The reporter learned from the China National Space Administration on May 1 that the fourth phase of the lunar exploration project, the Chang'e-6 mission, which was planned to be launched on May 3, was made by the engineering mission command.
Image source: Sky Mirror on the Clouds
At the Wenchang Space Launch Site in China, preparations for the mission are progressing steadily, and the Long March 5 Yao-8 carrier rocket for this launch is about to be filled with propellant. This is the second launch mission of the Long March 5 launch vehicle, which will transport the Chang'e-6 probe to the Earth-Moon transfer orbit to carry out the sample return mission on the far side of the moon.
The launch window refers to the time frame that is suitable for the launch of a rocket. On the basis of comprehensively considering the relationship between the position of the Earth and the Moon, the engineering team applied the "narrow window multi-orbit" launch technology to design a total of 10 lunar orbits for the rocket in a 50-minute window for two consecutive days.
[News a little more]
Chang'e-6 was originally a backup of Chang'e-5, but after the success of the Chang'e-5 mission, it was given a new mission to go to the far side of the moon to collect lunar samples and bring them back to Earth, which will also be the first time that humans have carried out samples on the far side of the moon.
The Chang'e-6 mission plans to go to the South Pole-Aitken Basin on the far side of the moon to carry out topography exploration and geological background survey, and to discover and collect lunar samples from different regions and ages.
In order to enhance international cooperation, the Chang'e-6 mission also carried payloads and satellite projects from four countries, including France's radon detector, ESA's negative ion detector, Italy's laser angle mirror, and Pakistan's CubeSat.
In order to successfully complete the communication between the spacecraft on the far side of the moon and the earth, the mainland has newly developed the Queqiao-2 relay communication satellite. The Queqiao-2 relay satellite was launched on March 20 this year. On April 12, the China National Space Administration announced that the Queqiao-2 relay satellite had completed the on-orbit alignment test and achieved complete success.