Since the completion of the Chang'e-5 lunar sampling mission on the mainland, it also announced the successful conclusion of the third phase of China's lunar exploration program, and the Chang'e-5 brought back 1,731 grams of samples from the surface of the moon, which can be regarded as a full harvest, which has spoiled both the United States and Russia. Now that the fourth phase of the lunar exploration project has officially begun, Chang'e-6 has been launched on May 3 to start its journey to the moon, and it took five days to reach the moon and enter the orbit around the moon!
The fourth phase of the lunar exploration project mainly includes four launches, and at present, the Queqiao-2 relay satellite has already completed the launch and deployment, and has entered the large elliptical frozen orbit around the moon to stay in preparation for lunar exploration!
Chang'e-6 will wait in orbit around the moon for about 20 days, and then separate the orbit-return assembly and the ascent and landing assembly as planned, and land in the Apollo Basin of the Aitken impact crater on the far side of the moon to carry out a two-day lunar sampling work, and the plan is still 2 kilograms. If all goes well, Chang'e-6 will return to Earth at the end of June and land at the Siziwangqi landing site!
The follow-up Chang'e-5 and Chang'e-8 will also be launched as planned, and their destination is the south pole of the moon, mainly to find possible water resources and establish a basic type of international lunar research station at the south pole of the moon!
The International Lunar Research Station will have two time nodes in 2035 and 2045, and the ultimate goal is to complete the construction of comprehensive scientific experiment facilities that operate autonomously on the lunar surface and in lunar orbit for a long time, with short-term manned participation, and can be expanded and maintained! After the success of the International Lunar Research Station, it will also become the second space cooperation platform after the International Space Station!
In fact, many netizens may not be concerned about the fourth phase of the lunar exploration project, but China's first manned landing on the moon!
At present, it is certain that China will complete a manned mission to the moon by 2030, three astronauts will go to the moon, and eventually two astronauts will land on the surface of the moon! At this stage, China has three batches of 34 astronauts, and the fourth batch of astronauts has also been selected and will be completed soon, and the future of China's manned space flight is worth looking forward to!
The new launch vehicle Long March 10, the manned spacecraft "Dream Boat", the lunar lander "Lanyue", the lunar landing suit and other important products have completed the program development work, and are currently fully carrying out the production of initial samples and various tests, and will be unveiled in the manned lunar missions in the future!
On the other hand, the United States also has a return to the moon program in this century, which is affiliated with the Artemis program, which is simply a manned landing on the moon to verify key technologies to achieve the feat of manned landing on Mars!
But in reality, the implementation of this plan is stumbling and a little difficult, and the repetition of the lunar phase plan has not been carried out according to the normal steps, almost one step at a time.
At this stage, only the flight mission of Artemis I has been completed, and the unmanned orbit of the moon has been completed, and the subsequent Artemis II and III will complete the manned orbiting of the moon and the manned lunar landing process respectively, in fact, it can be seen that Artemis II is similar to Apollo 8 more than half a century ago.
The real key launch will be Artemis III, which will also be the first manned moon landing in the United States in more than half a century. However, at present, there is a high probability that these two launch missions will not be launched as planned, and they have been postponed many times. There is even a possibility that the return to the moon will not be completed before 2030!
This has aroused the doubts of many netizens, many people believe that the United States completed the manned landing on the moon more than half a century ago, and easily successfully sent 12 astronauts to the surface of the moon six times from 1969 to 1972! So more than half a century has passed, isn't the technology more sophisticated, and the return to the moon program should be easy and enjoyable!
But the reality is that the United States has stumbled on its return to the moon, which is puzzling!
There is no doubt that China will complete a manned landing on the moon before 2030, but it is difficult to say that the United States wants to return to the moon, in more than half a century of development, we know that NASA must have made more than a little progress, but why stumbling on the return to the moon is really strange!
Of course, there is a claim that the American manned moon landing is starting from scratch, and the technology of more than half a century ago has been lost. The most significant is the retirement of the Saturn V, and without a high-thrust launch vehicle, of course, the core thing is lost! The current SLS launch system is not a new technology, it is an upgrade and revision of the space shuttle, I don't know what the final outcome will be! If you don't believe it, the U.S. Mars sampling program is about to be rebuilt!
Text/Science Black Hole, Image Source: Internet Invasion and Deletion.