Tianwen-1 sends back deep-space selfies for first time, celebrates National Day

While celebrating the National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival on Thursday (October 1), China's National Space Administration (CNSA) released images of the flight of its first Mars exploration mission, Tianwen-1, as a birthday greeting to the motherland.

The five-star national flag on the detector is resplendent in a bright Chinese red color on the selfies sent from space by Tianwen-1. The image was taken by a discrete measurement sensor carried by the probe, and the pattern was sprayed with special materials using a unique overprinting process.

It is understood that the sensor is installed outside the lateral wall of the detector, and can be separated from the detector body under ground control, using its own two wide-angle lens installed on both sides. It is able to shoot a picture per second, send the images to the detector through WIFI communication mode, and then forward them to the ground station via the detector.

Tianwen-1 was successfully launched on July 23 by a Long March 5 launch vehicle directly into an Earth transfer orbit. During the flight, it has successfully completed the acquisition of the Earth-Moon conjunction, two mid-track corrections and load self-check. As of early morning today (Oct.1), the probe has flown 188 million kilometers, or 24.1 million kilometers from Earth, and is in good flight condition.