China's Space Program News Thread

[localizer]

They grabbing samples now I think?

 

[siegecrossbow]

They grabbing samples now I think?

They already completed the drilling portion and sealed the samples. Now they collection samples from the surface with a scoop.

 

[discspinner]

How is it different from the Russian and American missions?

The American mission was piloted by humans, no automated terrain scanning software, AI algorithm determining ideal landing site.
Soviet mission could only take off from a narrow strip on the Moon where liftoff provides the perfect return trajectory to the Earth.
Chang'e 5 is designed to be essentially a pre-lude to a manned mission.

 

[gullible]

will the ascender take off today? i dont think drilling is gonna take more than 1 day.

 

[Blitzo]

How is it different from the Russian and American missions?

AFAIK, the biggest similarity to the US manned Apollo missions is that the mission uses a lunar orbit rendezvous profile for the separation of the lander from the orbiter, the return craft to the orbit and lunar re docking, and the subsequent return to earth. I'm unsure if there were any Apollo missions that demonstrated the full mission profile in an unmanned way that involved orbital separation and rendezvous, Chang'e 5 does this unmanned of course.

The Soviet Luna sample return missions otoh, did not involve lunar orbit rendezvous and instead involved direct return to earth rather than orbiting and docking with an orbiting spacecraft.


Chang'e 5 has always been speculated to be seeking to verify certain technologies/mission profile for a manned lunar mission -- if they just wanted a sample return mission they could've done a Luna sample return style mission. But instead they went to all of the extra effort for a mission using LOR and multiple extra stages.

 

[paleski]

will the ascender take off today? i dont think drilling is gonna take more than 1 day.

December 3, around 15:00-15:10 UTC (if there will be no delays or smth else).

 

[by78]

Taking soil samples. Hitting that pay dirt.

 

[Quickie]

Congrats to the CNSA. This live coverage of the landing have been a mess from what I gather. Apparently there is suppose to be live coverage of the Luna Sample Collection

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IIRC, Xi (or someone from his office) had mentioned no useless missions (i.e. flag-planting) several years ago. I forgot what public event this statement was made.

There probably should be live coverage of the sample collection.

The sample collection is the least risky task of the whole mission. If there's a miscalculation resulting in the failure in the scooping of a sample, they probably can reprogram it on the spot to correct the error on their own sweet time, lol - A luxury they don't have with the other tasks of the mission.
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[halflife3]

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Recorded footage of Chang'e 5 regolith extraction process at work. The drill appendage begins extraction in the first part. The second part shows the scoop appendage retracting back to deposit collected regolith into the container on top of the lander. The last part was fast forwarded footage, but it shows the sample container being transferred.

 

[discspinner]

This whole year has been sensitive given COVID and the troubled international relationships. The launch obviously could not be censored since there were lots of tourists there as well.

I really hope the manned landings are live.