History made with 6 Chinese astronauts now onboard Tiangong. I hand the RARE opportunity to image / record this HISTORIC event. I imaged the Chinese Space Station, Tiangong on 12-02-22 Max 80° 5:55pm EST in average seeing conditions from my Manorville NY Observatory. Please Share
Zhurong reveals recent aqueous activities in Utopia Planitia, Mars
The Mars’ climate is cold and dry in the most recent epoch, and liquid
water activities are considered extremely limited. Previous orbital data
only show sporadic hydrous minerals in the northern lowlands of Mars
excavated by large impacts. Using the short-wave infrared spectral data
obtained by the Zhurong rover of China’s Tianwen-1 mission, which landed
in southern Utopia Planitia on Mars, we identify hydrated
sulfate/silica materials on the Amazonian terrain at the landing site.
These hydrated minerals are associated with bright-toned rocks,
interpreted to be duricrust developed locally. The lithified duricrusts
suggest that formation with substantial liquid water originates by
either groundwater rising or subsurface ice melting. In situ evidence
for aqueous activities identified at Zhurong’s landing site indicates a
more active Amazonian hydrosphere for Mars than previously thought.
China’s Mars orbiter snaps amazing selfies above Red Planet
China’s Tianwen 1 spacecraft at Mars pulled a big New Year’s surprise with stunning new images captured by a small camera that flew free of the orbiter to snap epic selfies above the Red Planet.
The new images published by the China National Space Administration show Tianwen 1 above Mars’ north pole, with its solar arrays and antennas on display, as well as a partial closeup of the orbiter and a view of the Red Planet’s northern ice cap.
The Mars shots were taken by a small camera device released by the orbiter which then took images and sent them to Tianwen 1 via WiFi.
China’s space station is preparing to host 1,000 scientific experiments
China launched the core of its space station in April, and sent three astronauts up in June. But although it probably won’t be complete until late 2022, there is already a long queue of experiments from across the world waiting to go up. Scientists in China told Nature that the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) has tentatively approved more than 1,000 experiments, several of which have already been launched.
Before April, the International Space Station (ISS) was the only space laboratory in orbit, and many researchers say Tiangong (or ‘heavenly palace’) is a welcome addition for astronomical and Earth observation, and for studying how microgravity and cosmic radiation affect phenomena such as bacterial growth and fluid mixing.
Astronauts at China’s new space station conduct first spacewalk
Chinese astronauts have performed the country’s first tandem spacewalk, working for seven hours on the outside of the new Tiangong station in orbit around Earth.
Tiangong’s construction is a significant step in China’s ambitious space programme. China has previously landed a rover on Mars and sent probes to the moon.
Last month, three astronauts blasted off to become the first crew of the station, where they will remain for three months in China’s longest crewed mission to date. On Sunday morning, two of them left the station for about seven hours of work in the first spacewalk at Tiangong, the China Manned Space Agency said.
On
June 11, at the unveiling ceremony of the first batch of scientific
image maps of the Tianwen-1 rover landing on Mars in Beijing, the
panoramic view of the landing site, the topography of Mars, the “Chinese
imprint” and the “Zhurong” rover shot by the Mars Photographs such as a
group photo with a tour.
[…]
The
picture of the “touring group photo” shows the rover traveling about 10
meters south of the landing platform, releasing the separate camera
installed at the bottom of the vehicle, and then retreating to the
vicinity of the landing platform. The separate camera took pictures of the movement of the rover and the photo of the rover and the landing platform. The
image is transmitted to the rover through wireless signals, and then
relayed back to the ground by the rover through the orbiter.
Why the China Mars rover’s landing site (Utopia Planitia) has geologists excited
Now that they know the general landing location of China’s Zhurong Mars rover, scientists are rushing to analyse satellite images and geological maps to pinpoint intriguing features. Of particular significance is a possible mud volcano — a type of landform that no Mars rover has visited before.
“We want to propose the plan for the rover,” says Xiao Long, a planetary geologist at the China University of Geosciences in Wuhan, who says scientists across China will now have the tantalizing opportunity to influence Zhurong’s journey.
“A number of teams will be trying to plan out the traverse — where you would go in what time frame, to accomplish as many goals as you can in a 90-day mission,” adds Joseph Michalski, a planetary scientist at the University of Hong Kong.
‘Out-of-control’ Chinese rocket falling to Earth could partially survive re-entry
Part of a huge rocket that launched China’s first module for its Tianhe space station is falling back to Earth and could make an uncontrolled re-entry at an unknown landing point.
The 30-metre high core of the Long March 5B rocket launched the “Heavenly Harmony” unmanned core module into low Earth orbit on 29 April from Wenchang in China’s Hainan province.
The Long March 5B then itself entered a temporary orbit, setting the stage for one of the largest ever uncontrolled re-entries. Some experts fear it could land on an inhabited area.
“It’s potentially not good,” said Jonathan McDowell, Astrophysicist at the Astrophysics Center at Harvard University.
China collects Moon samples, may not share with NASA due to Wolf Amendment
China’s increasingly ambitious space program completed a 23-day mission on Wednesday that culminated in the return of about 2kg of rocks from the Moon. During the final phase of the mission, a singed spacecraft carrying the lunar cargo landed in Mongolia and was recovered by Chinese teams.
This Chang'e 5 mission represents a significant success for China and its space program, becoming only the third nation—after the United States with its crewed Apollo program and the Soviet Union with a robotic program in the 1970s—to return samples from the Moon.
Chang'e 5
on the moon
China’s Chang'e-5 probe completes drilling, sealing of lunar samples
The Chang'e-5 spacecraft has sealed up soil samples obtained from beneath the Moon’s surface, and is ready to continue collecting more samples from the surface, the China National Space Administration (CNSA) said Wednesday.
Tianwen-1 deep space manoeuvre
As I have mentioned in several posts, the trajectory in which Tianwen-1 was launched had a closest approach to Mars of around 3 million km, so at some point a large correction manoeuvre was needed. We had already seen small manoeuvres TCM-1 and TCM-2, but we were expecting soon enough this large correction, which is called DSM (deep space manoeuvre). Some sources placed the DSM around the beginning of October, while others were more precise and mentioned that it would happen right after the Mid-Autumn festival holiday season, which this year ended on October 8.
This information turned out to be pretty accurate, since yesterday we heard news that Tianwen-1 had done its DSM at 15:00 UTC on 2020-10-09. This information quickly appeared in the news.
After the Bochum 20m antenna was able to acquire the spacecraft’s signal and gather telemetry at 19:09 UTC, we were able to confirm the manoeuvre in the state vectors transmitted by the spacecraft. Paul Marsh M0EYT was also able to receive telemetry confirming this, starting at 18:18 UTC. This post is an analysis of the data.
On July 23, this Long March 5 heavy-lift rocket rose into a blue morning sky from China’s Hainan Island Wenchang Satellite Launch Center. The rocket carried an orbiter, lander, and rover to ask Heavenly Questions on the ambitious Tianwen-1 mission to Mars. In fact Tianwen-1 was the second of three missions scheduled for a July departure to the Red Planet. The United Arab Emirates launched its Amal (Hope) Mars probe on July 19. NASA’s launch of its Mars Perseverance Rover from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, USA is scheduled for July 30. That is the last planned Mars launch for 2020 though. The minimum-energy launch window for an expedition to Mars is coming to a close in 2020 and will reopen in 2022.
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