Abstract
The High-Resolution Imaging Camera (HiRIC) is one major payload of China’s first Mars exploration mission, and its main objective is to obtain the detailed observation images of the key areas on the Martian surface. In this paper, the leading group of HiRIC shows a full blueprint of the HiRIC. The HiRIC can achieve a high resolution (0.5 m at an altitude of 265 km) with a wide swath width of 9 km. The HiRIC adopts an Off-Axis Three-Mirror Astigmatic (TMA) optical system with a focal length of 4640 mm, an F-number of 12 and a Field of View (FOV) of 2° × 0.693°. In order to reduce the instrument weight, carbon-based material is widely used in the opto-mechanical structure which is in ultra-lightweight design, thus, a light-weight camera with a total mass of 42 kg is obtained. The Time Delay and Integration (TDI) Charge Coupled Devices (CCDs) and Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Transistor (CMOS) detectors are all set on the imaging plane to achieve the push-broom imaging and frame imaging, respectively. And the high Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) >100:1 can achieve in multi observation types for various scientific imaging tasks. After 4-year design and fabricate, the HiRIC has been assembly. The testing results show that the instrument is in good condition, and the Modulation Transfer Function (MTF) can achieve 0.18 at Nyquist frequency. The HiRIC can achieve a well image on China first Mars exploration mission.
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Funding
Supported by Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commission (No. Z191100004319001); the National Natural Science Foundation of China (61705220, 11703027 and 42001345); the Youth Innovation Promotion Association, Chinese Academy of Sciences (2019219); the Specialized Research Fund for Shandong Provincial Key Laboratory; and the grant from Key Laboratory of Lunar and Deep Space Exploration, Chinese Academy of Sciences (LDSE201901).
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The Huoxing-1 (HX-1) / Tianwen-1 (TW-1) mission to Mars
Edited by Chunlai Li and Jianjun Liu
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Meng, Q., Wang, D., Wang, X. et al. High Resolution Imaging Camera (HiRIC) on China’s First Mars Exploration Tianwen-1 Mission. Space Sci Rev 217, 42 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11214-021-00823-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11214-021-00823-w