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China launches Chang’e-6 mission to collect first samples from the moon’s far side
May 3, 2024
HELSINKI — China launched its complex and ambitious Chang’e-6 mission Friday to collect the first ever samples from the far side of the moon.
A 57-meter-tall Long March 5 lifted off from the Wenchang Satellite Launch Center at 5:30 a.m. Eastern (0930 UTC) May 3, carrying the roughly 8,200-kilogram Chang’e-6 into orbit.
A first second stage burn was completed 12 minutes after launch, with a translunar injection burn set for around 14 minutes later. Spacecraft separation is scheduled for around 37 minutes into flight.
If successful, samples delivered by the 53-day-long mission could change our understanding of the Earth and moon and the history of the early solar system.
Chang’e-6 consists of a stack of four spacecraft that will perform specific roles. Its orbiter will take the mission into lunar orbit. From there, a lander will separate and target a landing within Apollo crater on the far side of the moon. As the far side of the moon is never visible to Earth, due to our planet slowing the moon’s rotation and leaving it tidally locked, a communications relay satellite is required to provide communications between the ground and the lunar far side. For this, China launched Queqiao-2 in March into a specialized lunar orbit.
Once landed, the lander spacecraft will collect up to 2,000 grams of lunar samples with a drill, descending to a depth of up to two meters, and a scoop. These will be loaded into an ascent vehicle and launched back into lunar orbit for a carefully choreographed and challenging rendezvous and docking with the orbiter.
From here, the samples will be transferred to a reentry capsule. The ascender will be jettisoned and the orbiter will prepare for the return to Earth. The reentry capsule will be released just before reaching Earth and will first skip off the planet’s atmosphere.
This will help it slow it down before a final, fiery plunge through the atmosphere and a landing in Inner Mongolia.
The mission is a repurposed backup to the 2020 Chang’e-5 sample return mission. That mission successfully collected the youngest samples so far from the near side of the moon.
It also builds on the Chang’e-4 mission which put a lander and rover on the lunar far side in 2019.
Lunar mysteries and dichotomy
Apollo lies within the South Pole-Aitken (SPA) basin, a gigantic, ancient impact basin on the lunar far side. This is thought to hold tantalizing clues as to a number of moon mysteries, making the added cost of complexity of a relay satellite worthwhile scientifically.
The far side of the moon is not, as sometimes assumed, in perpetual darkness. Instead, that lunar hemisphere could prove uniquely illuminating. The samples could deliver a vast range of insights into the Earth and moon, Yuqi Qian, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Hong Kong, told SpaceNews.
Chief among these would be insights into the lunar dichotomy, or why the nearside and farside are so different. Studying mare basalts could be revealing, Qian says, because they originated from the lunar mantle and contain crucial information about it.
The SPA Basin readily excavated lunar mantle materials which may be contained in Chang’e-6 samples. “They are the best materials for studying the lunar magma ocean model because the lunar mantle is the direct product of the solidification of the lunar magma ocean but we have no access to them before.”
Qian adds that studying exotic impact related materials like impact breccias will also be revealing as to the history of the Earth-Moon system. “By studying them, we would know better the early bombardment history of the Earth-Moon system like the Late Heavy Bombardment Hypothesis.”
Chang’e-6 collaborations
As well as the main goal of collecting samples, the Chang’e-6 lander carries a landing camera and a panoramic camera for imaging its surroundings. A ground-penetrating radar to provide insights below the lunar surface. It also carries a lunar mineral spectrometer to assess the composition of the surface. The spacecraft is expected to deploy a Chinese national flag, as done by the Chang’e-5 lander.
The mission also carries international scientific payloads from France, Sweden, Italy, and a Pakistani cubesat. The collaborations reflect Chinese efforts to boost its international cooperation in space exploration.
cont.
https://spacenews.com/china-launches-change-6-mission-to-collect-first-samples-from-the-moons-far-side/
L3Harris scores payload contract for Millennium’s Foo Fighter missile tracking satellites
May 2, 2024
L3Harris announced May 2 it secured a contract to supply critical sensor technology to Millennium Space Systems for a constellation of eight satellites to be produced for the U.S. Space Force’s Space Development Agency.
SDA announced April 30 it awarded Boeing’s subsidiary Millennium Space a $414 million contract to build eight satellites equipped with advanced infrared and optical sensors.
The satellites are for a program called Fire-control On Orbit-support-to-the-war Fighter (Foo Fighter), which seeks to demonstrate technologies in support of a network of low-orbit satellites being developed by SDA known as the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture.
The Foo Fighter satellites will prove out advanced sensor technology to detect and track hypersonic missile threats as part of the Pentagon’s larger missile defense architecture.
“The satellites represent a new, stand-alone program that will track specific threats not addressed by the existing tracking constellation,” L3Harris said in a statement.
The selection of L3Harris as Millennium’s payload supplier isn’t a major surprise given the company’s expertise providing advanced electro-optical infrared sensors and payloads for numerous U.S. military and intelligence satellites, including SDA’s Tracking Layer program, which is part of the larger Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture.
Jason Kim, CEO of Millennium Space, said the company has a “strong, long-standing relationship hosting L3Harris payloads, most recently Wide Field of View. We will continue that track record on the F2 program.”
“As global threats continue to rise, these experimental Foo Fighter satellites will test new technologies to fill potential missile defense capability gaps within the Department of Defense portfolio,” said Ed Zoiss, president of L3Harris Space & Airborne Systems.
The company will manufacture the infrared payloads in Wilmington, Massachusetts.
https://spacenews.com/l3harris-scores-payload-contract-for-millenniums-foo-fighter-missile-tracking-satellites/
SpaceX Launches
STARLINK MISSION
On Thursday, May 2 at 10:37 p.m. ET, Falcon 9 launched 23 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
This was the 19th flight for the first stage booster supporting this mission, which previously launched CRS-22, Crew-3, Turksat 5B, Crew-4, CRS-25, Eutelsat HOTBIRD 13G, mPOWER-a, PSN SATRIA, Telkomsat Merah Putih 2, and now 10 Starlink missions.
https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=sl-6-55
MAXAR 1 MISSION
On Thursday, May 2 at 11:36 a.m. PT, Falcon 9 launched the Maxar 1 mission to low-Earth orbit from Space Launch Complex 4E (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
This was the 20th launch of this booster, which previously supported the launch of Crew-1, Crew-2, SXM-8, CRS-23, IXPE, Transporter-4, Transporter-5, Globalstar FM15, ISI EROS C-3, Korea 425, and nine Starlink missions.
https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=maxar1
'Buzz Aldrin punched me for calling Moon landing fake – now I'm certain demons fly UFOs'
11:31, 3 MAY 2024
A notorious conspiracy theorist who was once punched in the face by an Apollo astronaut now claims UFOs are operated by "demonic entities".
Bart Sibrel, who has made four low-budget “documentaries” about the Moon landings, told podcaster Joe Rogan that he had been told about the supernatural nature of UFOs by “experts” in the field. “The top two UFO researchers said UFOs are real, number one. Number two, they're not from outer space, and number three they're demonic,” he explained.
Sibrel reckons that the mysterious entities behind the growing number of UAP sightings have been with us for a long time and were even mentioned in the Bible. He explained: “It talks about Fallen Angels inter-breeding with humans, as talked about in Genesis Chapter six, and creating a race called Nephilim who were men of renown. World leaders.”
He claims that the “interdimensional” entities disguise themselves as aliens and have a sinister agenda to control humanity.
Despite a mass of evidence to the contrary, Sibrel also still maintains that the Moon landings were faked. He says that his films, which use official NASA footage to support his claims, are supported by many within the space exploration community.
His first film, A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Moon, was supposedly “financed by a board member of an aerospace company who builds rockets for NASA".
One of his numerous stunts was to present NASA astronauts with a Bible and demand that they placed their hand on it and swear that they had been to the Moon. When he tried to confront Buzz Aldrin, the Lunar Module pilot for the first moon landing, he was seen to “aggressively poke” the astronaut with the holy book.
When Aldrin tried to walk away, Sibrel followed him, shouting: "You're the one who said you walked on the Moon when you didn’t." After enduring a few minutes of Sibrel calling him a 'thief, liar and coward’,” Aldrin – who was 72 at the time – turned and punched the conspiracy theorist squarely on the jaw.
Sibrel later admitted that the pioneering astronaut "has a good punch. It was quick, too. I didn't see it coming.” He tried to bring charges against Aldrin, using his film footage as evidence but police declined to prosecute, saying that since "witnesses testified that Sibrel had provoked him, assault charges against the former astronaut were dropped".
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/weird-news/buzz-aldrin-punched-calling-moon-32727295