HELSINKI — China’s Queqiao-2 communications relay satellite tv for pc entered lunar orbit March 24, paving the best way for a lunar far aspect pattern return mission.
Queqiao-2 started a 19-minute-long braking burn at 12:46 p.m. Japanese Sunday (1646 UTC), permitting the spacecraft to be captured by the moon’s gravity, the China Nationwide Area Administration (CNSA) introduced early March 25.
The spacecraft is anticipated to have entered an preliminary 200 by 100,000-kilometer lunar orbit. Operators will additional alter its orbit and inclination to carry Queqiao-2 right into a 200 by 16,000-km, highly-elliptical “frozen” orbit.
Queqiao-2 could have simultaneous direct line-of-sight with each floor stations on Earth and the lunar far aspect for big parts of this 24-hour-period orbit. This frozen orbit is meant to be extremely secure and require little upkeep, boosting mission longevity.
China intends to launch its Chang’e-6 spacecraft in Could to try to gather samples from the far aspect of the moon. The far aspect of the moon by no means faces the Earth, because the planet’s gravity has slowed the rotation of the moon over time. Queqiao-2 is thus required for communications for the mission.
Queqiao-2 launched on a Lengthy March 8 rocket from Wenchang spaceport March 19. The spacecraft launched into a 112-hour voyage to the moon. China’s area authorities didn’t present updates on trajectory correction maneuvers applied throughout the journey.
Two smaller lunar spacecraft—Tiandu-1 and Tiandu-2—had been additionally aboard the launch. These carried out their very own synchronized burns at 1:43 p.m., efficiently getting into lunar orbit.
The experimental satellites will fly in formation in lunar orbit and conduct checks for navigation and communications expertise verification. These are pathfinders for a deliberate wider Queqiao constellation to supply lunar navigation and communication providers. Checks will embody satellite-to-ground laser ranging and inter-satellite microwave ranging strategies.
Lunar far aspect and south pole help
The 1,200-kilogram Queqiao-2 satellite tv for pc carries a 4.2-meter parabolic antenna and is a part of China’s plans for future lunar exploration and a stepping stone in direction of constructing a lunar base within the 2030s.
It’s anticipated to help the continuing Chang’e-4 lunar far aspect lander and rover mission after helping Chang’e-6. It should additionally shift its orbit right into a 12-hour interval to help the 2026 Chang’e-7 and later Chang’e-8 missions.
These later missions will goal the lunar south pole to detect volatiles and potential assets on the moon. The latter can even check in-situ useful resource utilization strategies, corresponding to utilizing lunar regolith to provide bricks. The missions are precursors to the Worldwide Lunar Analysis Station (ILRS).
By comparability, NASA’s Artemis program infrastructure will embody the Gateway. This can act as a communication hub, science laboratory, short-term habitation module, and holding space for different spacecraft.
Queqiao-2 additionally carries three payloads as a part of the science goals of the 2026 Chang’e-7 mission. These are an excessive ultraviolet digital camera and an array impartial atom imager. An Earth-moon size baseline very lengthy baseline interferometry (VLBI) experiment with make the most of the big antenna.
The spacecraft might additionally help different international locations’ lunar efforts. “It’s potential to supply relay communication providers for different lunar touchdown exploration missions on the lunar south pole or lunar far aspect sooner or later,” an official from DFH Satellite tv for pc, below the China Aerospace Science and Expertise Company (CASC), stated in 2023.
“China’s lunar exploration program has all the time valued worldwide cooperation and has all the time been open to worldwide cooperation,” Ge Ping, deputy director of the Heart of Lunar Exploration and Area Engineering of China (LESEC) below CNSA, instructed CCTV.
China is actively participating international locations, area companies and tutorial and different entities with the intention to appeal to them to its ILRS initiative.
Queqiao-2, or “Magpie Bridge-2”, is a extra succesful follow-up to Queqiao, launched in 2018. The sooner satellite tv for pc facilitated the Chang’e-4 mission—the first-ever lunar far aspect touchdown. The getting old Queqiao relay satellite tv for pc stays operational in a halo orbit across the Earth-moon Lagrange level L2. The spacecraft orbits roughly 70,000 kilometers past the moon.
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