HELSINKI — China’s Queqiao-2 communications relay satellite tv for pc entered lunar orbit March 24, paving the best way for a lunar far aspect pattern return mission.
Queqiao-2 started a 19-minute-long braking burn at 12:46 p.m. Jap Sunday (1646 UTC), permitting the spacecraft to be captured by the moon’s gravity, the China Nationwide House Administration (CNSA) introduced early March 25.
The spacecraft is anticipated to have entered an preliminary 200 by 100,000-kilometer lunar orbit. Operators will additional alter its orbit and inclination to carry Queqiao-2 right into a 200 by 16,000-km, highly-elliptical “frozen” orbit.
Queqiao-2 can have simultaneous direct line-of-sight with each floor stations on Earth and the lunar far aspect for giant parts of this 24-hour-period orbit. This frozen orbit is meant to be extremely steady and require little upkeep, boosting mission longevity.
China intends to launch its Chang’e-6 spacecraft in Could to try to gather samples from the far aspect of the moon. The far aspect of the moon by no means faces the Earth, because the planet’s gravity has slowed the rotation of the moon over time. Queqiao-2 is thus required for communications for the mission.
Queqiao-2 launched on a Lengthy March 8 rocket from Wenchang spaceport March 19. The spacecraft launched into a 112-hour voyage to the moon. China’s area authorities didn’t present updates on trajectory correction maneuvers carried out in the course of the journey.
Two smaller lunar spacecraft—Tiandu-1 and Tiandu-2—had been additionally aboard the launch. These carried out their very own synchronized burns at 1:43 p.m., efficiently getting into lunar orbit.
The experimental satellites will fly in formation in lunar orbit and conduct assessments for navigation and communications expertise verification. These are pathfinders for a deliberate wider Queqiao constellation to supply lunar navigation and communication providers. Exams will embody satellite-to-ground laser ranging and inter-satellite microwave ranging strategies.
Lunar far aspect and south pole help
The 1,200-kilogram Queqiao-2 satellite tv for pc carries a 4.2-meter parabolic antenna and is a part of China’s plans for future lunar exploration and a stepping stone in the direction of constructing a lunar base within the 2030s.
It’s anticipated to help the continuing Chang’e-4 lunar far aspect lander and rover mission after helping Chang’e-6. It would additionally shift its orbit right into a 12-hour interval to help the 2026 Chang’e-7 and later Chang’e-8 missions.
These later missions will goal the lunar south pole to detect volatiles and potential sources on the moon. The latter will even check in-situ useful resource utilization methods, reminiscent of utilizing lunar regolith to supply bricks. The missions are precursors to the Worldwide Lunar Analysis Station (ILRS).
By comparability, NASA’s Artemis program infrastructure will embody the Gateway. This can act as a communication hub, science laboratory, short-term habitation module, and holding space for different spacecraft.
Queqiao-2 additionally carries three payloads as a part of the science targets of the 2026 Chang’e-7 mission. These are an excessive ultraviolet digital camera and an array impartial atom imager. An Earth-moon size baseline very lengthy baseline interferometry (VLBI) experiment with make the most of the massive antenna.
The spacecraft may additionally help different international locations’ lunar efforts. “It’s attainable to supply relay communication providers for different lunar touchdown exploration missions on the lunar south pole or lunar far aspect sooner or later,” an official from DFH Satellite tv for pc, beneath the China Aerospace Science and Expertise Company (CASC), stated in 2023.
“China’s lunar exploration program has at all times valued worldwide cooperation and has at all times been open to worldwide cooperation,” Ge Ping, deputy director of the Heart of Lunar Exploration and House Engineering of China (LESEC) beneath CNSA, instructed CCTV.
China is actively partaking international locations, area companies and tutorial and different entities with a purpose to entice them to its ILRS initiative.
Queqiao-2, or “Magpie Bridge-2”, is a extra succesful follow-up to Queqiao, launched in 2018. The sooner satellite tv for pc facilitated the Chang’e-4 mission—the first-ever lunar far aspect touchdown. The getting older Queqiao relay satellite tv for pc stays operational in a halo orbit across the Earth-moon Lagrange level L2. The spacecraft orbits roughly 70,000 kilometers past the moon.
