Yinghuo-1

Yinghuo -1 (萤火, Firefly ) was a Chinese spacecraft for the exploration of Mars Orbiter.

History

The probe has been developed since 2006, completed in June 2009 and was launched on 8 November 2011 from Baikonur as a piggyback payload of the Russian Mars probe Phobos -Grunt a Zenit -3F rocket. The cooperation between China and Russia in this Mars mission had been agreed in 2007. Since the bullet was omitted in the transfer orbit to Mars, the spacecraft could not leave the park orbit. On January 15, 2012 entered Yinghuo - 1 together with Fobos -Grunt into the atmosphere and burned up one above the eastern Pacific.

Technology

Yunghuo -1 was 0.75 × 0.75 × 0.60 m tall and 115 kg in weight. He should orbiting Mars for two years in a highly elliptical orbit of 800 × 80,000 km at 5 ° inclination and three days turnaround time. Here, the surface and the atmosphere of the planet by means of two cameras and other sensors, including a magnetic field sensor, plasma sensor, and an ion detector should be analyzed. The data transfer should take place at S-band with an approximately one meter large antenna, 12 watt transmit power and a data transmission rate of 2500 bps. The two three-part solar boom had a wingspan of 5.6 m and should deliver a power output of 90 watts average.