08/06/2019

China's forefront of global space race

Update 15 May 2021: China’s Tianwen-1 spacecraft completes historic Mars landing
China’s Mars rover Zhurong has yet to drive off its lander and start exploring.Credit: Xinhua/Alamy

Now that they know the general landing location of China’s Zhurong Mars rover, scientists are rushing to analyse satellite images and geological maps to pinpoint intriguing features. Of particular significance is a possible mud volcano — a type of landform that no Mars rover has visited before.

“We want to propose the plan for the rover,” says Xiao Long, a planetary geologist at the China University of Geosciences in Wuhan, who says scientists across China will now have the tantalizing opportunity to influence Zhurong’s journey. “A number of teams will be trying to plan out the traverse — where you would go in what time frame, to accomplish as many goals as you can in a 90-day mission,” adds Joseph Michalski, a planetary scientist at the University of Hong Kong.

Encased in a lander, the rover touched down shortly after 7 a.m. Beijing time on Saturday, 10 months after China’s Tianwen-1 mission left Earth. Until the touchdown, the potential landing zone — in a vast impact crater called Utopia Planitia — was thousands of kilometres across, meaning that scientists could only loosely finger sites of possible interest.

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China has become the first nation to fully own and operate a floating launch platform for its space missions
China has successfully launched a rocket into space from the Yellow Sea, making it the first nation to fully own and operate a floating sea launch platform. Photo: China National Space Administration

 China successfully launched a rocket into space from a civilian cargo ship at sea on Wednesday, becoming the first nation to fully own and operate a floating sea launch platform, a technology expected to significantly reduce the cost and risk of space missions.

 A Long March 11WEY rocket blasted off from the ship in the Yellow Sea at noon Beijing time, according to the China National Space Administration.

 About six minutes later, five commercial satellites and a pair of “technical experiment” probes – called Bufeng, or Wind Catchers – reached their designated orbits.

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 China’s lunar rover Yutu ends 60-year riddle of moon’s mantle with discovery of mineral olivine
China’s lunar rover, Yutu, has made a groundbreaking discovery. Photo: Xinhua

 China’s lunar rover, Yutu, has made a groundbreaking discovery that proves what scientists have been thinking for decades: that the moon has a mantle.

 Scientists have long suspected that the moon has a mantle under its crust, just like the Earth, but for the past 60 years lunar explorations, including the US Apollo missions, have failed to provide proof. While there were clues, there was no direct evidence.

 “Now we have it,” said Professor Li Chunlai, deputy director of the National Astronomical Observatory of China and a lead scientist on the Chang’e-4 mission that put Yutu, or Jade Rabbit as it is known in English, on the moon.

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 First photo of China’s lunar rover Yutu 2 leaving ‘footprints’ on far side of moon
Yutu 2 leaves its first tracks after being released by Chang’e 4. Photo: Xinhua

 China’s lunar craft Chang’e 4 has released its rover Yutu 2 to explore the far side of the moon after making the world’s first soft landing on the moon’s uncharted side on Thursday.

 Photos of the rover leaving humankind’s first tracks there on Thursday night were sent back to Earth by the lander after the vehicle separated from it.

 The images were sent via the relay satellite Queqiao, designed to allow radio communication between the far side of the moon and Earth without it being blocked by the near hemisphere.

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 Chang’e 4 landing on far side of moon marks start of China’s space race with the US

China’s space programme scored a major victory on Thursday morning when the Chang’e 4 lunar spacecraft landed on the far side of the moon, territory that has never before been explored.

 The probe completed the world’s first ever soft-landing on the uncharted far side at 10.26am Hong Kong time, and almost immediately transmitted a “close range” image of the mysterious land back to Earth.

 The photograph showed Chang’e was sitting in a relatively flat area with a small crater just metres away. The mountain range of the Von Karman crater could be seen in the distance.

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 China’s Chang’e 4 lunar probe sends first photo of far side of the moon after historic soft landing
The first close-up picture of the dark side of the moon, taken by Chang’e 4 after its historic soft landing. Photo: Xinhua

 China’s space programme made history this morning when its Chang’e 4 lunar spacecraft successfully touched down on the moon’s far side, which has never been explored.

 The lunar lander and rover spacecraft completed the world’s first soft-landing on the uncharted far side at 10.26am Hong Kong time, near the moon’s south pole, before taking the first photograph of that part of the moon.

 Chang’e 4 was launched atop a Long March 3B carrier rocket on December 8 at the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre in southwest China’s Sichuan province. It entered lunar orbit four days later.

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 China's Chang’e 4 spacecraft touches down on dark side of moon
Image of the moon’s far side, taken January 30, 2019, via NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). At the time of this image, LRO was 205 miles (330 km) east of the landing site. Thus the Chang’e 4 lander is only about two pixels across (bright spot between the two arrows), and the smaller Yutu-2 rover is not detectable. For a closer look, see the image below this. Image via LROC

 The first-ever successful landing on the far side of the moon took place just last month – January 3, 2019 – when the the Chinese National Space Administration (CNSA) safely set down its Chang’e 4 spacecraft. One month later, NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) passed over the spot where the Chinese spacecraft and rover rested on the lunar surface. It rolled 70 degrees to the west to acquire the spectacular image above.

 NASA released the LRO images on February 8, 2019. The first new image – shown above – was taken on January 30, 2019. It shows the landing site in an oblique limb-shot view, looking across the floor of Von Kármán crater.

 Only the lander, not the smaller rover (called Yutu-2), was visible in this image, since LRO was over 124 miles (200 km) from the area at the time. Even the lander was only a few pixels across.

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