The Chinese Mars probe "Tianan-1" traveled about 100 million kilometers as of 10:08 am Friday morning, according to the Chinese National Space Administration.
The Mars probe is operating in steady state and its multiple payloads have completed a self-examination. It traveled in orbit for 36 days and is now 10.75 million km from Earth.
The probe was sent to the transition orbit between Earth and Mars on board the Long March-5 carrier rocket on July 23. It is expected to travel 470 million km before reaching Mars and will be about 195 million km from Earth at that time, according to a source from the department´s Lunar Exploration and Space Program.
The Mars probe captured an image of the Earth and the moon and made its first orbital correction so far. As of 10:20 p.m. on Aug. 19, multiple payloads on the Mars probe, including the Mars Magnetometer, the Martian Mineralogy Spectrometer and the high-resolution camera, have completed the self-examination. And the scientific data of the loads were transferred to the ground smoothly, confirming that they are in a natural state. Multiple flight control missions were also performed normally.
The department said the probe would carry out deep space maneuvers, several orbital corrections, and carry out missions in orbit flying, landing and wandering as it approaches Mars orbit.
