Talk:Tianwen-1

The Chinese spacecraft consists of a lander, besides the orbiter and rover, right?

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Resolved

I kept reading articles that reference a lander. See this for example: "The Mars lander underwent a hovering-and-obstacle avoidance test at a sprawling site in Huailai, northwest of Beijing". https://www.reuters.com/article/us-space-exploration-china-mars/china-completes-crucial-landing-test-for-first-mars-mission-in-2020-idUSKBN1XO0IQ 98.207.237.179 (talk) 20:08, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

• Correct, lander cited in the article.Albertaont (talk) 06:18, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

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The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Missing citations for the Tianwen-1 being currently en-route to Mars

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Resolved

The opening paragraph of the article currently (August 1, 2020) reads:

  Tianwen-1 (TW-1) (tentatively Huoxing-1, HX-1 during development[9]) is an interplanetary mission to Mars by the    China National Space Administration (CNSA) to send a robotic spacecraft, which consists of an orbiter, a lander and a rover.[10] The mission was successfully launched from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site on 23 July 2020[11][12][13] with a Long March 5 heavy-lift rocket, and is currently en route to Mars.[14][15][16] Its stated objectives are to search for evidence of both current and past life, and to assess the planet's environment.[4][17]

The citations for it being currently en route to its destination are 14, 15, and 16.

But these footnotes all refer to material published several months ago (late February, 2020).

Therefore they cannot possibly support the statement that it is currently en route.

I have no doubt that it actually is currently en route, because i'm sure the MSM would be trumpeting any failure of the craft had one occurred.

But if there are citations provided, they should support the part of the sentence they are attached to.

75.25.136.199 (talk) 05:06, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

• Updated references.Albertaont (talk) 02:10, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

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The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Page protection

Some page protection may be in order. nagualdesign 12:07, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

Third country for soft landing

The lede states that “China will be the third country to achieve a soft landing on Mars after Russia and the United States”. However, Russia has never achieved a soft landing on Mars. Grey Wanderer (talk) 20:48, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

The Soviet Union was the first country to achieve a soft landing on Mars with Mars 3. The article text has been corrected (Russia → Soviet Union). nagualdesign 23:04, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

Fourth, as Beagle 2 landed softly, the incorrect deployment of its solar panels then doomed it to silence.

CrackDragon (talk) 07:49, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

• As Beagle_2#Discovery_of_Beagle_2_spacecraft_on_Mars shows, evidence regarding Beagle 2's fate point towards a soft landing, but there is nothing to date that is conclusive, as several interpretations of the images are possible. We can reasonably conclude that it soft landed, but there is no confirmation that it did so. It isn't Wikipedia's place to speculate. We summarize available citations as a tertiary source should. It is appropriate to discuss its fate on the Beagle 2 article. It isn't appropriate to extrapolate to this article that Beagle 2 successfully made a soft landing, as there is no conclusive proof that it did so. Yes, Beagle 2 was found. But, we still do not have conclusive evidence that it made a soft landing. Find a reliable source that draws the conclusion that three nations have successfully soft landed on Mars, then fine. Otherwise, the UK's soft landing of Beagle 2 is uncited speculation and needs to be removed. With Mars 3, we have proof it made it to the surface in one piece as it did broadcast for a short period. With Beagle 2 we do not have that. --Hammersoft (talk) 12:26, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
  • But Beagle 2 deployed at least 2 of its solar panels, that is obvious from the pictures. A hard landing would have precluded even partial activation of any of the spacecraft's systems. You don't have to extrapolate, interpolate or pontificate that this is a sure-fire indication of a soft landing. Therefore the statement 'fourth country to achieve a soft landing on Mars' is axiomatic. CrackDragon (talk) 06:12, 21 February 2021 (UTC)
    • Find a reliable source that agrees with the conclusions you've drawn, then fine. Otherwise, it doesn't belong. --Hammersoft (talk) 18:49, 21 February 2021 (UTC)
    • @CrackDragon: Any additional comments? --Hammersoft (talk) 19:33, 3 March 2021 (UTC)
      • Since it only opened 3 of the 4 solar panels, thus obstructing comms, no-one can say for sure that this wasn't caused by a hard(ish) landing. Even though hard would have almost precluded any mechanical opps, I can't find a link that says it landed soft for sure CrackDragon (talk) 02:11, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
        • Neither can I. That's my concern. I'm happy to agree it was a soft landing if a reference can be found to support it, but we don't have that. It's a bit like George Mallory's attempt to climb Mount Everest. We can speculate he made it, but there's no hard evidence. Similarly here, there's just no unequivocal evidence it soft landed. Maybe some day we'll have more data, but right now we don't. I think we're in agreement? --Hammersoft (talk) 03:03, 13 March 2021 (UTC)
          • Under duress, so long as you don't expect me to find a link that proves that we agree!?!? CrackDragon (talk) 04:08, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
            • Well, I don't think I can find a secondary source that says we agree either :) It's already back to third, as someone else changed it back to third. --Hammersoft (talk) 15:08, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
              • Given the ambiguity around whether the Beagle 2 made a soft landing, I think that it's worth tweaking the language in this article to add "and transmit data back to Earth" or a similar phrase to the sentence. That much reliable sources agree on. JECE (talk) 15:02, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

@CrackDragon, Hammersoft, and JECE: Since CrackDragon can't provide sources, I will. A research paper published by the Royal Society found that HiRISE imagery of Beagle 2 was "consistent with deployment of the lander lid and then some or all solar panels". The University of Leicester, co-leaders of the Beagle 2 mission, noted in a press release that "this mission was only one, or possibly two solar panels away from being an outstanding success." Numerous reliable third-party sources (WP:RS) echo these claims of a soft landing and/or partial deployment, such as BBC News, ITV News, The Guardian, Space.com, SpaceNews, and Spaceflight Now. — Molly Brown (talk) 10:20, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

Looks like this has been taken care of: [1] --JECE (talk) 17:46, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

@Molly Brown: CrackDragon sure could provide sources, but, as with yours, none of them unambiguously proved Beagle 2 soft landed on Mars. Check out the dialogue above. You're now causing me to argue against my own argument! CrackDragon (talk) 08:27, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

@CrackDragon: I'm not sure what you need other than reliable sources that say it soft landed. We'd be ever so slightly stepping into the fallacious realm of nobody-really-knows-anything, and it would be the same as saying we can't say Zhurong even landed because we can't definitively prove it outside of the CNSA insisting it did, much like the reliable sources provided that insist Beagle 2 soft landed. The irony is that we have photogrpahs of Beagle 2 which relaible sources have determined are consistent with a soft landing, while we, as of writing, have no photographs of or from the Tianwen-1 lander or Zhurong days after their landing. Yet... we seem so comfortable saying it did land, so why is Beagle 2 being treated differently? — Molly Brown (talk) 08:49, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

Read the above dialogue. One or two of the solar panels not opening could well imply a harder than designed landing. And your impassioned speech doesn't really soften anything! CrackDragon (talk) 08:59, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

@CrackDragon: Then there is obviously a misunderstanding as to what a soft landing is. The spacecraft is neither a crater in the ground nor a thousand pieces scattered across the surface, as evidenced by the HiRISE imagery and supported by the numerous sources provided. It is an intact vehicle that was able to at least partially deploy; something a crashed lander does not do, if I can invoke an appeal to common sense. You can't just ignore reliable sources like this. — Molly Brown (talk) 10:29, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

@Molly Brown: Hi, I'm a bit late to this discussion, but I'd like to add, perhaps as a final note, that in my opinion it's a bridge too far to state unambiguously that Beagle 2 had soft landed on Mars. Now I always liked the plucky UK probe, but it failed to communicate with other probes and with Earth. Given the difficulties involved in automated Martian landings, it's reasonable to infer that the landing itself may have contributed to the probe's failure: that is, even if we assume the most optimistic scenario and suggest that the mission would have been a complete success save for the deployment of one final solar panel, we can't rule out the significant possibility that a harder-than-expected landing was the cause that kept the final panel from opening-up. If this possibility was indeed the cause, then that would constitute significant damage in my book and preclude the landing from being classified as soft, regardless of how many reputable sources speculate that the probe had indeed soft-landed. And since no one can state with a five-sigma (normal distribution) confidence threshold (or anything remotely close to that level) that the landing was not the root or proximate cause for the lack-of-communication, I think we'll have to leave out any statement such as "Beagle 2 landed softly on Mar," or "China is the fourth nation to land on Mars, after USSR, US, and UK.) (Though the possibility that it did land softly can certainly be entertained on its own Wiki page, and possibly as a qualified footnote in other pages.) Also, Martian surface pictures from the Tianwen-1 mission were released shortly after your previous edit. Cheers, Spotty's Friend (talk) 05:19, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

@Spotty's Friend: I guess we should just agree to disagree and just move on, since we have fundamentally different views of what a soft and hard landing is. The vehicle is intact, therefore it soft-landed; that's my view. Nothing is really going to ever going to convince me otherwise on what should be simple logic, especially when people clearly don't understand what I'm trying to say, highlighted by your comment about photos from Tianwen-1 at the end there. — Molly Brown (talk) 05:43, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

@Molly Brown: Yes, agree to disagree, though I'm pretty sure I understand what you would define as a soft-landing, it's just that many people (myself included) have other ideas. Also, my reference to the photos was in response to your earlier edit that contrasted the treatment received by Beagle 2 (with photo) and by Tianwen-1 (no images at the time). I can't let that comment go unanswered because honestly it bugs me a little: many people are comfortable saying Tianwen-1 landed safely even in the absence of photos because there is actual evidence that the lander/rover survived the landing: it continued to transmit data to Earth after the stated landing-time using its low-gain antenna. These transmissions were direct from the lander to Earth, albeit at a very low data rate so that it's not suitable for high, or even low quality images given that engineering data about the rover's condition was more important. Anyway, I apologize for this rant, and thanks for being a great editor/administrator. Have a good night, and cheers! Spotty's Friend (talk) 06:09, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

@Molly Brown and Spotty's Friend: I agree with both you! Call it doublethink if you like. Beagle 2 did soft land on Mars, but I could only look you in the eye and claim this with two-sigma confidence at best. Good enough for most things, but not for anything remotely scientific. CrackDragon (talk) 04:51, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

I think it's safe to say we do not have consensus. --Hammersoft (talk) 10:58, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

The rover's name?

Has the CNSA revealed the name of their rover, yet? The articles doesn't really mention much about it, besides instruments on board. -- sion8 ^{talk page} 08:50, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

I believe the name of the rover is "Zhurong", after the Chinese mythological god of fire. Here is the citation: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-57122914. Jurisdicta (talk) 23:41, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

Lander

This article is missing any details on the lander. Its configuration, how Zhurong is mounted on it, etc -- 67.70.27.105 (talk) 10:34, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

Should "Tianwen-1" be italicized?

Name of ships and spacecraft are often italicized. "Tianwen-1" was italicized in the article yesterday but not today. It's getting confusing. --PFHLai (talk) 20:46, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia's Manual of Style, the names of ship and spacecraft are always italicised. MeegsC (talk) 21:07, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

MOS:ITALIC in fact states:

The vessels convention does not apply to smaller conveyances such as cars, trucks, and buses, or to mission names. Also, most real-world spacecraft and rockets at this time are not given proper names, thus Apollo 11, Saturn V, Falcon 9, etc. are not appropriate.

So I think that it's correct as is. — RAVENPVFF · talk · 21:58, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

For spacecraft, the usual convention (also used in Wikipedia articles) is that the spacecraft's name is italicized if it is a proper noun, which Tianwen is. If the official name is an abbreviation or acronym, such as the NASA InSight Mars lander, then the name is not italicized. Fcrary (talk) 02:27, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

The Unsinkable Molly Brown made the change here with edit summary "... Ultimately, "Tianwen-1" is a mission name, the orbiter and lander are nameless and eponymous referred to with adjectives ..."—Bagumba (talk) 08:56, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

@PFHLai, MeegsC, and Fcrary: There's a misunderstanding that "Tianwen-1" is the name of the spacecraft themselves. It's not. "Tianwen-1" is a mission name, not a vessel name. As noted by Ravenpuff above, mission names are explicitly stated in MOS:ITALIC as one of the things not to be italicized. — Molly Brown (talk) 09:36, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

I see. Thank you. --PFHLai (talk) 18:13, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

Interesting. What's the name of the orbiter? I've only seen Tianwen-1 and Zhurong (lander/rover) used. Fcrary (talk) 18:57, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

@Fcrary: As far as we know there is no name for the orbiter or the lander. Only the rover has a name; Zhurong. Thus, the only practical way to refer to the orbiter and/or the lander individually is to eponymously refer to them with qualifiers as the "Tianwen-1 orbiter" and "Tianwen-1 lander". Note the use of lowercase as well (MOS:CAPS). — Molly Brown (talk) 23:01, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

Spacecraft dimensions in infobox?

In the infobox, the Zhurong lander is described as having dimensions of 2.6 × 3 × 1.85 m. That doesn't sound right. Since the specified mass is 240 kg, that would imply a density of only 16.6 kilos per cubic meter (under two percent that of water.) That's shockingly low for a spacecraft. Also those dimensions would make it larger than the Perseverance or Curiosity landers, while other sources compare the size of Zhurong to the much smaller Spirit and Opportunity landers. I strongly suspect that the 2.6 x 3 x 1.85 m dimensions describe the Tianwen-1 orbiter, not the Zhurong lander. Can someone confirm that and should we correct the article? Fcrary (talk) 02:40, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

@Fcrary: Hi. I know that (from a number of different journalist sources) that the quoted 1.85 meter height is the maximum height of the rover's mast that carries several cameras; most of the rover's body has a height that's significantly less than a meter, especially after you take out the wheels' ground clearance. I'm not sure about the other two dimensions but I suspect that the quoted values for them are also maximum values after the rover has deployed its foldable solar panels. In short, with the panels and the mast folded and the rover in a compact posture, its dimensions should be significantly less than the quoted values. Finally, I've read discussions on nasaspaceflight.com that the center of the rover carries two fairly large containers filled with aerogel and some other substances which together serve as passive heat sinks for the rover to endure cold Martian nights; this feature would also tend to decrease the rover's overall density. So if we take the quoted infobox values as maximum deployed dimensions, then they're not unreasonable, or at least I have no reason to distrust them given they've appeared in external references. Cheers, Spotty's Friend (talk) 05:44, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

Independent confirmation of successful landing with surface photos

While the CPC and chinese state media have hailed the landing a success, has there been independent confirmation that this really is the case? We have not seen surface pictures yet - only this can prove a successful landing. I suggest inserting that no independent confirmation neither surface photographs have surfaced to date if no independent sources for both have been found 2003:EA:7F1F:A911:19C8:D5DC:FE23:F5AA (talk) 21:39, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

Well, some photos have been recently published, so why don't you go see it. Surface pictures that can prove a successful landing. Hms1103 (talk) 12:34, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

• The BBC has also reported on this: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-57172346. --Hammersoft (talk) 13:03, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
• Dear Sir/Madam, with all due respect, if we were to use your independent-confirmation/photos standard for reporting the success and failure of space missions, then we'd need to add disclaimers to most satellite launches (unless, I suppose, your suggestion applies only to "CPC"). Generally, for a high profile mission such as the one currently under discussion, we can safely use the fact that the absence of challenges to the claim of success from reputable sources (e.g. NASA in this case, which has ample resources to verify aspects of the claim in real-time) constitutes tacit (initial) verification of the claim. Also, since Martian suface images have been released by the CNSA on May 19th, your prior suggestion is clearly moot. Cheers. Spotty's Friend (talk) 20:58, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

Not sure I agree with your suggestion that simply the absence of a challenge from NASA would constitute tacit verification of a claim. It is not NASA’s place to prove or disprove the activities of another nation’s space program, and publicly accusing a rival of lying or faking things would come across as petty and politically motivated. I could be wrong though, do you have some (post-Cold War) examples of occasions when NASA has disputed the accuracy of another space program’s claimed achievements?2A00:23C8:2688:A401:755C:7443:B09B:9A3 (talk) 10:05, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Well, dear person, perhaps it would be petty and politically motivated for someone/organization to publicly accuse a perceived 'rival' nation of faking an achievement in the field of spaceflight; nevertheless, NASA, possibly in response to doubts raised by people such as yourself less than 2 days after the announced landing, took an early opportunity to train the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaisance Orbiter upon the landing area and took an image of the lander and rover together on the Martian surface on June 6, 2021 (a copy of that image is on the Tianwen-1 main Wiki page by the way.) So I'm pretty sure if they (lander/rover) actually crashed or were not there, everyone would have known about it, and that would have been ultimately due to NASA. Cheers! Spotty's Friend (talk) 18:52, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

Template:Lang for romanized Chinese

@Ravenpuff: I added Template:Lang for romanized Chinese words, even when used as proper nouns, because screen readers mispronounce these words absent marking them as in Chinese, making the text inaccessible for those dependent on screen readers. Your edit summary refers to serious formatting and accessibility issues. Other than the slightly different font in which romanized Chinese is rendered in some browsers, could you please explain what these issues are? Perhaps we can find a solution that ensures the valuable accessibility benefits of the template are not lost? --Bsherr (talk) 23:43, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

@Bsherr: The use of {{lang}} for romanized text in articles is generally very unusual – especially since proper names like "Tianwen" or "Zhurong" are technically translingual; Chinese place or personal names are never formatted like this, for one. We can't control how screen readers pronounce text in general, and it isn't really our fault if mispronunciations crop up, just as with the wide array of technical and other foreign-language-derived terms used across countless other articles. Perhaps a compromise could be to use |script=Latn in {{lang}}, or {{transl}} for transliterated text, but this would still be highly inconsistent with prevailing formatting across Wikipedia. — RAVENPVFF · talk · 14:21, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

@Ravenpuff: Thanks for the reply. On the merits, I think we can make a distinction between non-English dictionary words used noncommercially as a proper noun, like we have in this article, and, on one end, loanwords, and on the other, other proper nouns, fictitious or fanciful words, etc. Most screen readers work excellently: when a word in a language different from the rest of the web page is correctly encoded as being in that other language, the screen reader pronounces it correctly. I'm unaware of any downside to encoding words like this, and I suspect the absence of such encoding in other articles isn't a considered choice. Bottom line, I would endorse either of the two compromises you propose, and will take a look at which is best. Thanks again, Ravenpuff. --Bsherr (talk) 16:01, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Confusion about rover's robotic arm

Why tianwen-1 zhurong rover has no robotic arm? if there is a reason please tell me Chinakpradhan (talk) 06:35, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

Based on the instruments on board, I don't think Zhurong needs a robotic arm. And 240 kg isn't a lot of mass. Why would they add a sizable component which the rover doesn't have a use for? Fcrary (talk) 20:30, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

Why emphasizes the lack of robotic arm? There're no robotic arms on China's lunar rovers either. We usually only discuss about what's there, not what's NOT there unless it's something very important and very common in other objects with the same type. Shujianyang (talk) 00:02, 14 June 2021 (UTC)