China launches Long March 5 rocket for Chang 5 moon model-return mission launch

China’s most ambitious The work of the moon Next week is ahead of its scheduled launch to date.

A heavy lift Long March 5 Rocket On Tuesday (Nov. 17) the robotic Song 5 went to its pad with the lunar model-return spacecraft at the Wensang Space Launch Center in Hainan Province.

Song 5 is scheduled to be thrown out on November 24th NASA description of the mission. (Official Chinese sources have only stated that it will be launched “in late November.”) 18,100-lb. (8,200 kilograms) of space, consisting of four volumes, and then it goes to the moon.

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Two of the Chang 5 volumes will be in lunar orbit. The other two – a model collector and a climbing vehicle – will touch the Mons Rumker area of the vast Oceanus Procella (“Ocean of Storms”), a vast volcanic plain that has been explored by many lunar missions. NASA’s Apollo 12 In 1969.

If all goes according to plan, Song 5’s model collector will pick up 4.4 pounds using a robotic arm and a drill. (2 kg) of dirt and rock from the moon, up to 6.5 feet (2 m) underground. The climbing vehicle will load this temporary storage into lunar orbit, where it will bring one of the orbital modules and integrate it into another, which will carry objects to Earth according to NASA’s description. Moon models are scheduled to land in China in mid-December.

That touchdown will be historically significant: since the Soviet Union’s Robot Luna 24 mission did so in 1976, mankind has not returned anything from the moon. (Comet and asteroid models Have come to earth However, later. More collected space-rock objects will be delivered to Japan in the future Hayapusa2 And NASA OSIRIS-REx Tasks.)

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China’s sixth mission is Chang 5 Song Project Robotic lunar exploration derives its name from a moon deity in Chinese mythology. Chang 1 and Chang 2 orbits launched in 2007 and 2010, and சாங்’இ 3 In December 2013 the country’s first soft moon landed, placing a Lander-Rover duo close to the moon.

Launched in October 2014, the Chang 5D1 mission sent a prototype return capsule on an eight-day orbit around the moon to prepare for the upcoming Chang 5 mission.

The country’s Long March 5 rocket at the Wenchang Space Launch Center in Hainan Province on November 17, 2020 topped the country’s Chang5 lunar model-return mission. Launch target on November 24th. (Image credit: CNSA)

Song 4 Pulling the first soft landing in the mysterious distance of the moon, it delivered a lander and rover to this largely unexplored area in January 2019. Song 4 Is still going strong, Like Song 3lander. (Sang3 Rover dies after 31 months of operation.)

Mike Wall “Out there“(Grand Central Publishing, 2018; explained by Carl Tate), a book about the search for alien life. Follow him on Twitter @MichaelWall.