Posted on 01/23/2017 9:00:02 AM PST by BenLurkin
Two years after putting its first rover on the moon, China says it will launch a mission to bring lunar samples back to Earth late this year. As it plans that mission, China's space agency is also preparing a separate trip to the moon's far side, possibly in 2018.
In late 2013, China became the third country to land a rover on the moon's surface, joining the U.S. and Russia in that elite club. Named the Jade Rabbit, China's rover ran into a slew of early technical problems, as the Two-Way reported. But it overcame many of those issues and continued operations until August of 2016.
The mission to return lunar samples to Earth will be even more complex.
"With a weight of 8.2 tons, the lunar probe is comprised of four parts: an orbiter, a returner, an ascender and a lander," says China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation consultant Ye Peijian, according to official broadcaster CCTV.
After a heavy-lift rocket sends it to the moon, the Chang'e-5 lunar probe (named for the Chinese lunar goddess) will deploy its lander to the moon's surface, where it will deposit samples in the ascender craft; the ascender will then take off and dock with the orbiter, where the samples will be transferred to the returning craft.
In addition to bringing China its first samples from the moon, the mission will represent the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation's first lunar take-off and unmanned docking in the moon's orbit, CCTV reports.
We're poised to witness a flurry of moon shots: Several other entities are also planning lunar missions in 2017, including at least five teams who are competing for the Google Lunar XPRIZE. And in 2018, NASA plans to send several missions to the moon's orbit, while India hopes to land a rover on the lunar surface in the same year.
China is also planning two other ambitious missions. In late December its space agency announced that it may land a probe on the moon's far side by late 2018 — and that it plans to launch a Mars probe by 2020.
Spoiler alert: it’s largely anorthosite impact breccia with vitreous spherules and flood basalt.
The more samples we have, the better informed our extrapolations will be.
I wonder what happened to the .325 KG of lunar samples the Russians brought back in 1970?
The importance of the article is that China is the only nation committed to Lunar missions and thus control of the moon and its resources and military high ground.
Hopefully they will find Obama’s Birth Certificate. It has to be somewhere.
Yeah but, we have a better Muslim outreach program than the Chinese.
You watch. When they finally pull it off, the MSM will act like it’s never been done before.
Will it be real or faked ?
Ping.
Trump is pro-space, so no doubt he will accelerate our space program (whereas Obama gutted it). The moon has little to offer, however. It is heavy metal poor, and is a bit too far out to serve as a “military high ground”. But it still has possibilities. It has more titanium than earth, and is a possible source of Helium-3 if we ever decide to build fusion power plants. There’s nothing really practical about controlling it in the near future.
Santa Clause may have a problem with this activity...
Unplanned robotic probes will cost less. Certainly not as sexy but I think this approach is far more practical until we can get the cost of manned exploration down.
Do unplanned robotic probes lead to unplanned robotic pregnancies?
We should be designing a Mars sample return mission right now. It’s well within the reach of current technology.
LOL. Did I actually write that? Maybe I should read what I write before I post. :-)
:-)
Good for them. We need to go back, too. This time, to establish a permanent base on the far side. For astronomy and stuff.
That's not the reason to go to the moon.
The far-side real-estate, protected from the radio noise of earth, is the perfect place to put a radio telescope. And the low gravity of the moon, combined with steel from near-earth asteroids, could make it feasible to make a really BIG telescope.
There are lots of reasons for a base on the moon, but none with any immediate payoffs unless it’s for helium-3, which is so rare on the earth that it’s the one substance that may be worth the cost to get it. The north or south pole, however, would be the ideal spots because those are the only sources of water. A base (with water) could be used as a refueling point for missions deeper into the solar system, maybe to mine the asteroids. But none of this is near-future stuff, occurring within our lifetimes.
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