Chang’e-1 represents the first step in the Chinese ambition to land robotic explorers on the Moon before 2020.
Chang’e-1 has four mission goals to accomplish. The first is to make three-dimensional images of many lunar landforms and outline maps of major lunar geological structures. This mapping will include the first detailed images taken of some regions near the lunar poles.
Chang’e-1 is also designed to analyze the abundance of up to 14 chemical elements and their distribution across the lunar surface. Thirdly it will measure the depth of the lunar soil and lastly it will explore the space weather between the Earth and the Moon.
The spacecraft is large, weighing in at 2350 kg and it will operate from a low, circular lunar orbit, just 200 km above the surface of the Moon. From here, it will perform its science mission for a full year.
ESA European Space Operations Centre is collaborating with the Chinese on this mission by providing spacecraft and ground operations support services to CNSA.
Chang’e-1 carries a variety of instruments: a CCD stereo camera, a laser altimeter, an imaging interferometer, a gamma-ray/X-ray spectrometer, a microwave radiometer, a high-energy particle detector, and a solar wind particle detector.
~American tv offers little news about this and the Japanese space missions. Perhaps NASA has final approval over which space related stories get broadcasted by tv news outlets for Americans? Perhaps the Chinese and ESA are unrealistically optimistic about their chances for a successful mission?
Posted by Stubbornson at October 24, 2007 09:44 PM