Chang'e 5

Coordinates: 43°03′27″N 51°54′58″W / 43.0576°N 51.9161°W / 43.0576; -51.9161
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Chang'e 5
Chang'e 5 probe separating from the launcher (artist's impression)
Mission typeLunar sample return
OperatorCNSA
COSPAR ID2020-087A Edit this at Wikidata
SATCAT no.47097
Mission durationElapsed: 3 years, 4 months, 22 days
Spacecraft properties
ManufacturerCAST
Launch mass8,200 kg[1]
Start of mission
Launch date23 November 2020
20:30:12
Wenchang
ContractorCALT
End of mission
Landing date16 December 2020
17:59 UTC[1]
Return capsule
Landing siteInner Mongolia, China
Lunar orbiter
Orbital insertion28 November 2020
12:58 UTC[3]
Orbital parameters
Periapsis altitude200 km (120 mi)[3]
Lunar lander
Landing date1 December 2020
15:11 UTC[4]
Return launch3 December 2020
15:10 UTC
Landing siteMons Rümker, region of Oceanus Procellarum
43°03′27″N 51°54′58″W / 43.0576°N 51.9161°W / 43.0576; -51.9161[5][6]
Sample mass1,731 g (61.1 oz)[7]
Docking with Sample Ascender
Docking date5 December 2020, 21:42:00 UTC[8]
Undocking date7 December 2020, 04:35:00 UTC[9]
Flyby of Moon
Spacecraft componentorbiter
Closest approach~9 September 2021[10]
Chang'e 5T1
Chang'e 6
 →
Chang'e 5
Hanyu Pinyin
Cháng'é wǔhào

Chang'e 5 (

lunar samples (including from a core ~1 m deep),[14][15] and returned to the Earth
at 17:59 UTC on 16 December 2020.

Chang'e 5 was the first lunar sample-return mission since the Soviet Union's Luna 24 in 1976. The mission made China the third country to return samples from the Moon after the United States and the Soviet Union.

Overview

The Chinese Lunar Exploration Program has four phases, with incremental technological advancement:[16][17]

The Chinese Lunar Exploration Program plan to lead to crewed missions in the 2030s.[16][17]

The Chang'e 5 Lander and Orbiter Combination in the factory
Chang'e 5 in testing phase
The Chang'e 5 ascender testing

Equipment

Components

The Chang'e 5 mission consists of four modules or components:

  • Orbiter
    , installed with a drill and a scooping device. The Ascender is on the top of the Lander.
  • Ascender: after sampling, the lunar samples were transported to a container within the Ascender. The Ascender launched from the lunar surface at 15:11 UTC, on 3 December 2020, followed by automatic lunar orbit rendezvous and docking with the Orbiter. After transferring the sample, the Ascender separated from the Orbiter, deorbited, and fell back down on the Moon at 22:49 UTC, on 6 December 2020, to avoid becoming space debris.
  • Orbiter: after the samples were transported from the Ascender to the Orbiter, the Orbiter left lunar orbit and spent ~4.5 days flying back to Earth orbit and released the Returner (reentry capsule) just before arrival.
  • Returner: The Returner performed a
    skip reentry
    to bounce off the atmosphere once before formal reentering.

The four components were launched together and flew to the Moon as a combined unit. After reaching lunar orbit (14:58 UTC, on 28 November 2020), the Lander/Ascender separated from the Orbiter/Returner modules (20:40 UTC, on 29 November 2020), and descended to the surface of the Moon (15:13 UTC, on 1 December 2020). After samples had been collected, the Ascender separated from the Lander (15:11 UTC, on 3 December 2020), lifted off to the Orbiter/Returner, docked with them, and transferred the samples to the Returner. The Ascender then separated from the Orbiter/Returner and crashed on the Moon (~30°S in latitude and 0° in longitude) at 22:49 UTC, on 8 December 2020. The Orbiter/Returner then returned to the Earth, where the Returner separated and descended to the surface of the Earth at 17:59 UTC, on 16 December 2020.

The estimated launch mass of Chang'e 5 was 8,200 kg (18,100 lb),[21] the Lander was projected to be 3,200 kg (7,100 lb), and Ascender was about 700 kg (1,500 lb). Unlike Chang'e 4, which was equipped with a radioisotope heater unit to survive the extreme cold of lunar night, the Lander of Chang'e 5 stopped functioning in the following lunar night.

Scientific payloads

Chang'e 5 included four scientific payloads, including a Landing Camera, a Panoramic Camera, a Lunar Mineralogical Spectrometer,[22] and a Lunar Regolith Penetrating Radar.[23][24] Chang'e 5 collected samples using two methods, i.e., drilling for subsurface samples and scooping for surface samples. The scooping device was developed by The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, consisting of Sampler A, Sampler B, Near-field Cameras, and Sealing and Packaging System.[25]

Mission profile

  • Sample-return mission
  • Chang'e 5 launch
  • Chang'e 5 returning
  • Chang'e 5 23 days mission

Launch

Chang'e 5 was planned to be launched in November 2017 by the

Hainan Island
.

Earth-Moon Transfer

Landing site of Chang'e 5 near the Louville Omega hill (Louville ω, from the nearby Louville crater)

After launch, Chang'e 5 applied its first orbital correction at 14:06 UTC, on 24 November 2020, second orbital correction at 14:06 UTC, on 25 November 2020, entered lunar orbit at 14:58 UTC, on 28 November 2020 (elliptical orbital), adjusted its orbit to a circular orbit at 12:23 UTC, on 29 November 2020, and the Lander/Ascender separated from the Orbiter/Returner at 20:10 UTC, on 29 November 2020, in preparation for landing.[28]

Landing site

Photograph of the Chang'e 5 lander on the surface of the Moon taken by the NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter

The Lander/Ascender landed on the Moon on 1 December 2020, at 15:11 UTC.

USGS.[31] The Chang'e 5 landing site, named Statio Tianchuan,[32] is within the Procellarum KREEP Terrain,[33] with elevated heat-producing elements, thin crust, and prolonged volcanism. This area is characterized by some of the youngest mare basalts on the Moon (~1.21 billion years old),[34] with elevated titanium, thorium, and olivine abundances,[34] which have never been sampled by the American Apollo program and the Soviet Luna programme.[3]

Geological Map of the Chang'e 5 Landing Site.[35] This region is covered by widely-spread young mare basalts and Rima Sharp is the most distinct volcanic feature in the region.

Back to the Earth

Chang'e 5 return capsule transported back to CAST, where the sample container was unsealed.

The Chang'e 5 Ascender lifted off from Oceanus Procellarum at 15:10 UTC, on 3 December 2020, and six minutes later, arrived in lunar orbit.[36] The Ascender docked with the Orbiter/Returner combination in lunar orbit on 5 December 2020, at 21:42 UTC, and the samples were transferred to the return capsule at 22:12 UTC. The Ascender separated from the Orbiter/Returner combination on 6 December 2020, at 04:35 UTC.[37] After completing its role of the mission, the Ascender was commanded to deorbit on 7 December 2020, at 22:59 UTC, and crashed into the Moon's surface at 23:30 UTC, in the area of (~30°S, 0°E).[38] On 13 December 2020, at 01:51 UTC, from a distance of 230 kilometers from the lunar surface, the Orbiter and Returner successfully fired four engines to enter the Moon-Earth Hohmann transfer orbit.[39]

The electronics and systems on the Chang'e 5 lunar lander were expected to cease working on 11 December 2020, due to the Moon's extreme cold and lack of a radioisotope heater unit. However, engineers were also prepared for the possibility that the Chang'e 5 lander could be damaged and stop working after acting as the launchpad for the ascender module on 3 December 2020, as turned out to be the case.[40]

On 16 December 2020, at around 18:00 UTC, the roughly 300 kg (660 lb) return capsule performed a ballistic

Siziwang Banner in the Ulanqab region of south central Inner Mongolia. Surveillance drones spotted the Returner capsule prior to its touchdown, and recovery vehicles located the capsule shortly afterwards.[41]

The next day, it was reported that Chang'e 5's service module had performed an atmospheric re-entry avoidance burn and had been on-course to an Earth-Sun L1 Lagrange point orbit as a part of its extended mission.

Extended mission

After dropping off the return samples for Earth, the Chang'e 5 (CE-5) orbiter was successfully captured by the

Sun-Earth L1 Lagrange point at 5:39 UTC, on 15 March 2021, and became the first Chinese spacecraft to orbit the Sun-Earth L1 Lagrange point. The distance at the time of capture was about 936,700 kilometers from Earth and the orbiter entered an orbit with a period of about 6 months.[42] On its 88-day journey to L1, mission control conducted 2 orbital maneuvers and 2 trajectory correction maneuvers. It made a lunar flyby in an extended mission on 9 September 2021.[10]

In January 2022, CE-5 left the L1 point[43] for the lunar distant retrograde orbit (DRO) to conduct very-long-baseline interferometry tests in preparation for the next stage of China's Lunar Exploration Program.[43][44] According to The Space Review (TSR), this maneuver was depicted in Chinese government and academic documents.[45] In February 2022, multiple amateur satellite trackers observed that CE-5 had entered DRO, making it the first spacecraft in history to utilize the orbit.[43]

Lunar sample research

Airshow China
2021.
Soil samples studied by the Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences

The ~1,731 g (61.1 oz) of lunar samples collected by Chang'e 5 have enormous scientific meanings in terms of their abnormally young ages (<2.0 billion years old).[34][3] At least 27 fundamental questions can be answered by those samples on lunar chronology, petrogenesis, regional setting, geodynamic and thermal evolution, and regolith formation, especially, calibrating the lunar chronology function, constraining the lunar dynamo status, unraveling the deep mantle properties, and assessing the Procellarum KREEP Terrain structures.[3]

Dating this relatively young part of the Moon's surface would provide an additional calibration point for estimating the surface ages of other Solar System bodies.[46][47] Wu Yanhua (吴艳华), deputy director of the China National Space Administration (CNSA) announced that the new samples will be shared with the UN and international partners for space research purposes.[48][49]

Preliminary analysis of the basalt lava samples taken from Oceanus Procellarum, led by the

hydroxyl molecules in the samples through reflectance spectra, indicating the likely presence of water molecules up to 120 ppm. The researchers postulated the water and hydroxyl molecules had been embedded in the lunar soil through solar wind.[51]

First Chinese flag on the Moon

Chang'e 5's lunar lander deployed the first Chinese flag on the moon.[52] The flag was made from a composite material to withstand the moon's harsh environment without fading or deforming.[52] Chinese scientists spent over a year testing dozens of possible materials for the flag.[53] Weighing only 12 grams, it can maintain its true colors under a temperature difference of plus or minus 150 degrees Celsius.[52]

Related missions

Artist's impression of the lander on the Moon

Chang'e 5-T1

Main article: Chang'e 5-T1

Earth–Moon L2 to lunar orbit by 13 January 2015, where it is using its remaining 800 kg of fuel to test maneuvers critical to future lunar missions.[56]

Chang'e 6

Main article: Chang'e 6

Chang'e 6 is a further sample return mission planned to be subsequently launched by CNSA.

International collaboration

The

Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial (INTA) in Spain, to support the tracking efforts.[57]

International reactions to mission and samples

Many media commentators discussed Chang'e 5's in comparison to that of the last successful sample return oriented lunar missions in the 20th century, which were those conducted by the American Apollo program and the Soviet Luna programme in the 1960-70s, that involved Luna 15, Luna 16, and Luna 24 being sent to the Moon. Notably, the Luna 16 mission successfully returned about 100 grams of lunar soil a year later and two other sample return missions succeeded in subsequent years, the last one since Chang'e 5 being Luna 24 in 1976.[58]

The moon rocks that the mission returned to Earth were commended to be "the perfect sample to close a 2-billion-year gap" in the understanding of lunar geology.[59] The open access to the samples by CNSA to a consortium of scientists from Australia, US, UK, and Sweden were hailed as "science done in the ideal way: an international collaboration, with free sharing of data and knowledge—and all done in the most collegial way possible. This is diplomacy by science," by Brad Jolliff, director of the McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.[60]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ In Standard Chinese, it is pronounced as Cháng'é.[11] Alternatively pronounced and spelled like Chang-Er in Malaysian Chinese.[12]

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External links

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