Author Topic: LIVE: Chinese CE-5-T1 (Chang'e 5 precursor) - CZ-3C/G2, Xichang - Oct. 23, 2014  (Read 237400 times)

Offline Phil Stooke

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CE3 relay... would be nice!  The sun just rose over CE3 again so if anything was to be communicated the next few sols might be the time... but I understand there was nothing during the last lunar day:

https://twitter.com/uhf_satcom/status/530812777792024576

Although - the CE3 site is not visible from L2, so comm relay would have to wait for the later lunar orbit phase of CE5T1.

Phil


Offline plutogno

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this xinhua article discusses future plans for CE5T1:
http://news.xinhuanet.com/tech/2014-12/02/c_1113493000.htm

from Google translate:

Quote
in early January 2015 the service module will leave the Earth-Moon L2 point of flying to the moon; the middle of recent months, brake, forming lunar orbit; February, March each conduct a lunar orbit rendezvous and docking Remote Pilot test; April-to-Moon imaging, shooting preset sampling landing zone topography.

Offline Nordren

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China Daily (English): 'Chinese orbiter staying in space for tests'
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2014-12/03/content_19014325.htm

Offline Satori

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Online Galactic Penguin SST

From Xinhua, Chinese spacecraft to return to moon's orbit.

To summarize:

CE-5-T1 left EM-L2 at around 15:00 UTC on Jan. 4 and is scheduled to reach lunar orbit by mid-January. As of midnight UTC on Jan. 5 the spacecraft is 445000 km from Earth and 57000 km from the Moon.

Earlier reports state that it will do at least 2 things in lunar orbit. In February and March it will perform 2 "virtual target" rendezvous tests for the future CE-5 mission (not unlike how the Shuttle did "dummy rendezvous" tests in the 1980s). In April the small monitoring camera will be used to obtain higher resolution photos of CE-5's landing zone.
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Offline tdenk

Anything known about what (or if there) will be Cháng'é-4?

Thorsten

Offline Satori

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Anything known about what (or if there) will be Cháng'é-4?

Thorsten


The mission is being reevaluated at this time.

Online Galactic Penguin SST

CE-5-T1 has entered lunar orbit yesterday at around 19:00 UTC - initial orbit is 200 x 5300 km with period of 8 hours. It will make 2 more burns over the next 2 days to lower its orbit to a 200 km circular one with period of 127 minutes.

Source: http://www.chinanews.com/gn/2015/01-11/6956390.shtml
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Offline Nordren

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Moon phases as seen from EM-L2 by the service module. Released by SASTIND http://www.sastind.gov.cn/n112/n117/c466423/content.html


Offline Satori

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Offline mcgyver

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CE-5-T1 has entered lunar orbit yesterday at around 19:00 UTC - initial orbit is 200 x 5300 km with period of 8 hours. It will make 2 more burns over the next 2 days to lower its orbit to a 200 km circular one with period of 127 minutes.
What is planned to eventually happen to the service module? Moon crash? Sun crash? When?
« Last Edit: 01/15/2015 09:06 am by mcgyver »

Offline Steven Pietrobon

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I don't think it has the delta-V to crash into the Sun. If it has enough delta-V, it might leave Lunar orbit like Chang'e 2 and head back to EML-2, otherwise it will be crashed into the Moon. As for timing, its anyone's guess.
Akin's Laws of Spacecraft Design #1:  Engineering is done with numbers.  Analysis without numbers is only an opinion.

Offline ugordan

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I don't think it has the delta-V to crash into the Sun.

Yes, most people don't realize this, but from Earth's orbit it actually takes more delta-V to send something into the Sun than it takes to send it on a solar escape trajectory. The human intuition that "dropping" something is easy breaks down when it comes to orbital mechanics.

Online Galactic Penguin SST

From Xinhua, Service module of China's lunar orbiter enters 127-minute orbit.

I saw that Jonathan McDowell has listed CE5-T1's lunar orbit inclination as unknown, so I found a source http://zz.81.cn/content/2015-01/13/content_6306377.htm that lists its orbit as 200 km circular at 43.7 degree inclination.  ;)
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Offline plutogno

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http://www.china.org.cn/china/2015-02/08/content_34765936.htm

Quote
The service module of China's unmanned test lunar orbiter has finished tests of orbiting technologies needed in a future sampling mission on the Moon.

so what's next for CE-5-T1?

also note:
Quote
Such technologies will possibly be used in the country's next lunar probe mission, Chang'e-5.

Offline russianhalo117

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http://www.china.org.cn/china/2015-02/08/content_34765936.htm

Quote
The service module of China's unmanned test lunar orbiter has finished tests of orbiting technologies needed in a future sampling mission on the Moon.

so what's next for CE-5-T1?

also note:
Quote
Such technologies will possibly be used in the country's next lunar probe mission, Chang'e-5.
Maybe asteroid/comet chasing, extended mission or crash it for science.

Offline Phil Stooke

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No, they have said it will image the sample return landing site over the next couple of months.

Phil

Offline Satori

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Offline plutogno

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wow! the latest issue of Scientia Sinica Technologica (the Chinese version) has a lot of papers on CE-5-T1!
http://tech.scichina.com:8082/sciE/CN/volumn/volumn_7017.shtml#

Offline Satori

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