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Spacecraft gets up close to asteroid
Source: Xinhua |
December 16, 2012, Sunday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
CHINA'S space probe Chang'e-2 has successfully conducted a maneuver in which it flew by the asteroid Toutatis, about 7 million kilometers from Earth.
Chang'e-2 made the flyby on Thursday at 4:30pm, the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense announced yesterday.
The flyby was the first time an unmanned spacecraft launched from Earth has gone so close to the asteroid, named after a Celtic god.
It also made China the fourth space power, after the United States, the European Union and Japan, to study an asteroid using a spacecraft.
Chang'e-2 came as close as 3.2 km to Toutatis and took photographs of the asteroid at a relative velocity of 10.73 km per second, the administration said.
Sources within the administration said Chang'e-2 is continuing its deep space travel and will reach a distance of more than 10 million km away from Earth next month.
Chang'e-2 was launched in October 2010 from Xichang Satellite Launch Center, and later orbited the moon to finish a more extensive probe than its predecessor, Chang'e-1.
After collecting data for a complete lunar map, Chang'e-2 left for an extended mission to the Earth-Sun L2 Lagrangian point in June 2011.
Lagrangian points are where the combined gravitational pull of the two large masses provides the precise centripetal force required to orbit with them.
This year the probe began its mission to Toutatis.
"The success of the extended missions also embodies that China now possesses spacecraft capable of interplanetary flight," said Wu Weiren, chief designer of China's lunar probe program.
Chang'e-2's missions have tested China's spacecraft tracking and control network, including two newly built stations in the northwest Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and northeast Heilongjiang Province, said the administration.
Chang'e-2 made the flyby on Thursday at 4:30pm, the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense announced yesterday.
The flyby was the first time an unmanned spacecraft launched from Earth has gone so close to the asteroid, named after a Celtic god.
It also made China the fourth space power, after the United States, the European Union and Japan, to study an asteroid using a spacecraft.
Chang'e-2 came as close as 3.2 km to Toutatis and took photographs of the asteroid at a relative velocity of 10.73 km per second, the administration said.
Sources within the administration said Chang'e-2 is continuing its deep space travel and will reach a distance of more than 10 million km away from Earth next month.
Chang'e-2 was launched in October 2010 from Xichang Satellite Launch Center, and later orbited the moon to finish a more extensive probe than its predecessor, Chang'e-1.
After collecting data for a complete lunar map, Chang'e-2 left for an extended mission to the Earth-Sun L2 Lagrangian point in June 2011.
Lagrangian points are where the combined gravitational pull of the two large masses provides the precise centripetal force required to orbit with them.
This year the probe began its mission to Toutatis.
"The success of the extended missions also embodies that China now possesses spacecraft capable of interplanetary flight," said Wu Weiren, chief designer of China's lunar probe program.
Chang'e-2's missions have tested China's spacecraft tracking and control network, including two newly built stations in the northwest Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and northeast Heilongjiang Province, said the administration.
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