Produced by: Popular Science China
Production: Plugshen href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href href hr
This day is the anniversary of the successful launch of the " Dongfanghong-1 " satellite.
This year is different from usual. "Dongfanghong-1" is about to spend its 50th birthday in space, and the space journey of Chinese spacecraft has also gone through a full 50 years.
Dongfanghong-1 backup star displayed by the Fifth Academy of Space | Xinhua News Agency
From "Dongfanghong-1" at a perigee 441 kilometers to "Dongfanghong-2" at an altitude of 36,000 kilometers, from " Chang'e-1 " at a 380,000 kilometers, to " Chang'e-2 " at a 100 million kilometers, China's aerospace footsteps have been moving towards more distant space for 50 years, and have never stopped.
Let us continue to move forward along the footsteps of our predecessors, to see the future Chinese aerospace, and to explore the mysteries of deep space.
Nine-day Moon
As the neighbor of the earth, the moon has a profound impact on the earth, and many life phenomena are related to the moon phase and the moon's orbital cycle.
And countless nights, the bright moonlight also brings together various imaginations of mankind of the moon since ancient times.
For China's aerospace, the moon is an outpost toward deep space.
As early as 1991, my country's astronauts began to turn their attention to the moon; in 2004, my country's lunar exploration project was officially launched; in 2007, "Chang'e-1" was launched, starting the first journey of my country's lunar exploration.
Then, my country launched a series of spacecraft to the moon and surrounding areas one after another.
In addition to the familiar "Chang'e" series, there are the "Chang'e 5 T1" tester launched in 2014, as well as the "Queqiao" Earth-Moon Relay Satellite and the "Longjiang" small satellite brothers launched in 2018.
Main members of the Chang'e family | National Space Administration
To this day, " Chang'e 4 " and " Yutu 2 " have spent nearly 500 days on the back of the moon and are still working hard.
They have achieved the world's first soft landing on the back of the moon. Every new rut of "Yutu 2" is a new step in China's aerospace and a big step in human lunar exploration.
For more than a year, they have used instruments created by humans to explore the structures deep in the moon (moon radar) and signals deep in the universe (low-frequency radio telescopes). They are affected by the earth's magnetic field, which are difficult to observe on the earth and even the front of the moon.
Main members of the Chang'e family | National Space Administration
This year, " Chang'e 5 " will set off to realize the last step of the three steps of "orbiting, falling, and returning" in my country's lunar exploration. If
is successful, this exploration will allow humans to bring back the "soup gift" given by the moon again in 44 years.
The entire "Chang'e 5" consists of orbiter , lander, ascender, returner , and a complex separation and docking method is designed. Such complex multiple rendezvous and docking will automatically complete . The difficulty of returning from the moon cannot be underestimated. The speed of "Chang'e 5" returning to the earth will reach the second cosmic speed (11.2km/s), which is nearly 50% higher than the return speed of our common spacecraft.
If you go from Beijing to Shanghai at this speed, it will only take less than two minutes. If it rushes directly into the atmosphere, it is likely to be completely burned.
In order to make the return capsule safely land, Chang'e-5 adopted the method of " to drift ", that is, the atmosphere bounced back to space when it returns for the first time, and then returned for the second time. This technology has been verified on the "Chang'e 5 T1" tester.
"Chang'e 5 T1" also took photos of the predetermined sampling area for "Chang'e 5".
Chang'e-5 T1 remote sensing imaging map of Chang'e-5 pre-sampling area | National Space Administration
These spacecraft and supporting ground facilities have laid a solid foundation for my country's deep space exploration.
Complete the goal of "orbiting, falling and returning" of the moon. For China's aerospace, it is just the beginning, and the lunar exploration journey is still continuing.
On April 18, 2019, on the same day as the "Chang'e 4" international payload data handover was completed, China Aerospace solicited the " Chang'e 6 " scientific payload from the world.
According to previous situations, since the ticket to the alien planet is difficult to find, many scientific research institutions and scientists have been eyeing opportunities like the "Chang'e" series.
"Chang'e 6" plans to return the moon's Antarctic sampling, which will be the first time that humans have brought back specimens from the moon's Antarctic.
The South Pole of the Moon is a popular exploration area for the moon in recent years. This area has the moon's oldest basin and may contain a certain amount of water ice, so it has become the preferred target for most lunar landers at present.
In the future, "Chang'e 7" also plans to go to the South Pole of the Moon. This is an all-encompassing luxury package, which plans to include orbiters, relay stars, landers, lunar rovers at one time, and even a leap detector that can "fly" on the moon's surface. The "Chang'e 7" luxury package will greatly enrich our understanding of the moon.
This is not over yet. When it comes to "Chang'e 8", aerospace engineers plan to try key technologies such as "3D printing" houses on the moon, and start to build a real space outpost on the moon.
China's nine-day journey to embrace the moon will become more and more exciting.
Firefly Journey
The celestial body closest to Earth is the moon, and the big planet closest to Earth is Mars. Ah, no, Venus.
, etc., do you feel something is wrong? Why are there rarely any news about Venus exploration?
Humans are very cautious about choosing the target of detection, because they need to protect some celestial bodies, or protect their own "detectors"...
For example, they are very cautious in the detection of Europa. They usually adopt flyby detection strategies to avoid polluting the liquid oceans that may contain life;
For example, they are very careful in the detection of Venus, and usually use non-responsive detection strategies to avoid the extreme destruction of the "detectors" by Venus' high temperature and high pressure and sulfuric acid atmosphere;
40 years ago, the sister stars of Venus 13 and 14 left behind the last batch of Venus ground photos of human beings | Russian Academy of Sciences
And another neighbor, Mars, is much more friendly.
Mars and Earth also have more similarities, which has also aroused great interest in Mars - can Mars be transformed into the next Earth?
Every 26 months, the earth will usher in an optimal Mars exploration window, this time in July this year.
In this exploration window, there is a very eye-catching new member that is different from the past, that is, my country plans to independently launch the Mars rover "Mars One" (temporary name).
my country's Mars lander and rover model | Wikipedia
"Mars One" is also the first time in the world. In the first plan, will complete the goals of Mars orbiting (orbiter), landing (lander), and patroling (rover) at one time. The difficulty can be imagined. The choice of
is by no means a risk without confidence. "Mars One" fully draws on the experience of "Chang'e" series of orbits, landings and patrols.
In order to solve a series of problems in detecting Mars, related experiments have been carried out in full swing.
Mars lander hover obstacle avoidance test | Xinhuanet
Just on November 14 last year, my country publicly displayed the Mars lander hover obstacle avoidance test. The "lander" was separated from the tower at an altitude of 70 meters, hovered at an altitude of 67 meters, and automatically avoided obstacles, descending to an altitude of 20 meters.
In this Asia's largest comprehensive extraterrestrial celestial landing test site, researchers simulate the difficulties that "Mars One" will encounter.
"Mars One" Official Picture | CASC
"Mars One" is just a first test of China's spacecraft exploration in Mars.
Next, China's Mars exploration will try an unprecedented challenge - Mars sampling return.
This is a goal that the whole world has not yet achieved, and it is also a pioneering move that China's aerospace industry wants to make breakthroughs.
Exploration of the Little Man's Country
In "The Travels of Gulliver", there is a description of the Little Man's Country, and there is also a Little Man's Country in space - the solar system is distributed with a large number of asteroids and comets .
In recent years, scientists have discovered that this group of seemingly inconspicuous citizens of the Little People's Kingdom are likely to have some of the mysteries of the origin of the solar system and even the origin of life.
In the eyes of astronomers, the larger celestial bodies in the solar system, even the moon, have undergone long planetary differentiation, and their current structure and structure at the time of formation have changed.
The simplest example is that although the earth is more than 4 billion years old, it is very rare to find a rock 3 billion years ago on the surface of the earth; however, it is much easier to find an ancient rock on the moon (such as the moon's South Pole mentioned above); and on asteroids, it is even easier - ancient rocks are everywhere.
Some asteroids are also rich in organic matter, so we can use this to understand some of the situations of organic matter in the early solar system, thereby helping us understand the origin of life.
As early as 2012, Chang'e-2 implemented my country's first asteroid exploration mission, and the results showed that the asteroid 4179 is likely to be composed of two celestial bodies. This result was published in the journal Nature.
Asteroid photographed by Chang'e-2 | National Space Administration
However, "Chang'e-2" is just using its remaining energy to detect asteroids part-time. China's spacecraft has more ideas in exploring the "Little Man Kingdom".
Therefore, a task specifically designed to detect small celestial bodies in the solar system came into being.
The first detector dedicated to detecting small celestial bodies may be named "Zheng He". It will cover the detection of asteroids and comets at one time and send samples of asteroids back to Earth for multiple tasks. It is a powerful all-rounder.
"Zheng He" will visit all the small celestial bodies with their own strengths.
Asteroid 2016HO3 is a "quasi-satellite" of the earth. This asteroid has been almost inseparable from the earth in recent hundreds of years. However, even so, humans have never visited this type of special asteroid.
Comet 133P/Elst-Pizarro is different from previous comets, the first comet found in the asteroid belt and will help understand the role transition between asteroids and comets.
These special "villain country" citizens contain too many stories, and these stories have never been involved with detectors, which is really fascinating. China's aerospace industry is also expected to gain a series of world firsts in this exploration.
In April 2019, on the same day that China Aerospace solicited the scientific payload of "Chang'e 6" from the world, it began to solicit the scientific payload of "Zheng He". This exploration can be said to be a foregone conclusion. The "Zheng He" is expected to be launched around 2022 and will continue to explore until around 2031.
It is expected that throughout the 20s of the 21st century, we will continue to see the news that the "Zheng He" unveils many secrets of small celestial bodies, which is very worth looking forward to.
Zheng He's journey | Zhang et al, & Haibaraemily
The more distant giant country
In addition to the villain country, there are also giant countries in the solar system.
Among these "giants", the largest giant planet is Jupiter .
Jupiter system has 79 "moons", among which Europa and Europa are the most special, both planets contain oceans.
Among them, Europa's ocean is very deep and the geological movement is active, which has the possibility of nurturing life. Scientists look forward to further understanding of these Io.
The next goal of China's aerospace is in this area. Early scientific goals and technical research are in full swing. It is estimated that by around 2036, my country's Jupiter and Jupiter system probes will set off.
Following Jupiter and Jupiter system probes is Uranus's exploration plan.
Uranus is the third largest planet in the solar system, second only to Jupiter and Saturn.
The only close observation of Uranus in humans is in 1986. "Voyager 2" that came and went in a hurry did not circulate Uranus, but just left traces after geese. Since then, no detector has reached Uranus.
It is expected that my country's Uranus probe will be launched around 2046.
or above is just the tip of the iceberg of my country's deep space exploration. China's aerospace has always had greater goals and will never stop moving towards deep space.
Just like our aerospace predecessors, the current and future Chinese astronauts will continue to forge ahead, creating more, farther and more complex deep space probes to unveil more mysterious veils in space.
Looking forward.
article only represents the author's views and does not represent the position of China's popular science expo
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-