters on the surface of the Red Planet.
One of the technical features of the project was the repeated use of small detachable devices equipped with a camera and a radio transmitter for photographing both the orbital module and the rover. There were three such secondary payloads in total — two for the orbiter and one for the rover.
On January 1, 2022, the Chinese National Space Administration published two selfies of the orbiter taken by the last detachable camera. They show the body of the probe, covered with gold thermal insulation, a silver antenna, solar panels, as well as the northern polar region of Mars. After the camera took the pictures, it transmitted them to the probe, after which it completed its work.
Image Source: CNSA / PEC
Previously, the detachable camera was used by the Hayabusa-2 interplanetary station to capture the moment of the impact probe's collision with the Ryugu asteroid.
Alexander Voityuk
