Tag: China

China successfully launches its Chang’e-5 lunar sample mission

2:45 pm

screen capture at Long March 5 launch of Chang'e-5
Screen capture from launch live feed

The new colonial movement: China today successfully used its Long March 5 rocket to launch its Chang’e-5 on the first lunar sample return mission since the 1970s.

If all goes well, the return capsule will return to Earth with its sample on December 15th.

China provided a live stream, in English, which I have embedded below the fold.

The leaders in the 2020 launch race:

31 China
21 SpaceX
12 Russia
5 ULA
5 Rocket Lab

The U.S. still leads China 34 to 31 in the national rankings.
» Read more

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Long March 5 moves to launchpad for Chang’e-5 lunar sample return mission

9:54 am

The new colonial movement: China has transported its biggest rocket, the Long March 5, from its hanger to its launchpad in preparation for the scheduled November 24th launch of Chang’e-5, planned to be the first lunar sample return mission since the 1970s..

The linked article above, from the Associated Press but published at ABC news, appears to have been tweaked by China’s propaganda department. Consider for example this quote of the article’s last paragraph:

[China’s] space program has progressed cautiously, with relatively few setbacks in recent years. The Long March-5, nicknamed “Fat 5” because of its bulky shape, failed on a previous launch attempt, but China’s enormous pool of technical and engineering talent appears to have allowed it to overcome most obstacles. [emphasis mine]

My heart be still. China has an “enormous pool of talent”. How amazing! It is a interesting the AP and ABC didn’t also note China’s enormous pool of computer hackers, who hacked into the JPL database over a period of ten years and stole its U.S. designs for rovers and unmanned probes, which were then used as a template for all their own planetary missions.

Be warned. China has many allies within the U.S., many in academia and in the press. These Americans have no loyalty to this country, and in fact if asked might actually express a greater support for China.

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China today launched a new communications satellite

12:47 pm

The new colonial movement: Using its Long March 3B rocket, China today launched another communications satellite for the Asian market.

No word on whether the rocket’s first stages landed near residential areas, as has happened in the past. Also no word on whether it used grid fins to control its crash somewhat, as China also did previously.

The leaders in the 2020 launch race:

30 China
19 SpaceX
12 Russia
4 ULA
4 Europe (Arianespace)
4 Rocket Lab

The U.S. and China are now tied at 30 in the national rankings. This tie won’t last long, as the U.S. has three launches scheduled for the next three days, a ULA Atlas 5 launch of a military reconnaissance satellite tomorrow, SpaceX’s second manned Dragon launch on November 14, and Rocket Lab’s next commercial launch on November 15.

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Chinese pseudo-company launches first satellite

9:21 am

The new colonial movement: The pseudo-private Chinese company Galactic Energy today successfully completed its first orbital launch, placing a small satellite into orbit using its Ceres-1 rocket.

Galactic Energy is the fourth Chinese private launch company overall to make an orbital launch attempt, all with light-lift solid launchers. Landspace made the first attempt in October 2018, with OneSpace following in March 2019. In July last year iSpace became the first to successfully achieve orbit with its Hyperbola-1 launch.

The 19-meter-long, 1.4-meter-diameter Ceres-1 can loft 350 kilograms to low Earth orbit or 230 kilograms to a 700-kilometer SOO. It consists of three solid stages and an advanced liquid upper stage. [emphasis mine]

That all of these companies are using solid rockets explains why I call them “pseudo private.” They might be raising independent venture capital money to fund their operations, and they might be aimed at earning a profit, but solid rocket technology is always the primary technology used for military missiles, and none of these Chinese companies could do anything without the close and very firm permission and supervision of the Chinese communist government. In fact, their very existence is likely because that Chinese communist government wants them to exist.

Nonetheless, this launch raises China’s launch capabilities. The leaders in the 2020 launch race:

29 China
19 SpaceX
12 Russia
4 ULA
4 Europe (Arianespace)
4 Rocket Lab

The U.S. is still ahead of China, 30 to 29, in the national rankings.

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China launches ten satellites for Argentinian company

7:52 am

China today used its Long March 6 rocket to successfully launch ten satellites for the Argentinian company Satellogic S.A.

The satellites form the beginning of a 25-satellite constellation designed to do Earth resource observations. The Chinese rocket in turn is designed to capture the emerging smallsat market.

The leaders in the 2020 launch race:

28 China
19 SpaceX
12 Russia
4 ULA
4 Europe (Arianespace)
4 Rocket Lab

The U.S. remains ahead of China 30 to 28 in the national rankings.

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Overview of China’s lunar sample return mission

8:29 am

Chang'e-5 landing site on Moon

Link here. The Chinese mission, the first to bring back lunar samples since the 1970s, is now set for launch on November 24, 2020.

Chang’e-5 includes a lander, ascender, orbiter and returner. After the spacecraft enters the Moon’s orbit, the lander-and-ascender pair will split off and descend close to Mons Rümker, a 1,300-metre-high volcanic complex in the northern region of Oceanus Procellarum — the vast, dark lava plains visible from Earth. Once the craft has touched down, it will drill up to 2 metres into the ground and extend a robotic arm to scoop up about 2 kilograms of surface material. The material will be stored in the ascender for lift-off.

The descent and ascent will take place over one lunar day, which is equivalent to around 14 Earth days, to avoid the extreme overnight temperatures that could damage electronics, says Clive Neal, a geoscientist at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana.

…Once the ascender is back in lunar orbit, the samples will be transferred to the returner. This in-flight rendezvous will be complex and “a good rehearsal for future human exploration”, says James Carpenter, a research coordinator for human and robotic exploration at the European Space Agency in Noordwijk, the Netherlands. China plans to send people to the Moon from around 2030.

The Chang’e-5 spacecraft will then journey back to Earth, with the lander parachuting toward Siziwang Banner in Inner Mongolia, northern China, probably sometime in early December.

The location, as shown in the image above, is in the northern mid-latitudes of the Moon’s nearside, and is a place where some relatively recent volcanic activity might have occurred, though still in the far past.

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Is this the planned landing site of China’s Mars rover?

7:21 am

The prime landing site for China's Mars rover?

According to this Space News article, a report in the Chinese press, since revised to remove the information, had provided precise coordinates on Mars for the prime candidate landing site for China’s Tianwen-1 rover.

[I]nformation published in an article (in Chinese) in the official China Space News publication following launch in July provides a specific primary landing site. The article reported landing coordinates of 110.318 degrees east longitude and 24.748 degrees north latitude, within the southern portion of Utopia Planitia. Online versions of the article have since been edited to remove the coordinates; however, these remain published by sources citing the article.

The mosaic on the right, made up of two images taken by Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s (MRO) context camera (found here and here) shows this location with the white cross. The white box is the area covered by the only image taken of this area by MRO’s high resolution camera.

As these photos show, this location, in a part of Mars’ northern lowland plains dubbed Utopia Planitia, is generally smooth and flat, making for a relatively safe landing site. At the same time, it has craters and some ridges and hills that could pose issues.

That the coordinates were removed from the Chinese press story suggests that this might be the prime site, but until Tianwen-1 gets into Mars orbit and begins scouting the site with its own high resolution images, they want to reserve judgement. The spacecraft arrives in orbit in February ’21, and they presently plan to land the rover in May. That gives them three months to scout this location as well as a secondary landing site on the other side of Mars, in the Chryse Planitia northern lowlands [pdf], the same region where Viking 1 and Mars Pathfinder landed.

Once they have done this they will be able to refine the location more precisely.

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“That is a blatant lie.”

10:49 pm

In a long fifty minute public interview tonight on the Tucker Carlson Show, embedded below the fold, a businessman outlined in great documented detail how Joe Biden, the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate, was lying when he said he had no knowledge and never participated the business dealings of his son Hunter Biden, including a partnership with a Chinese company connected to the Chinese Communist Party.

More details here. The businessman, Tony Bobulinski, was quite clear and convincing. Bobulinski outlined in detail two meetings he had with Joe Biden in connection with those Chinese business dealings.

[Carlson]: The former vice-president has said that he was not involved in his son’s business dealings and had no knowledge of them at all. But this sounds like direct involvement in them.

[Bobulinski]: That is a blatant lie. When he states that, that is a blatant lie.

Apparently this man has come forward because he knows Biden is lying, and in the process is smearing his name by accusing him of being a party to Russian disinformation. Bobulinski however is a Navy veteran who had top secret clearance. To be accused of literally being a traitor was too much for him to take, which is why he has gone public with his knowledge.

Watch the interview below. It is worth your time, especially now only a week before election day. Joe Biden is not only a liar, he has been willing to make deals with Chinese businesses that work for the Chinese Communist Party, and as Bobulinski notes, is very seriously compromised by all standards of national security. As president it will be very difficult for him to defend the nation’s interests, exposed as he is now as someone with deep financial ties to Chinese government interests.

Even worse, the willingness of almost every major news organization to bury this story condemns them forever as true partisan hacks with zero loyalty to the United States itself. They deserve nothing but of utter contempt and disgust from every American.

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China outlines its updated space ambitions for the 2020s

9:38 am

The new colonial movement: China this week outlined some of its space ambitions for the 2020s, updating its planned lunar unmanned program as well as developments in its rocket industry.

For the Moon they plan the following:

Chang’e 6, a backup mission for this year’s sample-return launch, is scheduled to head to the moon in 2023 or 2024; Chang’e 7 is planned to launch around 2024 with the dual aims of landing on the south pole of the moon and closely studying the region from orbit. An eighth mission is also in the works for later this decade.

As for their rocket industry, CASIC, the government entity that supervises China’s commercial space activities (including a number of private companies operating independently but supervised closely by it) announced plans for a reusable two-stage reusable spaceplane, a new constellation of satellites, and a number of new quick-launch solid rockets aimed at doubling their launch rate.

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Chang’e-4 and Yutu-2 awake for 23rd lunar day on far side of the Moon

10:01 am

The new colonial movement: China’s Chang’e-4 lander and Yutu-2 rover have both been reactivated for their 23rd lunar day on far side of the Moon.

Yutu 2 is set to continue its journey northwest from the landing site and will target a roughly 12-inch (30 centimeters) rock on the rim of a nearby crater for analysis with a spectrometer. The rover has used that instrument to analyze a range of specimens in Von Kármán crater, notably causing a stir when it discovered an impact melt breccia initially described as “gel-like.”

It is the hope of the Chinese scientists that this rock will be ejected material from that crater and will have come from the lunar interior.

Also, though you need to read Chinese to understand how to access it, the project has released to the public another batch of data from both spacecraft.

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Possible collision today of two big pieces of space junk

9:14 am

A space junk tracking company is predicting a “more than 10%” chance that two large pieces of space junk with a combined mass of more than 6,000 pounds might collide tonight over the south Atlantic just before 9 pm (eastern).

The two pieces, one a defunct Russian satellite and the other a Chinese upper rocket stage, will be moving at more than 32,000 miles per hour relative to each other at the moment when impact might occur.

If they do hit, the collision will break both pieces into many new smaller pieces of space junk. Not a good thing.

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