From the beginning, the Chinese Space Agency (CNSA)’s lunar program was China National Space Administration) It was characterized by a clear plan and consisted of three stages – each more complex than the previous one. Some knowledge was borrowed from already successful partners, for example, the Chinese lunar landing technology was based on the Soviet experience of the Lunokhod and Luna 16-24 landings.
Lunar maps
In the first stage, the Moon was explored remotely – from orbit. For this purpose, two orbital probes, Chang’e-1 and 2, were launched in 2007 and 2010. Their main task was to map the Moon’s surface and study its characteristics.
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The Długi March 3C rocket with the Chang’e-2 probe was launched on October 1, 2010.
Chang’e-1 Not only did he take pictures, but he took them from different angles, allowing him to create a three-dimensional map of the area. This research was of great importance to Chinese science, but even more important was the technological leap: China developed and tested an automatic platform for an interplanetary station, as well as long-range space communications. In the program Chang’e-2 China repeated its success: the second orbiter made a more detailed map of the entire lunar surface, and then managed to leave lunar orbit, fly into interplanetary space and take pictures. Asteroid Tautatis.
The second stage of lunar exploration requires mastering a new technology – landing on the surface. This task is much more difficult than it might seem: the Moon has almost no atmosphere, so the craft must rely only on jet propulsion and carefully control the altitude, speed and terrain at the landing site.
China successfully overcame these challenges for the first time by landing a spacecraft. Chang’e-3After that, spacecraft from Israel, India, Japan, Russia and the United States tried to reach the surface of the moon, but only India succeeded – and only on the second attempt.
China’s Chang’e-3 lander landed on the moon in 2013 and delivered a lunar rover to the surface. YutoChang’e-3 had an ultraviolet telescope on board, which prevented astronomical observations from Earth because of the absorption of ultraviolet radiation by Earth’s atmosphere.
The Yutu lunar rover was able to travel only 115 meters, but it worked for two and a half years. It was equipped with panoramic cameras, an infrared spectrometer and a sounding radar that could “illuminate” the lunar soil at a depth of 400 meters, but for the Chinese state, the most important achievement of Yutu was raising the red flag on the lunar surface. Previously, only the Soviet Lunokhod could boast of such a success, but because of the black-and-white cameras, the photos from that time were not impressive.
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Yuto on the moon
dark side
After the success of the first lunar rover, the Chinese space agency decided to raise the bar. For the first time, a spacecraft was scheduled to land on the dark side of the moon, which is completely invisible from Earth. In 2019 Chang’e-4 That’s exactly what he did.
Technically, it was an almost complete copy of Chang’e-3 with the lunar lander on board, but it required the support of another spacecraft, a transceiver. QueqiaoTo perform all landing and control operations. This spacecraft was similar in design to the Chang’e-2 orbiter, but had a large parabolic antenna on board to efficiently transmit signals to Earth. Chinese engineers also learned lessons from the first Yutu landing, and from its successor, Yuto 2is still roaming the dark side of the moon, nearly five years after its landing.
In parallel with the lunar spacecraft program, China has begun preparations for the third stage of lunar exploration – bringing soil back to Earth. China once received a small amount of lunar soil from the United States, but scientists wanted to reach other places as well.
Moreover, China needed another victory to prove to its citizens and the world the level of development of Chinese science and technology.
In 2014, a probe flew to the moon. Chang’e-5-T1It was also supposed to be a replica of China’s first lunar lander, but with an important new payload element added – the return vehicle. In this way, Chinese astronauts began to master the technology of returning from the moon. The return vehicle, about one meter in diameter, looked very similar to a capsule from the Shenzhou or Soyuz spacecraft.
The Chang’e-5-T1 test was successful, and China became the third country, after the United States and the Soviet Union, to be able to deliver something into lunar space and then return it.
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Chang’e-5T1 Capsule
By 2020, the Chinese aviation company had developed and tested a launch vehicle. March 5th LongAllowing heavy vehicles to be launched to the Moon. It’s time for the third phase of research – delivering soil from the Moon. The Chang’e-5 program technically consists of four vehicles:
- Flight unit for travel from Earth to Moon and from Moon to Earth;
- Lander to deliver mining tools and a lander to the lunar surface;
- Launch phase to deliver soil excavated from the lunar surface to lunar orbit to the module en route;
- Re-entry vehicle to return soil to Earth.
The Chang’e-5 mission was one of the most complex and automated interplanetary operations in the history of space exploration. It not only included a landing and takeoff from the Moon, but also a docking in Earth orbit. In effect, Chang’e-5 repeated the sequence of the American Apollo manned flights, only in unmanned mode. This made the flight program much more complex than the simpler Soviet Luna 16-24, but it allowed for more soil to be excavated and provided valuable data for a future manned expedition.
The scientific goals pursued by Chinese scientists have also changed. Chang’e-4 not only landed on the dark side of the Moon, but it did so in a place of special interest to geologists—the South Pole’s Aitken Basin.
NASA images / Wikimedia Commons
The far side of the Moon. The South Pole-Aitken Basin is the darkest area at the bottom of the image.
It is the largest and deepest lunar crater, and offers a view of the Moon’s interior that is impossible anywhere else. Chang’e-5Although it landed on the visible side of the Moon, as it has done several times since the 1960s and 1970s, it chose the landing site to collect the youngest lunar rocks ejected by volcanoes late in the formation of the Moon’s surface. Chang’e-6 He also flew to Aitken but to bring his samples back to Earth.
The automatic station has arrived. Chang’e-7 Samples will need to be collected and returned to Earth from the region around the Moon, where scientists hope to find volatile compounds and water.
Interestingly, unlike the rest of China’s space exploration activities, which are somewhat closed to other countries, lunar exploration is open to international partnerships. For example, European scientific instruments have been placed on board the Chang’e-4, 5 and Queqiao spacecraft. The Russian Academy of Sciences plans to place its instruments on Chang’e-7.
Chang’e-6 to land on the moon on June 1, 2024:
people on the moon
China has long been tight-lipped about its plans to send people to the moon, although indirect signs suggest that preparations are underway to accomplish this most difficult task. In particular:
- Chang’e-3 made the moon landing experiment possible,
- Chang’e-5-T1 – Return from the Moon at the second cosmic velocity (the second cosmic velocity allows you to leave a certain body permanently), and
- Chang’e-5 – Docking operations near the moon.
In 2020, China tested an unmanned prototype of a new spacecraft. MengzhouIt is suitable for flights to stations near Earth and the moon. Finally, in 2023, officials from the China National Space Administration announced key plans for China’s manned lunar program and provided a timetable through 2030.
To get two astronauts to the moon’s surface, the China National Space Administration will need to build not only the Mengzhou flying spacecraft, but also a launch and reentry vehicle. LanyoAll of this will be delivered into space by two very heavy rockets. March 10th LongAt present, almost all components of this program are still in the development stage and are not even ready for unmanned tests, but thanks to the dynamic development of Chinese space science, 2030 seems to be a realistic date.
In parallel with the national manned lunar program, China is working on a project involving international partnership – the so-called International Scientific Lunar Base.
CNSA plans to deploy a robotic base on the Moon consisting of several spacecraft that can interact with each other and perform different tasks such as a power generator, laboratory, observatory, etc. Anyone can join the program. In 2021, Russia signed a cooperation agreement with China under this program. At that time, it was assumed that the Russian space agency Roscosmos would be able to deploy any Luna series vehicles to the base, but After the Luna-25 accident, talks on this topic were halted, although discussions on installing a Russian nuclear reactor at the base continue.
However, the readiness of the international scientific lunar base is still in its early stages. China and its partners will have to choose a site for the base, as well as master the technology of highly precise landing or transporting heavy equipment to the lunar surface.
At present, the international scientific lunar base project plays a political role rather than a scientific one. The Chinese lunar base is a kind of competitor to the American orbital Gateway station.
Countries willing to participate in the Gateway project sign the so-called Artemis Accords, and those willing to cooperate with China on the Moon sign an agreement to participate in the lunar base project. Although there is no orbital station or lunar base, these agreements effectively create two blocs of countries that plan to explore the Moon independently of each other, and in the future may become competitors for scientific advantage, preferred development sites, or future resources.
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