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China moon shot set for Friday
By Li Xinran |
September 28, 2010, Tuesday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
THE countdown has started.
And if weather permits, China's second lunar orbiter will take off on Friday - National Day - from the Xichang launch site in Gansu Province.
The unmanned Chang'e 2 and its carrier rocket Long March 3C have been assembled and brought to the launch pad.
The only remaining step is to refuel the rocket boosters.
The mission's chief commander and the spacecraft's chief designers have arrived at the scene, and Ouyang Ziyuan, chief scientist of China's Lunar Exploration Project, will join them in two days.
A stand has been built three kilometers away to hold 1,000 spectators, and hotels in Xichang City are sold out.
Villagers within two-and-a-half kilometers of the center will be evacuated on the day of liftoff, but that's nothing new, given the many launches at the center over the past decades.
China's second lunar probe mission will circle the moon at a 100-kilometer-high moon orbit, half as near as the 200 kilometers of its predecessor Chang'e 1.
The probe will analyze the content of useful moon elements and materials, and explore the characteristics of lunar soil and the space environment in preparation for the soft landings of the moon voyages to follow, Chang'e 3 and Change'e 4.
The Long March 3C rocket with three boosters is capable of pushing Chang'e 2 to a transfer orbit 380,000 kilometers from Earth, the longest range ever by homemade rockets.
With improvements in technology, Chang'e 2 should reach the orbit to carry out its mission in seven days. It took its predecessor 14 days.
The stronger camera onboard will be able to identify items as small as 1.5 meters on the moon's surface. The resolution on Chang'e 1's camera was 10 meters.
A parachuting camera will scan the area chosen for the soft landing by Chang'e 3 and transmit the data at 6 megabytes per second, double the speed of Chang'e 1.
Chang'e-1, the country's first lunar prober, was launched into space on October 24, 2007, and it sent the first full map of the moon's surface back one month later.
It ended its 16-month journey with a planned crash landing on the moon on March 1, 2009, after orbiting the moon thousands of times to map its surface in a high-resolution 3D map - a voyage that marked China's first step in exploring the only natural satellite of our planet.
It started the first phase of China's three-stage moon mission, which will lead to a landing and launch of a rover vehicle around 2012.
And if weather permits, China's second lunar orbiter will take off on Friday - National Day - from the Xichang launch site in Gansu Province.
The unmanned Chang'e 2 and its carrier rocket Long March 3C have been assembled and brought to the launch pad.
The only remaining step is to refuel the rocket boosters.
The mission's chief commander and the spacecraft's chief designers have arrived at the scene, and Ouyang Ziyuan, chief scientist of China's Lunar Exploration Project, will join them in two days.
A stand has been built three kilometers away to hold 1,000 spectators, and hotels in Xichang City are sold out.
Villagers within two-and-a-half kilometers of the center will be evacuated on the day of liftoff, but that's nothing new, given the many launches at the center over the past decades.
China's second lunar probe mission will circle the moon at a 100-kilometer-high moon orbit, half as near as the 200 kilometers of its predecessor Chang'e 1.
The probe will analyze the content of useful moon elements and materials, and explore the characteristics of lunar soil and the space environment in preparation for the soft landings of the moon voyages to follow, Chang'e 3 and Change'e 4.
The Long March 3C rocket with three boosters is capable of pushing Chang'e 2 to a transfer orbit 380,000 kilometers from Earth, the longest range ever by homemade rockets.
With improvements in technology, Chang'e 2 should reach the orbit to carry out its mission in seven days. It took its predecessor 14 days.
The stronger camera onboard will be able to identify items as small as 1.5 meters on the moon's surface. The resolution on Chang'e 1's camera was 10 meters.
A parachuting camera will scan the area chosen for the soft landing by Chang'e 3 and transmit the data at 6 megabytes per second, double the speed of Chang'e 1.
Chang'e-1, the country's first lunar prober, was launched into space on October 24, 2007, and it sent the first full map of the moon's surface back one month later.
It ended its 16-month journey with a planned crash landing on the moon on March 1, 2009, after orbiting the moon thousands of times to map its surface in a high-resolution 3D map - a voyage that marked China's first step in exploring the only natural satellite of our planet.
It started the first phase of China's three-stage moon mission, which will lead to a landing and launch of a rover vehicle around 2012.
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