{"id":16875,"date":"2014-11-01T18:56:41","date_gmt":"2014-11-01T10:56:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/chinese-probe-returns-from-flight-around-the-moon\/"},"modified":"2014-11-01T18:56:41","modified_gmt":"2014-11-01T10:56:41","slug":"chinese-probe-returns-from-flight-around-the-moon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/chinese-probe-returns-from-flight-around-the-moon\/","title":{"rendered":"Chinese probe returns from flight around the moon"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Ground
Ground teams in China inspect the a space capsule after its return from a flight around the moon. Credit: Xinhua\/Ren Junchuan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Completing an eight-day test flight around the moon to verify technologies for a planned lunar sample return mission, an unpiloted Chinese space capsule re-entered Earth\u2019s atmosphere at blazing speed Friday and parachuted to a successful landing.<\/p>\n

Images released by China\u2019s official state-run Xinhua news agency showed recovery crews swarming the landing capsule after it touched down at 2242 GMT (6:42 p.m. EDT) Friday in the China\u2019s remote northern region of Inner Mongolia about 300 miles from Beijing.<\/p>\n

The landing occurred around dawn Saturday, local time, and the return capsule appeared intact but charred from the heat of re-entry.<\/p>\n

The landing vehicle was expected to perform a \u201cskip re-entry\u201d during its descent, using two dips into the atmosphere to dissipate its 25,000 mph return velocity before deploying parachutes for the last phase of the landing sequence.<\/p>\n

The mission \u2014 nicknamed Xiaofei, or \u201clittle flyer\u201d on Chinese social media networks \u2014 launched Oct. 23 from the Xichang space center aboard a Long March 3C rocket.<\/p>\n

Traveling 840,000 kilometers \u2014 about 520,000 miles \u2014 on the round-trip journey, the spacecraft flew around the far side of the moon and returned a dramatic view of Earth and moon perched in the blackness of space.<\/p>\n

On the mission\u2019s return leg, the landing capsule separated from a mothership craft for the plunge back into Earth\u2019s atmosphere.<\/p>\n

About the size of a washing machine, the landing craft lowered into the atmosphere twice, bouncing back into space and skipping like a rock across water before falling to Earth. Such skip re-entry maneuvers can diminish the speed and reduce the heat encountered by a spacecraft streaking back to Earth.<\/p>\n

\u201cReally, this is like braking a car,\u201d said Zhou Jianliang, chief engineer with the Beijing Aerospace Command and Control Center, in a report by Xinhua. \u201cThe faster you drive, the longer the distance you need to bring the car to a complete stop.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe \u2018bounce\u2019 was one of the biggest challenges of the mission, because the craft must enter the atmosphere at a very precise angle,\u201d Xinhua reported. \u201cAn error of 0.2 degrees would have rendered the mission a failure.\u201d<\/p>\n

The flight around the moon paved the way for the planned Chang\u2019e 5 probe to launch in 2017 and return bits of lunar rock and soil to Earth.<\/p>\n

Unofficially called Chang\u2019e 5 T1, the test flight validated heat shield technology, trajectory design, and recovery procedures for the sample return mission, a Chinese scientist said.<\/p>\n

The landing capsule\u2019s host platform was expected to fire rocket thrusters after releasing the instrumented re-entry module to dodge Earth and head back out into space for continued operations.<\/p>\n

\"China's
China\u2019s lunar test probe and returned this stunning view of the Earth and the far side of the moon before landing Friday. Credit: Xinhua\/SASTIND<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The mission carried a piggyback suitcase-sized instrument package on the Long March rocket\u2019s upper stage made by LuxSpace, a company in Luxembourg that developed the secondary payload to honor the memory of Manfred Fuchs, a pioneer in Europe\u2019s commercial space sector.<\/p>\n

Fuchs founded Bremen, Germany-based OHB \u2014 LuxSpace\u2019s parent company \u2014 and grew it into a leading satellite and rocket contractor. He died in April.<\/p>\n

The payload package carries a radiation monitor and a radio beacon, and officials expected it to remain in an orbit stretching up to 250,000 miles from Earth aboard the Long March rocket stage.<\/p>\n

With Friday\u2019s landing, China became the third country to achieve a round-trip flight around the moon.<\/p>\n

China launched two orbiters around the moon \u2014 Chang\u2019e 1 and Chang\u2019e 2 \u2014 in 2007 and 2010 to survey the lunar surface.<\/p>\n

The Chang\u2019e 3 lunar probe landed Dec. 14, 2013, making China the third country to achieve a soft landing on the moon after the United States and the former Soviet Union.<\/p>\n

Chang\u2019e 3 deployed a small rover named Yutu, which drove away from the mission\u2019s stationary landing platform, collecting images, studying the composition of the moon\u2019s soil and rocks, and probing the moon\u2019s underground structure with a ground-penetrating radar.<\/p>\n

Chinese officials said Yutu suffered a glitch in a control system in January, rendering the rover immobile and exposed to cold temperatures during lunar nights, which last two weeks.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, Xinhua reported the Yutu rover was losing functionality but still alive after nearly 10 months on the moon, surpassing the craft\u2019s original design lifetime of three months.<\/p>\n

\u201cYutu has gone through freezing lunar nights under abnormal status, and its functions are gradually degrading,\u201d said Yu Dengyun, chief designer of China\u2019s lunar probe mission, in a report by Xinhua.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe hoped the moon rover would go farther, and we really want to find the true reason why it didn\u2019t,\u201d Yu told Xinhua in an interview.<\/p>\n

\"The
The landing capsule touched down in China\u2019s Inner Mongolia autonomous region. Credit: Xinhua\/Shao Kun<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

China developed a backup mission for the Chang\u2019e 3 lunar lander. The backup spacecraft, named Chang\u2019e 4, will now help prove systems required for the more ambitious Chang\u2019e 5 mission, Xinhua reported. Details on the specific objectives and planned launch date for Chang\u2019e 4 have not been released by China.<\/p>\n

The Chang\u2019e 5 mission will follow with launch in 2017 to collect 2 kilograms \u2014 about 4.4 pounds \u2014 of soil from beneath the moon\u2019s surface and return it to Earth, Wu Weiren, chief designer of China\u2019s lunar exploration program, told the Xinhua news agency.<\/p>\n

\u201cAside from the high-speed re-entry, major technological challenges for the craft center on surface sampling, taking off from the moon, and lunar orbit rendezvous, Wu said,\u201d Xinhua reported.<\/p>\n

China also has plans for a Chang\u2019e 6 sample return mission some time before 2020.<\/p>\n

China is studying sending astronauts on lunar missions after scouting the moon with robotic spacecraft, according to official media reports.<\/p>\n

Near-term plans for China\u2019s human space program are focused on constructing a space station in low Earth orbit.<\/p>\n

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ground teams in China inspect the a space capsule after its return from a flight around the moon. Credit: Xinhua\/Ren Junchuan Completing an eight-day test flight around the moon to verify technologies for a planned lunar sample return mission, an unpiloted Chinese space capsule re-entered Earth\u2019s atmosphere at blazing speed Friday and parachuted to a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4181,135,4248,625],"class_list":["post-16875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-change-5-t1","tag-china","tag-luxspace","tag-moon"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16875"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16875"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16875\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}