China gears up for first moon mission

By Tariq Malik

Staff writer

updated 5:46 p.m. ET March 14, 2007

China is ramping up for the launch this year of Chang’e 1, a lunar orbiter designed to set the stage for the nation’s future moon-bound missions.

Assembly of the China National Space Administration (CNSA) moon probe is complete, with tests underway of its rocket booster, according to several state media reports

“If everything goes well, the Chang’e 1 orbiter is expected to be launched in 2007,” a mission overview, one of several attributed to Luan Enjie, chief commander of the China Lunar Exploration Program (CLEP), stated. The multiple mission descriptions are listed on the CNSA’s lunar program website.

Chang’e 1 is slated to launch atop China’s Long March 3A rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in the nation’s southwestern province of Sichuan, though no official flight date has been given. The mission is named after a Chinese goddess who, in a popular fairy tale, lives on the moon.

Past reports in China’s official state media pointed to a planned April liftoff. But recent statements – such as a March 6 report by the Xinhua News Agency citing Huan Chunping, China’s chief consultant for its manned launch vehicle program – indicated the mission may be pushed to the latter half of 2007.

Huan was quoted by Xinhua as stating that China could ultimately succeed the Chang’e-1 flight with a manned mission the moon in 15 years (by 2022), though such an effort depends on the steady development of the nation’s Long March 5 heavy-lift rocket.

Studying the moon
Chang’e 1 is based on China’s Dongfanghong 3 telecommunication satellite platform and reportedly carries a 280-pound (127-kilogram) payload of science instruments for its planned one-year mission.

“In terms of technical configuration, Chang’e 1 is actually a new spacecraft,” Luan wrote in the CLEP mission overviews.

Luan stated that Chang’e 1 carries a total of eight primary instruments to photograph and map the lunar surface, probe its depth, study the regolith’s chemical composition, and analyze the space environment around the moon.

According to the mission description, Chang’1 carries two basic imagers.

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A CCD stereo camera will produce three-dimensional images of the lunar surface by compiling three separate, two-dimensional views of each target area. Meanwhile, the probe’s interferometer spectrometer imager is expected to overlay optical measurements with spectra to depict the regional distribution of resources and materials, Luan added.

Chang’e 1 will also carry a laser altimeter to take precise elevation measurements of the lunar surface, as well as gamma/X-ray spectrometers to hunt out and measure the amount of up to 14 elements – among them iron, potassium, uranium and titanium — according to Luan’s description.

A microwave detector will bounce signals down to the moon’s surface, operating on four different frequencies to determine the lunar regolith’s depth, while a high-energy solar particle detector and low-energy ion instrument — Chang’e 1’s space environment monitor system —measures the solar wind environment, according to the CNSA mission description.

A payload data management system rounds out Chang’e 1’s instrument package. Also riding to the moon aboard the lunar probe are some 30 songs, among them Chinese folk songs and “The East is Red” – China’s national anthem – Xinhua reported in November.

In the past, Luan has told the People’s Daily Online that Chang’e 1 carries an overall mission cost of 1.4 billion yuan (about $180 million).

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