On May 3rd, the official news from the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology stated that at 17:27 on May 3rd, the Long March 5 carrier rocket was ignited in the rain at the Wenchang Space Launch Site in China, successfully sending the Chang'e 6 lunar probe of the lunar exploration project phase four into its designated orbit.
Once this mission is successful, China will become the first country to achieve successful sampling of the far side of the moon.
Currently, the solar panels of the Chang'e 6 lunar probe have successfully unfolded, and it is on its way to the lunar near-earth orbit.
The Chang'e 6 lunar exploration mission is quite complex, as evidenced by the fact that countries like the United States and Russia have not yet achieved it. An aerospace blogger has analyzed the mission process of Chang'e 6.
According to the analysis, the Chang'e 6 lunar exploration mission is divided into 11 stages, with a highly intricate system operation.
Launch and orbit insertion: After the launch of the Long March 5 rocket, it enters the Earth-Moon transfer orbit.
Earth-Moon transfer: The Chang'e 6 probe deploys its solar panels and flies towards the Moon, with a flight time of approximately 112 hours.
Lunar orbit insertion: By using lunar orbit insertion to decelerate, it enters the lunar orbit.
Lunar orbit flight: The landing site this time is the far side of the Moon. The flight trajectory needs adaptive adjustments, and the lunar orbit flight time is expected to increase to about two weeks.
Ultimately, the probe reaches the initial point of powered descent. The lander and orbiter separate, with the orbiter continuing its lunar orbit flight.
Landing descent: The lander undergoes main deceleration, approach, hover, obstacle avoidance, slow descent, free fall, and other stages, taking about 15 minutes to complete a soft landing.
Lunar surface operations: The probe has 2 days to collect samples on the lunar surface.
Lunar ascent: The ascender goes through vertical ascent, attitude adjustment, and orbit injection stages to enter the lunar orbit.
Rendezvous, docking, and sample transfer: The ascender docks with the orbiter, transferring samples to the returner.
Lunar orbit waiting: The returner and ascender, along with the docking module, separate, awaiting the arrival of the lunar-earth injection window, expected to take about two weeks.
Lunar-earth transfer: The returner returns to Earth orbit. At a distance of 5000 kilometers from Earth, the orbiter and returner separate, with the returner autonomously returning to Earth.
Re-entry and recovery: The returner goes through inertial gliding, Earth atmospheric re-entry, and landing stages, returning to Earth.
This Chang'e 6 mission is described as more complex than previous lunar exploration activities. It not only explores areas untouched by humans but also involves a series of high-difficulty operations including autonomous sampling, ascent, and takeoff, posing significant challenges to the design and operation of the probe.
