If you don't mind where it lands back on earth then you can leave at any time. But if you're requirement is it has to land in Inner Mongolia then you can only leave at certain windows.
China's Space Program News Thread
- Thread starter crazyinsane105
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This doesn't make sense to me, the Earth does a complete rotation every 24H right? Why would you need to wait 6 days to pick an exit point?
Because the moon doesn't orbit earth on its equator, but rather at just over 5 degrees inclination. On top of this Chang'e doesn't orbit the moon on its equator either but at some angle. When you fire your engine to eject from lunar orbit you want to do it without any normal or anti-normal components, as those only change your inclination and does not contribute to you escaping the moon and getting back to earth.
So you have to wait for Chang'e orbital plane around the moon to line up with the moon's orbital plane around earth, so that when you complete your escape burn from moon firing only in prograde direction your earth orbit periapsis is near Inner Mongolia. This would only come up at something like once or twice per lunar orbit.
"Developed from the Chang Zheng-3A, the Chang Zheng-3B is the most powerful launch vehicle on the Chinese space launch fleet."
What about CZ-5 with a launch weight in LEO of 25000 kg? If also NASA journos are so uninformed and stupid what about the median american that votes trump?
Copy and paste, forgot to update
Hasty journalism, but bear in mind this site is not run by NASA despite its name.
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