In 2022, the main work of my country's aerospace industry is to carry out the on-orbit construction of the space station . Internationally, many countries have set their main goals this year on lunar exploration. The editor made some statistics and found that there are actually 7 rockets that will fly to the moon, including Russia, South Korea, India, and even private company will launch its own challenge. On June 28, local time, the first rocket will fly to the moon. The lunar exploration rocket is already on its way. It is the "Electron" launched from New Zealand by the American Rocket Laboratory.
Electron rocket
In everyone’s impression, lunar exploration rockets should be very “high-end”, because after all, the moon is 380,000 kilometers away from the earth, but in fact, this “electron” that was just launched The rocket has a height of only 17 meters, a diameter of 1.2 meters, a take-off mass of only 12.5 tons, a low-Earth orbit carrying capacity of only 300 kilograms, and a sun-synchronous orbit payload of only 200 kilograms. It can be described as a "little one". I didn't expect this. The ultra-light rocket can also perform lunar exploration missions.
This is a little thing
Although the "Electron" rocket is small, it has a very heavy task this time. The lunar autonomous positioning and navigation experimental satellite CAPSTONE it launched this time is for NASA to return to the moon and establish the Lunar Gateway Space Station for exploration. road. Specifically, this cube satellite, which weighs only 25 kilograms and is equivalent to the size of a microwave oven, will test a unique elliptical lunar orbit NRHO for the first time, which is a near-linear halo orbit around the moon. The purpose is to verify the orbit of the future Lunar Gateway Space Station. The feasibility of the lunar orbit, which is located at the balance point of the gravity of the earth and the moon, can be maintained with the minimum energy, and we will also deploy a lunar space station on this orbit in the future.
Rockets and satellites are small, but they are very important this time
Near-linear halo orbit around the moon
As for the Electron rocket itself, although it is small, its launch frequency is almost as frequent as SpaceX's Falcon 9 In May of this year, the helicopter recovery was attempted for the first time, that is, a helicopter was used to "intercept" the rocket thruster in the air, which was re-entering the atmosphere, and was successful.
The helicopter recovery rocket
The "Electron" lunar exploration mission, I wonder if it will give South Korea a sudden enlightenment. In August this year, South Korea will rent a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket to launch its first lunar probe "Shared Moon". Because it was a "carpool" and "stopped at every stop" along the way, the two-day journey actually took several months. If the "Electron" succeeds, maybe South Korea will try it with its own "World" rocket next time.
South Korea’s lunar probe will be launched using the Falcon 9
Will South Korea want to try it with the World?
In addition to South Korea, India will also launch its own "Chandrayaan-3" this year, which is a 4-ton lunar probe. Like the "Chandrayaan-2" that landed hard in 2019, it will include an orbiter and a lander. and rover . South Korea's "Shared Moon" weighs only 678 kilograms and only has an orbiter. From this point of view, India's aerospace is indeed much more advanced than South Korea.
India will also launch Chandrayaan-3
In addition, Russia will also launch its own Lunar-25 probe this year. Its last lunar probe, Luna-24, was launched in 1976. Over the past 46 years, Russia's lunar exploration has been almost at a standstill. Now faced with a new round of lunar exploration and landing craze from various countries, it finally can no longer sit still.
Russian Lunar 35
However, the launch weight of Russia's lunar probe is only 1.75 tons, which is not as big as India's. Its main goal is to verify the lunar soft landing technology. Although the Soviet Union had already made breakthroughs in this technology during the Soviet Union, it had not practiced it for 46 years. After all, it was a manual operation, so this time can be regarded as a "warm-up operation." In the future, Russia will work with our country to establish an international scientific research station on the lunar surface. By then, there will be A lot of equipment needs to be launched.
Lunar 25th
This year, the well-known robotics research and development company institutional laboratory-Space Robotics Technology Company will also launch a "Peregrine" lander to the moon. It will lift off on the "Vulcan Centaur" carrier rocket. This is a launch vehicle developed by the "Launch Alliance", a joint venture between Lockheed Martin Space Systems and Boeing Defense Space Security. Its entire family has completed 641 orbital-level launches, and the technology is very mature.
Japan seems to be taking advantage of the private company's Peregrine lunar lander.
In fact, the two most important lunar exploration launches this year are actually the American SLS rocket and SpaceX's "Starship ". At present, the SLS rocket has basically passed the second wet rehearsal and is expected to be launched in August this year. The "Starship" has also been released from the choked environmental impact assessment report and is expected to be launched from July 22 to 24. They will all carry out unmanned missions around the moon, paving the way for subsequent returns to the moon and manned lunar landings.
They are the biggest highlight of this year's lunar exploration
It can be seen that countries are increasingly interested in the moon, and are rushing to detect, land and open the moon, and we have achieved success in the Chang'e-5 lunar sampling return mission After that, Chang'e-7 and , Chang'e-6 and have also been arranged and will soon fly to the moon to carry out new missions.
Chang'e-7 will be launched first
