Tianwen 1 enters Martian orbit

During its journey, the spacecraft conducted four midcourse corrections and a deep-space orbital maneuver to make sure it was always precisely aimed at Mars.

Next, it will carry out several orbital adjustments to move into a "berth" orbit above the red planet to make observation and investigation of the preset landing site. Payloads mounted on Tianwen 1's orbiter, including cameras, magnetometer and mineral spectrometer will gradually begin to work on their scientific tasks.

The Tianwen 1 mission's ultimate goal is to soft-land a rover around May and June 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.