CNSA news, Updates and Discussions

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Mission insignia
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Long March 5 rollout on 17 Nov 2020
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roll out video

 

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According to CNSA, the Chang'e 5 Moon sample return mission will take about 23 days.

 

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LandSpace conducted a second stage vernier engines and main engine linkage test on 17 Nov 2020 at her rocket engine assembly and testing base in Huzhou city. The funny thing is that the local fire department was mistakenly responding as LandSpace didn't inform the local authorities of the test in advance. The test itself is successful.

 

[skywatcher]

China rolls out Long March 5 rocket to launch Chang’e-5 lunar sample return mission

China rolls out Long March 5 rocket to launch Chang’e-5 lunar sample return mission

spacenews.com

China rolls out Long March 5 rocket to launch Chang’e-5 lunar sample return mission

HELSINKI — China has rolled out a Long March 5 heavy-lift rocket in preparation for launch of the complex Chang’e-5 lunar sample return mission early next week.

The roughly 878-metric-ton heavy-lift Long March 5 was vertically transferred from an assembly building to its launch area late Monday Eastern in a process that took around two hours.

Launch of the 8.2-metric-ton Chang’e-5 spacecraft from the coastal Wenchang Satellite Launch Center is now expected Nov. 24 local time. State media reports have so far only confirmed the launch will take place in late November.

A successful mission would make China only the third country to deliver lunar samples to Earth, after the U.S. Apollo crewed program and Soviet robotic Luna missions of the 1960s and 1970s.

Launch preparations at Wenchang have been ongoing since mid-September. The fourth and mostly recent Long March 5 mission rocket successfully launched the Tianwen-1 Mars spacecraft in July.

The Failure of the second Long March 5 launch in July 2017 meant a delay of three years for Chang’e-5, having been scheduled to launch later that year.

Mission landing site, time frame
The Chang’e-5 landing will target a site close to Mons Rümker, a volcanic formation situated in the Oceanus Procellarum region of western edge of the near side of the moon.contains geological units as young as around 1.21 billion years old. By comparison samples brought to Earth by Apollo astronauts are aged between 3.1 and 4.4 billion years old.

Sunrise over Mons Rümker will occur November 27, ahead of the landing attempt. The mission seeks to collect around 2 kilograms of samples by both drilling to a depth of up to two meters and scooping up surface material.

Unlike China’s ongoing, multi-lunar-day Chang’e-4 spacecraft which is equipped with radioisotope heater units to survive the extreme cold of lunar night, the Chang’e-5 landing and sampling needs to take place within a single, roughly 14-Earth-day lunar daytime.

After sampling, a complex ascent, automated lunar orbit rendezvous and transfer of materials involving separate ascent and service modules will take place. The service module will then return to Earth followed by a high-velocity reentry into Earth’s atmosphere by a return capsule.

The mission is expected to last around 23 days from launch until landing in Siziwang Banner, Inner Mongolia, around Dec. 16-17. Samples will then be transferred to specially developed facilities for handling, analyzing and storing the lunar material.

Greater challenges
Chang’e-5 is the third phase of the Chinese lunar exploration project formulated in the early 2000s. Orbiters Chang’e-1 and 2 and subsequent landing and roving missions Chang’e-3 and 4 marked the first two stages.

Yu Dengyun, deputy chief designer of China’s lunar exploration program, told state media in September that the mission is much more challenging than previous missions.

New challenges include the sampling and following stages. “The gravity on the Moon is different from that on the Earth, about one sixth. And under such a circumstance, how to package samples is a key issue of the mission. We have never tried that before,” Yu said.

“We usually completed the rocket launching on the Earth at a fixed point. We have a proven technique in this field. But we still have difficulties in the liftoff of the ascend vehicle, which is expected to happen on the lander…we have never tried this before,” said Yu.

Chang’e-6 is a sample return spacecraft engineered at the same time as Chang’e-5 to provide a backup in the event of failure. Success of the latter would however see Chang’e-6 repurposed for a landing at the lunar south pole around 2023.

China has stated it will then proceed into an extended phase of lunar exploration involving Chang’e-7 and further lunar landing missions. The aim will be to establish an ‘international lunar research station’ in the mid-to-late 2020s as a precursor to crewed landings.

Sample return technology and experience developed through Chang’e-5 is also to be utilized for planned near Earth asteroid and Mars sample return missions later in the decade. The complexity of the Chang’e-5 mission profile is considered by observers to be related to future crewed lunar landing ambitions.

Chang'e 5 Landing Module

China rolls out Long March 5 rocket to launch Chang’e-5 lunar sample return mission

China rolls out Long March 5 rocket to launch Chang’e-5 lunar sample return mission

spacenews.com

 

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China's Chang'e 5 Moon sample return spacecraft
Mass: 8.2 metric tons

 

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China's Chang'e 5 Moon sample return spacecraft
Mass: 8.2 metric tons
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Super cold liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen injected into Long March 5.
Launch window: UTC+8 04:30:12-05:15:07 Nov 24 2020

The 8.2 metric ton combo will be directly sent into trans-lunar orbit. The sampling process will take about 2 days on the lunar surface.

 

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A Long March 3B rocket launched a Tiantong 1-02 mobile communication satellite from Xichang on 12 Nov 2020.
It is the 352 flight of Long March series.

Orbital launches from Chinese launch centers: 383
(Long March/Smart Dragon/Kuaizhou/Kaituozhe/Hyperbola/Ceres)
Jiuquan - 135
Xichang - 149
Taiyuan - 89
Wenchang - 8
Yellow Sea - 2

Coming up next:
A Long March 5 rocket will launch the Chang'e 5 Moon sample return spacecraft from Wenchang on 24 Nov 2020. The robotic mission is to retrieve 2kg of Moon soil and is the first lunar sample return attempt since Soviet Luna 24 in 1976.

A Long March 5 rocket launched the Chang'e 5 Moon sample return spacecraft from Wenchang on 24 Nov 2020. The robotic mission is to retrieve 2kg of Moon soil and is the first lunar sample return attempt since Soviet Luna 24 in 1976.
It is the 353 flight of Long March series.

Orbital launches from Chinese launch centers: 384
(Long March/Kuaizhou/Smart Dragon/Kaituozhe/Hyperbola/Ceres)
Jiuquan - 135
Xichang - 149
Taiyuan - 89
Wenchang - 9
Yellow Sea - 2

Coming up next:
A Long March 3B rocket will launch a Gaofen 14 cartographic satellite from Xichang on 5 Dec 2020.

 

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A Long March 5 rocket launched the Chang'e 5 Moon sample return spacecraft from Wenchang on 24 Nov 2020. The robotic mission is to retrieve 2kg of Moon soil and is the first lunar sample return attempt since Soviet Luna 24 in 1976.
It is the 353 flight of Long March series.

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Orbital launches from Chinese launch centers: 384
(Long March/Kuaizhou/Smart Dragon/Kaituozhe/Hyperbola/Ceres)
Jiuquan - 135
Xichang - 149
Taiyuan - 89
Wenchang - 9
Yellow Sea - 2

Coming up next:
A Long March 3B rocket will launch a Gaofen 14 cartographic satellite from Xichang on 5 Dec 2020.

Chang'e 5 lunar sample return spacecraft & mission insignia

 

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Chang'e 5 lunar sample return spacecraft & mission insignia
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Chang'e 5 spacecraft ascent module

 

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Chang'e 5 spacecraft ascent module
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reentry capsule

 

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Chang'e 5 lunar sample return spacecraft & mission insignia
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same pic with higher resolution

 

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LandSpace conducted a second stage vernier engines and main engine linkage test on 17 Nov 2020 at her rocket engine assembly and testing base in Huzhou city. The funny thing is that the local fire department was mistakenly responding as LandSpace didn't inform the local authorities of the test in advance. The test itself is successful.

China's LandSpace Zhuque-2 rocket completed second stage(80 ton thrust TQ-12 methalox engine and four 10 ton thrust TQ 11 methalox engines) linkage test on 13-17 Nov 2020.

Zhuque-2 is a methane powered rocket with a payload capacity of 6 tons(upgraded) to LEO. It is expected to make a first flight in 2021.

 

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China's LandSpace Zhuque-2 rocket completed second stage(80 ton thrust TQ-12 methalox engine and four 10 ton thrust TQ 11 methalox engines) linkage test on 13-17 Nov 2020.
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Zhuque-2 is a methane powered rocket with a payload capacity of 6 tons(upgraded) to LEO. It is expected to make a first flight in 2021.
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Landspace has also carried out vibration tests on the piping for the cryogenic, methalox first stage of the Zhuque-2

 

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Chinese launch schedule for Dec 2020

A Long March 3B rocket will launch a Gaofen 14 cartographic satellite from Xichang on 5 Dec 2020.
A Long March 11 rocket will launch the Gravitational wave high-energy Electromagnetic Counterpart All-sky Monitor (GECAM) binaries from Xichang on 10 Dec 2020.
A Long March 4B rocket will launch the Yaogan-31 Group 02 Earth observation satellites from Jiuquan on 1X Dec 2020.
A Long March 8 rocket will launch a new technology experiment 7 satellite and a SAR satellite and Taihu-1 cubesat from Wenchang on 20 Dec 2020.
A Long March 3B rocket will launch a Tiantong 1-03 mobile communication satellite from Xichang on 22 Dec 2021

Launches to be determined:
A Smart Dragon 1 rocket will launch a Minospace remote sensing satellite from Jiuquan on XX Dec 2020?
A Long March 4C rocket will launch a Haiyang-3-01 oceanography satellite from Taiyuan on XX Dec 2020?
A Kuaizhou 1A rocket will launch a Gaofen 02D satellite on XX Dec 2020?
A Kuaizhou 1A rocket will launch a Gaofen 02F satellite on XX Dec 2020?
A Kuaizhou 1A rocket will launch two navigation augmentation satellites GeeSat 1A/1B on XX Dec 2020?

 

[skywatcher]

Scott Manley explains everything about sampling on the moon

 

[skywatcher]

China's LandSpace Zhuque-2 rocket completed second stage(80 ton thrust TQ-12 methalox engine and four 10 ton thrust TQ 11 methalox engines) linkage test on 13-17 Nov 2020.
View attachment 68038

Zhuque-2 is a methane powered rocket with a payload capacity of 6 tons(upgraded) to LEO. It is expected to make a first flight in 2021.
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video

 

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The lunar lander is separated with orbiter in the lower lunar orbit. Chang'e 5 is going to land around noon Dec 1st, UTC.

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Critical timings of Chang'e 5 lunar sample return mission.

 

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iSpace carried out wind tunnel mechanical test for its methane powered Hyperbola-2 rocket in Nov 2020