{"id":16903,"date":"2014-10-26T00:57:40","date_gmt":"2014-10-25T16:57:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/first-commercial-mission-to-the-moon-launched-from-china\/"},"modified":"2014-10-26T00:57:40","modified_gmt":"2014-10-25T16:57:40","slug":"first-commercial-mission-to-the-moon-launched-from-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/first-commercial-mission-to-the-moon-launched-from-china\/","title":{"rendered":"First commercial mission to the moon launched from China"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Artist's
Artist\u2019s concept of the Manfred Memorial Moon Mission, which remains attached to the upper stage of a Long March 3C rocket for a flight around the moon. Credit: LuxSpace<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A modest privately-funded instrument package built by a company in Luxembourg became the first commercial to the moon to get off the ground with a fiery nighttime launch Thursday aboard a Chinese rocket.<\/p>\n

The briefcase-sized spacecraft, fitted with a battery and a solar panel, a radio and a radiation detector, is riding piggyback on a Chinese technology demonstrator designed to verify technologies for a future mission to return lunar samples to Earth.<\/p>\n

The mission lifted off Thursday from the Xichang satellite launch center in southwestern China\u2019s Sichuan province, climbing into a night sky on top of a Long March 3C rocket.<\/p>\n

The Chinese probe separated from the third stage of the Long March launcher, and the commercial payload remained attached to the rocket to ride around the moon and come back to earth on an eight-day round-trip journey.<\/p>\n

Built by LuxSpaceX in Luxembourg, the instrument suite was put together in less than six months from the time officials approved the mission.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis our speciality,\u201d said Jochen Harms, managing director of LuxSpace. \u201cWe wanted to show that this was feasible. One of the ideas is really to show that you can do missions in quicker time and lower cost.\u201d<\/p>\n

LuxSpace developed the mission for approximately $500,000 entirely with private funding, Harms said.<\/p>\n

The mission is named the Manfred Memorial Moon Mission, or M4, in memory of Manfred Fuchs, a pioneer in Europe\u2019s commercial space sector who founded Bremen, Germany-based OHB \u2014 LuxSpace\u2019s parent company \u2014 and grew it into leading satellite and rocket contractor.<\/p>\n

Fuchs died in April, and LuxSpace gave the green light for the M4 mission in May.<\/p>\n

China\u2019s lunar probe, the prime payload on Thursday\u2019s launch, will loop around the far side of the moon and return to Earth around Oct. 31, streaking through the atmosphere for a blazing-hot re-entry and touchdown in China\u2019s Inner Mongolia autonomous region.<\/p>\n

The third stage and its ride-along commercial payload could also plunge back to Earth and burn up in the atmosphere without a heat shield. But Harms said it is possible the rocket and LuxSpace\u2019s mission \u2014 thanks to the propulsive effect of gravity \u2014 will wind up in a high-altitude orbit stretching 400,000 kilometers, or 250,000 miles, from Earth.<\/p>\n

A late change to the launch trajectory by Chinese engineers made for a better chance the empty rocket stage and the M4 mission will be kicked into a long-term orbit rather than be consumed by fire in Earth\u2019s atmosphere.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we\u2019re lucky, we will continue to collect data from that orbit \u2014 radiation data and things like that,\u201d Harms said.<\/p>\n

LuxSpace responded to the launch adjustment from China by adding a solar panel to the M4 payload to recharge the package\u2019s battery system, which was sufficient to power the mission on the flight to the moon and back.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the beginning we thought it would end with a 95 percent chance of burning in the Earth\u2019s atmosphere, but when they changed, we put a solar panel on it,\u201d Harms said in an interview with Spaceflight Now. \u201cWe had one here, so we just put it on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harms said radiation data collected by the M4 mission on the way to the moon, and potentially from a distant unexplored orbit around Earth, will be openly shared and help design radiation shields and aid in navigation for future lunar missions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea is we will collect radiation information during the flight, and we have a rather simple but robust beacon transmitter on-board, and we think that we can use this type of beacon later on for other missions,\u201d Harms said.<\/p>\n

Signals from M4\u2019s beacon received at different locations on Earth will allow LuxSpace to precisely locate the spacecraft\u2019s location in space, officials said.<\/p>\n

LuxSpace has posted information on how amateur radio operators can receive the beacon signals.<\/p>\n

The mission\u2019s accelerated timetable was by design, Harms said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe basic goal was to show that it\u2019s possible to do a moon mission with simple means, and to do that outside the institutional framework and to do it quickly, \u201cHarms said. \u201cOne major mission goal was to have a memorial to the founder of OHB.<\/p>\n

\u201cUsually with ESA and NASA missions, it can take many years from definition to launch, and I think you can do it much quicker,\u201d Harms said. \u201cWe want to show that it\u2019s possible to do valuable science with micro-probes. You don\u2019t need a spacecraft that is thousands of kilograms.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s interesting because it\u2019s a more democratic approach to space than an agency-driven mission,\u201d Harms said. \u201cOf crouse big missions require the agencies, but we can now think about simple missions which may require less help from agencies\u2026 We have many scientists who highly appreciate the hopeful science return because they don\u2019t have [this data] yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Google Lunar X Prize has offered $20 million to the first privately-funded team to put a mobile spacecraft on the lunar surface in a bid to foster commercial space transportation between Earth and the moon.<\/p>\n

The M4 payload is roughly the size and shape of a briefcase, weighs about 10 kilograms (22 pounds) and runs on 6 watts of power.<\/p>\n

The first signals from the craft\u2019s transmitter were received in Brazil about 90 minutes after launch Thursday, according to LuxSpace.<\/p>\n

\u201cA very large number of radio amateurs has followed our request to acquire the data from the satellite,\u201d said Marco Fuchs, CEO of OHB. \u201cIt is very encouraging to see so many people following our mission.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

Artist\u2019s concept of the Manfred Memorial Moon Mission, which remains attached to the upper stage of a Long March 3C rocket for a flight around the moon. Credit: LuxSpace A modest privately-funded instrument package built by a company in Luxembourg became the first commercial to the moon to get off the ground with a fiery […]<\/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":[4181,135,291,4248,625],"class_list":["post-16903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-change-5-t1","tag-china","tag-commercial-space","tag-luxspace","tag-moon"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16903"}],"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=16903"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16903\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}