Chang’e-5 now in lunar orbit
The new colonial movement: China’s lunar sample return probe Chang’e-5 has now entered in lunar orbit, with its landing to occur in three days.
Over the next week, the probe, composed of four parts – the orbiter, lander, ascender and Earth re-entry module – will perform multiple complicated tasks on a tight schedule.
The four parts will separate into two pairs. The lander and ascender will head to the moon and collect samples, while the orbiter and Earth re-entry module will continue to fly around the moon and adjust to a designated orbit, getting ready for the docking with the ascender.
The landing operation is expected in three days. Once touched down on the lunar surface, the lander will collect two kilograms of lunar sample.
The plan once on the surface is to gather a sample from the surface as well as from a six-foot deep core sample.
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The new colonial movement: China’s lunar sample return probe Chang’e-5 has now entered in lunar orbit, with its landing to occur in three days.
Over the next week, the probe, composed of four parts – the orbiter, lander, ascender and Earth re-entry module – will perform multiple complicated tasks on a tight schedule.
The four parts will separate into two pairs. The lander and ascender will head to the moon and collect samples, while the orbiter and Earth re-entry module will continue to fly around the moon and adjust to a designated orbit, getting ready for the docking with the ascender.
The landing operation is expected in three days. Once touched down on the lunar surface, the lander will collect two kilograms of lunar sample.
The plan once on the surface is to gather a sample from the surface as well as from a six-foot deep core sample.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
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Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
I’m betting the sample grab is the least important part of this mission.
Look at the flight profile. They’ve already demonstrated autonomous landing, but in this single flight they will attempt a whole pile of (Chinese) firsts: everything else necessary for either robotic or crewed Lunar missions:
-ascent back into Lunar orbit
-Lunar orbit rendezvous (that legendary phrase) and docking
-transfer of materials between spacecraft
-transfer orbit back to Earth
-entry at Lunar return velocity
-recovery of an interplanetary spacecraft
So the sample grab could fail completely, and the Chinese technorati could still view it as an overwhelming success.
It is certainly not designed as a one-off, but as a test of a complex Earth-Moon infrastructure architecture. Especially if they actually turn around the antenna and use their L2 radio relay satellites while orbiting at the far side of the Moon (during about 45 minutes out of a 2 hour orbital period, that was the case for Apollo’s command module).
Soviet returned samples three times by landing everything and launching a small sample capsule directly back to Earth. The obvious way to do it if some Moon dirt is all one wants.