laitimes

An arrow in the heart but not too fast? Chang'e 5 played the → of "water drifting" on the way home

author:CCTV News

Video loading...

The arrow-like spacecraft will travel all the way to Earth at a speed close to the second cosmic speed, that is, 11.2 kilometers per second. While we all want Chang'e-5 to come home early, going too fast creates a problem, which is that huge kinetic energy is converted into heat.

An arrow in the heart but not too fast? Chang'e 5 played the → of "water drifting" on the way home

In order to prevent Chang'e-5 from failing to re-enter the atmosphere due to overheating, scientists have come up with a way to let Chang'e-5 play "water drift". Specifically, the returner of Chang'e 5 will enter the atmosphere at a special angle, and jump in the part of the change in the density of the atmosphere, jump out of the atmosphere, and then re-enter the second time, in order to prolong the re-entry time and avoid too fast heat production, just like "water drifting".

(Edited by Zhai Chenjin)

Read on