Tianwen 1 is 1st Chinese spacecraft to reach Mars

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

The Tianwen 1 mission's ultimate goal is to land a rover in May or 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.

On Friday, the space administration published a black-and-white picture of Mars taken by Tianwen 1 when the probe was about 2.2 million kilometers from the red planet, the first snapshot of the planet from the Chinese craft.

Tianwen 1 is the world's 46th Mars exploration mission since October 1960, when the former Soviet Union launched the first Mars-bound spacecraft. Only 18 of those missions were successful.

In the second step in China's Mars exploration program, a larger probe will set off for Mars around 2030 to take samples and then return to Earth, space officials said.