China's Space Program News Thread
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China's Chang'e-4 probe switches back to dormant mode
2019-02-13 15:07:00Xinhua Editor : Gu Liping
The lander and the rover of the Chang'e-4 probe have been switched to dormant mode for the lunar night after working stably during China's Spring Festival, according to China's Lunar and Deep Space Exploration Center.
The lander was switched to a dormant mode at 7:00 p.m. Monday as scheduled, and the rover, Yutu-2 (Jade Rabbit-2), at 7:30 pm, said the center on its official social media platform accounts. The rover will be woken up on Feb. 28 and the lander on March 1.
The center said in a post that the Chang'e-4 probe worked stably during the Spring Festival. The payloads on board including the infrared imaging spectrometer and the neural atomic detector have been operating smoothly as scheduled.
Meanwhile, the lunar rover Yutu-2 has driven 120 meters on the far side of the moon, breaking the record of 114.8 meters made by its predecessor, Yutu, China's first rover to leave a trace on the lunar surface in late 2013.
China's Chang'e-4 probe, launched on Dec. 8, landed on the Von Karman Crater in the South Pole-Aitken Basin on the far side of the moon on Jan. 3.
A lunar day equals 14 days on Earth, and a lunar night is the same length. The radioisotope heat source, a collaboration between Chinese and Russian scientists, will support the probe through the lunar night when the temperature falls.
The Chang'e-4 probe woke from its first lunar night on Jan. 31. According to the measurements of Chang'e-4, the temperature of the lunar surface dropped to as low as minus 190 degrees centigrade, colder than expected.
It is the first time Chinese scientists have received first-hand data about the temperatures on the surface of the moon during the lunar night.
Last Friday, the U.S. space agency NASA announced that its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) acquired a shot on the Chang'e-4 landing site the day after it did so on Jan. 30.
In the picture, the lander and rover of the Chang'e-4 probe are nestled among craters on the floor of the Von Karman crater. Shadows cast by the lander and rover are visible.
Some interesting articles from xinhua:
WASHINGTON, Feb. 14 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese researcher said China's satellite Quantum Experiments at Space Scale (QUESS) or Micius would work at least two more years beyond its two-year working lifetime and carry out more international cooperation.
Yin Juan, a member of the QUESS team who received the annual Newcomb Cleveland Prize in Washington on Thursday night said so in an interview with Xinhua.
In the next two years, the QUESS team is expected to have the inter-continental quantum key distribution experiments with those from Italy, Russia and South Korea.
"We are open to international cooperation," said Yin, a professor of the University of Science and Technology of China. A team of 34 Chinese physicists led by Pan Jianwei with the university won the annual award that honors the most impactful research paper published in the journal Science.
The paper published in the journal Science in June 2017 reported the experiment that sends entangled photon pairs through the near-vacuum of space, measuring the quantum keys at receiving stations over 1,200 km apart.
Quantum key distribution (QKD), quantum entanglement distribution and quantum teleportation are three major scientific tasks done by QUESS, Yin said.
Based on the QKD technology, Chinese researchers could launch three more small-size satellites in the next three to five years to form a network that can fulfill more quantum communication tasks, a critical step to create the infrastructure of a globalized quantum internet one day, said Yin.
The QUESS team won the prize delivered by the American Association for the Advancement of Science as it laid the groundwork for ultra-secure communication networks of the future.
BEIJING, Feb. 15 (Xinhua) -- The landing site of China's Chang'e-4 lunar probe has been named "Statio Tianhe" after the spacecraft made the first-ever soft landing on the far side of the moon last month.
Together with three nearby impact craters and one hill, the name was approved by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), Liu Jizhong, director of the China Lunar Exploration and Space Engineering Center of the China National Space Administration (CNSA), said at a joint press conference.
The CNSA held the joint press conference with the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the IAU.
"Tianhe" is the Chinese word for Milky Way and "Statio" is Latin for base. Before "Statio Tianhe," only one place is listed on lunar maps as "Statio," namely "Statio Tranquilitatis" (Tranquility Base), the site the Apollo 11 crew members of the United States landed and walked on in 1969.
According to the CNSA, the Chang'e-4 probe landed at the preselected landing area at 177.6 degrees east longitude and 45.5 degrees south latitude on the far side of the moon at 10:26 a.m. Jan. 3 Beijing Time. The landing area is the Von Karman Crater within the Aitken Basin.
The three nearby impact craters located in the Von Karman Crater form the shape of a triangle with Statio Tianhe at the center, looking like the celestial Summer Triangle prominent in evening skies from June through December in the northern hemisphere.
The defining vertices of the Summer Triangle are at Vega, Altair and Deneb, each of which is the brightest star of its constellation. The three craters were therefore named after the three stars with names in traditional Chinese astrology. Zhinyu is for Vega, Hegu (also called Niulang) for Altair and Tianjin for Deneb.
In Chinese folk tales, lovers Niulang and Zhinyu, one a cowherder and the other a weaver fairy, were separated by the Tianhe (Heavenly River, or the Milky Way), as their love was not allowed by the gods. They could only reunite once a year when a flock of magpies formed a bridge across the river.
In Chinese, Tianjin means galaxy's ferry and bridge across the Milky Way.
Along with relay satellite Queqiao (Magpie Bridge), the naming of Statio Tianhe and the three craters are integrated with rich cultural connotations, said Li Chunlai, deputy director of the National Astronomical Observatories of China and commander-in-chief of the ground application system of Chang'e-4, at the press conference.
At the center of Von Karman Crater, around 46 km northwest to Statio Tianhe, a hill that was used to locate the landing site was named Mons Tai. Regarded as the foremost of the Five Great Mountains of China, Mount Tai is of historical and cultural significance. Mons is Latin for mountain.
It is the IAU's first time approving lunar place names with "Mons" since 1985.
The IAU is the officially recognized authority in astronomy for assigning designations to celestial bodies such as stars, planets and minor planets, including any surface features on them.
So far, a total of 12 lunar features have been named by China.
Liu said naming lunar surface features provides scientists in China and abroad with original data and location standards and will open a new chapter in lunar exploration in the world.
In January 2016, the landing site of Chang'e-3 was named "Guang Han Gong" or "Moon Palace," more than two years after the probe made China's first successful soft-landing on the moon in December 2013.
The Chang'e-4 probe, launched from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China on Dec. 8, 2018, touched down on the far side of the moon after orbiting the moon for more than 20 days.
With the communication assistance of the relay satellite Queqiao (Magpie Bridge), the probe sent back the first-ever close-up photograph of the moon's far side.
BEIJING, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- China announced Monday that it is developing the modified version of the Long March-6 rocket with four additional solid boosters to increase its carrying capacity.
The improved medium-left carrier rocket will be sent into space by 2020, according to the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology under the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASTC), which designed the rocket.
With a short launch preparation cycle, the Long March-6 has been mainly used for the academy's commercial launches. The rocket completed two space tests in September 2015 and November 2017, carrying 20 satellites and three satellites, respectively.
The three-stage rocket is 29.3 meters long, with a launch weight of 103 tonnes. It has a carrying capacity of one tonne for sun-synchronous orbit.
Fueled by a liquid propellant made of liquid oxygen and kerosene, the Long March-6 is China's first carrier rocket that uses non-toxic and non-polluting fuel.
Ding Xiufeng, executive manager of the Long March-6 project, said in response to the growing demand for commercial launches, they will have the rockets' market competitiveness enhanced through technical improvements, so that they can provide easier, faster and more comprehensive services to users at home and abroad.
In January, the China Great Wall Industry Corporation, affiliated with the CASTC, signed a multiple launch services agreement with Satellogic to use the Long March-6 and the Long March-2 rockets to launch 90 satellites for a private Argentine company in the coming years.
The first 13 satellites will be delivered later this year. It will be the first time for the Long March-6 to provide launch services for an international user.
WASHINGTON, Feb. 14 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese researcher said China's satellite Quantum Experiments at Space Scale (QUESS) or Micius would work at least two more years beyond its two-year working lifetime and carry out more international cooperation.
Yin Juan, a member of the QUESS team who received the annual Newcomb Cleveland Prize in Washington on Thursday night said so in an interview with Xinhua.
In the next two years, the QUESS team is expected to have the inter-continental quantum key distribution experiments with those from Italy, Russia and South Korea.
"We are open to international cooperation," said Yin, a professor of the University of Science and Technology of China. A team of 34 Chinese physicists led by Pan Jianwei with the university won the annual award that honors the most impactful research paper published in the journal Science.
The paper published in the journal Science in June 2017 reported the experiment that sends entangled photon pairs through the near-vacuum of space, measuring the quantum keys at receiving stations over 1,200 km apart.
Quantum key distribution (QKD), quantum entanglement distribution and quantum teleportation are three major scientific tasks done by QUESS, Yin said.
Based on the QKD technology, Chinese researchers could launch three more small-size satellites in the next three to five years to form a network that can fulfill more quantum communication tasks, a critical step to create the infrastructure of a globalized quantum internet one day, said Yin.
The QUESS team won the prize delivered by the American Association for the Advancement of Science as it laid the groundwork for ultra-secure communication networks of the future.
BEIJING, Feb. 15 (Xinhua) -- The landing site of China's Chang'e-4 lunar probe has been named "Statio Tianhe" after the spacecraft made the first-ever soft landing on the far side of the moon last month.
Together with three nearby impact craters and one hill, the name was approved by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), Liu Jizhong, director of the China Lunar Exploration and Space Engineering Center of the China National Space Administration (CNSA), said at a joint press conference.
The CNSA held the joint press conference with the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the IAU.
"Tianhe" is the Chinese word for Milky Way and "Statio" is Latin for base. Before "Statio Tianhe," only one place is listed on lunar maps as "Statio," namely "Statio Tranquilitatis" (Tranquility Base), the site the Apollo 11 crew members of the United States landed and walked on in 1969.
According to the CNSA, the Chang'e-4 probe landed at the preselected landing area at 177.6 degrees east longitude and 45.5 degrees south latitude on the far side of the moon at 10:26 a.m. Jan. 3 Beijing Time. The landing area is the Von Karman Crater within the Aitken Basin.
The three nearby impact craters located in the Von Karman Crater form the shape of a triangle with Statio Tianhe at the center, looking like the celestial Summer Triangle prominent in evening skies from June through December in the northern hemisphere.
The defining vertices of the Summer Triangle are at Vega, Altair and Deneb, each of which is the brightest star of its constellation. The three craters were therefore named after the three stars with names in traditional Chinese astrology. Zhinyu is for Vega, Hegu (also called Niulang) for Altair and Tianjin for Deneb.
In Chinese folk tales, lovers Niulang and Zhinyu, one a cowherder and the other a weaver fairy, were separated by the Tianhe (Heavenly River, or the Milky Way), as their love was not allowed by the gods. They could only reunite once a year when a flock of magpies formed a bridge across the river.
In Chinese, Tianjin means galaxy's ferry and bridge across the Milky Way.
Along with relay satellite Queqiao (Magpie Bridge), the naming of Statio Tianhe and the three craters are integrated with rich cultural connotations, said Li Chunlai, deputy director of the National Astronomical Observatories of China and commander-in-chief of the ground application system of Chang'e-4, at the press conference.
At the center of Von Karman Crater, around 46 km northwest to Statio Tianhe, a hill that was used to locate the landing site was named Mons Tai. Regarded as the foremost of the Five Great Mountains of China, Mount Tai is of historical and cultural significance. Mons is Latin for mountain.
It is the IAU's first time approving lunar place names with "Mons" since 1985.
The IAU is the officially recognized authority in astronomy for assigning designations to celestial bodies such as stars, planets and minor planets, including any surface features on them.
So far, a total of 12 lunar features have been named by China.
Liu said naming lunar surface features provides scientists in China and abroad with original data and location standards and will open a new chapter in lunar exploration in the world.
In January 2016, the landing site of Chang'e-3 was named "Guang Han Gong" or "Moon Palace," more than two years after the probe made China's first successful soft-landing on the moon in December 2013.
The Chang'e-4 probe, launched from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China on Dec. 8, 2018, touched down on the far side of the moon after orbiting the moon for more than 20 days.
With the communication assistance of the relay satellite Queqiao (Magpie Bridge), the probe sent back the first-ever close-up photograph of the moon's far side.
BEIJING, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- China announced Monday that it is developing the modified version of the Long March-6 rocket with four additional solid boosters to increase its carrying capacity.
The improved medium-left carrier rocket will be sent into space by 2020, according to the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology under the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASTC), which designed the rocket.
With a short launch preparation cycle, the Long March-6 has been mainly used for the academy's commercial launches. The rocket completed two space tests in September 2015 and November 2017, carrying 20 satellites and three satellites, respectively.
The three-stage rocket is 29.3 meters long, with a launch weight of 103 tonnes. It has a carrying capacity of one tonne for sun-synchronous orbit.
Fueled by a liquid propellant made of liquid oxygen and kerosene, the Long March-6 is China's first carrier rocket that uses non-toxic and non-polluting fuel.
Ding Xiufeng, executive manager of the Long March-6 project, said in response to the growing demand for commercial launches, they will have the rockets' market competitiveness enhanced through technical improvements, so that they can provide easier, faster and more comprehensive services to users at home and abroad.
In January, the China Great Wall Industry Corporation, affiliated with the CASTC, signed a multiple launch services agreement with Satellogic to use the Long March-6 and the Long March-2 rockets to launch 90 satellites for a private Argentine company in the coming years.
The first 13 satellites will be delivered later this year. It will be the first time for the Long March-6 to provide launch services for an international user.
Since you took time to select and post these, would appreciate if you can add title for better readability.
The shuttle between the lunar orbiter and ground station.Chinese LEM project:
Progress on LM9. Still not an official program of record, but risk reduction activities ongoing.
XICHANG, March 10 (Xinhua) -- China has made significant progress in the development of the key technologies of the heavy-lift carrier rocket, the Long March-9, which is expected to make its maiden flight around 2030.
The development of the heavy-lift rocket will greatly improve China's capacity of entering outer space. The Long March-9 rocket will support China's space industry development, utilization of space resources and deep space exploration, said experts from the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology.
The rocket will have a core stage with a diameter of 9.5 meters. Its total length will be nearly 100 meters. The rocket will be able to carry payloads of 50 to 140 tonnes into low-Earth orbit, 15 to 50 tonnes into the lunar transfer orbit, and 12 to 44 tonnes into the Mars transfer orbit.
The carrying capacity of the Long March-9 will be five times that of the Long March-5, currently the largest carrier rocket of China.
The heavy-lift rocket is expected to help China realize manned lunar exploration, taking samples from Mars back to Earth, and other deep space explorations.
Two 'earth observation' put in svc this Thursday now in orbit and functioning nominally.
BEIJING, March 21 (Xinhua) -- Two Chinese Earth observation satellites, the Gaofen-5 and Gaofen-6, were officially put into service on Thursday after completing in-orbit tests.
During the tests, the two satellites provided precise data on environmental monitoring, natural resources and natural disasters, according to China's State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense (SASTIND) and China's National Space Administration (CNSA).
Zhang Kejian, vice minister of industry and information technology and head of SASTIND and CNSA, said at a press conference that after the launch of the Gaofen-7 satellite later this year, China will complete the construction of its space-based Earth observation system with seven high-resolution satellites.
Launched on May 9, 2018, Gaofen-5 is the first China-developed satellite that can monitor air pollution. It can dynamically reflect the state of air pollution in China through the monitoring of air pollutants, greenhouse gases and aerosols.
With a designed life of eight years, Gaofen-6 was launched on June 2, 2018, and can provide high-resolution images covering a large area of the Earth. Its data can be applied in monitoring natural and agricultural disasters, estimating crop yields and surveys of forest and wetland resources.
The Gaofen-5 and Gaofen-6 will form a constellation with other Gaofen satellites in orbit.
Gaofen means "high resolution" in Chinese. Since the Gaofen project began in 2010, China has had an increasingly clearer view of the planet.
Launched in April 2013, the Gaofen-1 can cover the globe in just four days.
The Gaofen-2, sent into space in August 2014, is accurate to 0.8 meters in full color and can collect multispectral images of objects greater than 3.2 meters in length.
The Gaofen-4, launched in late 2015, is China's first geosynchronous orbit high-resolution optical imaging satellite.
The Gaofen-3, launched in August 2016, is China's first synthetic aperture radar-imaging satellite.
Last July, China used the Gaofen-3 and Gaofen-4 for emergency monitoring of Typhoon Maria. The two satellites provided data assistance for disaster alerts, rescue and assessment.
The Gaofen project has helped reduce China's dependence on foreign remote sensing satellite data.
XICHANG, March 10 (Xinhua) -- China has made significant progress in the development of the key technologies of the heavy-lift carrier rocket, the Long March-9, which is expected to make its maiden flight around 2030.
The development of the heavy-lift rocket will greatly improve China's capacity of entering outer space. The Long March-9 rocket will support China's space industry development, utilization of space resources and deep space exploration, said experts from the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology.
The rocket will have a core stage with a diameter of 9.5 meters. Its total length will be nearly 100 meters. The rocket will be able to carry payloads of 50 to 140 tonnes into low-Earth orbit, 15 to 50 tonnes into the lunar transfer orbit, and 12 to 44 tonnes into the Mars transfer orbit.
The carrying capacity of the Long March-9 will be five times that of the Long March-5, currently the largest carrier rocket of China.
The heavy-lift rocket is expected to help China realize manned lunar exploration, taking samples from Mars back to Earth, and other deep space explorations.
Two 'earth observation' put in svc this Thursday now in orbit and functioning nominally.
BEIJING, March 21 (Xinhua) -- Two Chinese Earth observation satellites, the Gaofen-5 and Gaofen-6, were officially put into service on Thursday after completing in-orbit tests.
During the tests, the two satellites provided precise data on environmental monitoring, natural resources and natural disasters, according to China's State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense (SASTIND) and China's National Space Administration (CNSA).
Zhang Kejian, vice minister of industry and information technology and head of SASTIND and CNSA, said at a press conference that after the launch of the Gaofen-7 satellite later this year, China will complete the construction of its space-based Earth observation system with seven high-resolution satellites.
Launched on May 9, 2018, Gaofen-5 is the first China-developed satellite that can monitor air pollution. It can dynamically reflect the state of air pollution in China through the monitoring of air pollutants, greenhouse gases and aerosols.
With a designed life of eight years, Gaofen-6 was launched on June 2, 2018, and can provide high-resolution images covering a large area of the Earth. Its data can be applied in monitoring natural and agricultural disasters, estimating crop yields and surveys of forest and wetland resources.
The Gaofen-5 and Gaofen-6 will form a constellation with other Gaofen satellites in orbit.
Gaofen means "high resolution" in Chinese. Since the Gaofen project began in 2010, China has had an increasingly clearer view of the planet.
Launched in April 2013, the Gaofen-1 can cover the globe in just four days.
The Gaofen-2, sent into space in August 2014, is accurate to 0.8 meters in full color and can collect multispectral images of objects greater than 3.2 meters in length.
The Gaofen-4, launched in late 2015, is China's first geosynchronous orbit high-resolution optical imaging satellite.
The Gaofen-3, launched in August 2016, is China's first synthetic aperture radar-imaging satellite.
Last July, China used the Gaofen-3 and Gaofen-4 for emergency monitoring of Typhoon Maria. The two satellites provided data assistance for disaster alerts, rescue and assessment.
The Gaofen project has helped reduce China's dependence on foreign remote sensing satellite data.
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