Keep the shuttle flying: Fwd: Chinese probe launched on round-trip flight to the moon

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From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: October 24, 2014 11:49:48 AM EDT
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: Chinese probe launched on round-trip flight to the moon

Chinese probe launched on round-trip flight to the moon
BY STEPHEN CLARK
SPACEFLIGHT NOW
October 23, 2014
China launched a demonstrator probe Thursday on a round-trip flight around the moon to test out a heat shield and landing capsule planned for use on a lunar sample return mission in 2017.

A Chinese Long March 3C rocket lifted off at 1800 GMT (2 p.m. EDT; 2 a.m. Beijing time). Credit: Xinhua

The unmanned spacecraft blasted off on top of a Long March 3C rocket from the Xichang space center in southwest China's Sichuan province, China's state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
Xinhua's report did not disclose the launch time, but imagery captured inside a Chinese mission control center indicated the launch occurred at 1800 GMT (2 p.m. EDT) Thursday, or 2 a.m. Beijing time Friday.
Boosted by a pair of strap-on liquid-fueled engines, the 18-story-tall Long March 3C launcher dispatched the lunar test probe on an orbit soaring 413,000 kilometers, or 256,000 miles, from Earth, according to Xinhua.
State media reported the spacecraft separated from the upper stage of the Long March rocket as planned, citing China's State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense.
The test flight is a precursor to China's Chang'e 5 lunar sample return mission.
Unofficially called Chang'e 5 T1, the demonstrator will swing around the far side of the moon, using lunar gravity to slingshot the craft back to Earth.
Designed by the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, the probe is on track for a lunar flyby Monday, with the flight expected to conclude with a high-speed re-entry back into Earth's atmosphere Oct. 31, U.S. time.

Artist's concept of the Chang'e 5 T1 spacecraft shown on Chinese state television. Credit: CCTV

Speeding toward Earth at nearly 7 miles per second, or roughly 25,000 mph, the re-entry capsule will dip into the atmosphere multiple times to slow the craft down before landing in China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region.
Such re-entry velocities are faster than Chinese astronauts experience when returning from orbit several hundred miles above Earth.
The "skip re-entry" will help diminish heat the landing capsule will encounter during descent, experts told the China Daily newspaper.
The re-entry capsule land under parachute for retrieval by Chinese space officials.
"The mission is to obtain experimental data and validate re-entry technologies such as guidance, navigation and control, heat shield and trajectory design for a future touchdown on the moon by Chang'e-5, which is expected to be sent to the moon, collect samples and return to Earth in 2017," Xinhua reported.
If successful, the round-trip test flight will precede the start of the third phase of China's lunar exploration program, officials said.
China launched two orbiters around the moon -- Chang'e 1 and Chang'e 2 -- in 2007 and 2010 to survey the lunar surface.

The Chang'e 5 T1 landing capsule during preflight testing earlier this year. Credit: CASC

The Chang'e 3 lunar probe landed Dec. 14, 2013, making China the third country to achieve a soft landing on the moon after the United States and the former Soviet Union.
Chang'e 3 deployed a small rover named Yutu, which drove away from the mission's stationary landing platform, collecting images, studying the composition of the moon's soil and rocks, and probing the moon's underground structure with a ground-penetrating radar.
Chinese officials said Yutu suffered a glitch in a control system in January, rendering the rover immobile and exposed to cold temperatures during lunar nights, which last two weeks.
Earlier this month, Xinhua reported the Yutu rover was losing functionality but still alive after nearly 10 months on the moon, surpassing the craft's original design lifetime of three months.
"Yutu has gone through freezing lunar nights under abnormal status, and its functions are gradually degrading," said Yu Dengyun, chief designer of China's lunar probe mission, in a report by Xinhua.
"We hoped the moon rover would go farther, and we really want to find the true reason why it didn't," Yu told Xinhua in an interview.
China developed a backup mission for the Chang'e 3 lunar lander. The backup spacecraft, named Chang'e 4, will now help prove systems required for the more ambitious Chang'e 5 mission, Xinhua reported.
Details on the specific objectives and planned launch date for Chang'e 4 have not been released by China.
The Chang'e 5 mission will follow with launch in 2017 to scoop up lunar soil and return it to Earth. China also has plans for a Chang'e 6 sample return mission some time before 2020.
China is studying sending astronauts on lunar missions after scouting the moon with robotic spacecraft, according to official media reports.
Near-term plans for China's human space program are focused on constructing a space station in low Earth orbit.

© 2014 Spaceflight Now Inc.

China launches first mission to moon and back
A rocket carrying an experimental spacecraft intended for the moon and back launches from Xichang space base in China's Sichuan province on October 24, 2014 (AFP Photo/)
Beijing (AFP) - China launched its first space mission to the moon and back early Friday, authorities said, the latest step forward for Beijing's ambitious programme to one day land a Chinese citizen on the Earth's only natural satellite.
The unnamed, unmanned probe will travel to the moon, fly around it and head back to Earth, re-entering the atmosphere and landing, the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence (SASTIND) said in a statement.
"The first stage of the first return journey test in China's moon probe programme has been successful," it said after the launch, from the Xichang space base in the southwestern province of Sichuan.
The module will be 413,000 kilometres from Earth at its furthest point on the eight-day mission, it added.
The official Xinhua news agency said it would re-enter the atmosphere at 11.2 kilometres per second (25,000 mph) before slowing down -- a process that generates extremely high temperatures -- and landing in northern China's Inner Mongolia region.
The mission is intended to test technology to be used in the Chang'e-5, China's fourth lunar probe, which aims to gather samples from the moon's surface and will be launched around 2017, SASTIND said previously.
Beijing sees its multi-billion-dollar space programme as a marker of its rising global stature and mounting technical expertise, as well as evidence of the ruling Communist Party's success in turning around the fortunes of the once poverty-stricken nation.
The military-run project has plans for a permanent orbiting station by 2020 and eventually to send a human to the moon.
China currently has a rover, the Jade Rabbit, on the surface of the moon.
The craft, launched as part of the Chang'e-3 lunar mission late last year, has been declared a success by Chinese authorities, although it has been beset by mechanical troubles.

Copyright © 2014 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved.

China launches experimental moon orbiter
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Raw: China Launches Moon Orbiter
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BEIJING (AP) — China launched an experimental spacecraft on Friday to fly around the moon and back to Earth in preparation for the country's first unmanned return trip to the lunar surface.
The eight-day program is a test run for a 2017 mission that aims to have a Chinese spacecraft land on the moon, retrieve samples and return to Earth. That would make burgeoning space power China only the third country after the United States and Russia to have carried out such a mission.
The spacecraft lifted off from the southwestern Xichang satellite launch center early in the morning, separated from its carrier rocket and entered Earth orbit shortly after, the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense reported, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.
China's lunar exploration program, named Chang'e after a mythical goddess, has already launched a pair of orbiting lunar probes and last year landed a craft on the moon with a rover onboard. None of those missions were programmed to return to Earth.
China has also hinted at a possible crewed mission to the moon at a future date if officials decide to combine the human spaceflight and lunar exploration programs.
Xinhua said the latest mission is to "obtain experimental data and validate re-entry technologies such as guidance, navigation and control, heat shield and trajectory design" for the future moonlander christened Chang'e 5.
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An unmanned spacecraft is launched atop an advanced Long March 3C rocket from the Xichang Satellite …
It will return to Earth using a Soviet-designed method in which it will first bounce off Earth's atmosphere in order to slow it down to allow it to enter the atmosphere without burning up.
China's military-backed space program is a source of massive national pride, especially its series of successful manned missions that have placed up to three astronauts at a time in an experimental orbiting space station.
China sent its first astronaut into space in 2003, becoming the third nation after Russia and the U.S. to achieve manned space travel independently.
China has powered ahead in a series of methodically timed steps, independent of the American program, which is now in its sixth decade of putting people into space and has long-term plans to go to an asteroid and Mars.
Alongside the manned program, China is developing the Long March 5 heavier-lift rocket needed to launch a more permanent space station to be called Tiangong 2.

Copyright © 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.