Moon News  
Shanghai Lands Star Role In Satellite Mission

Artist impression of a Chinese lunar orbiter circling the Moon. Image credit: China Central TV
by Staff Writers
Beijing (XNA) Jun 14, 2006
Shanghai will be the headquarters of the satellite positioning equipment used to track the country's first lunar orbiter, due to be launched next April, officials said Monday. The lunar orbiter positioning system uses four radio telescopes - in Shanghai, Beijing, Kunming, capital of southwest China's Yunnan Province, and Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in the northwest.

But it is in Shanghai that the data will be collected and calculated.

In a rehearsal this month, China, in cooperation with the European Space Agency, used the array to track the Smart-1 - an ESA lunar orbiter that has been orbiting the Moon since November 2004.

According to the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory, the test was very successful and was an important warm-up ahead of the launch of its own orbiter.

"The orbit position of lunar probe is key to guaranteeing its normal functions in space, such as taking quality pictures of the moon," Fu Chengqi, a researcher with the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory, said yesterday.

In Shanghai, the positioning was achieved with a radio dish atop Sheshan Hill in Songjiang District.

The dish collects the radio waves from the lunar orbiter - about 400,000 kilometers away - and records the time they take to make the trip.

At least three dishes on the ground are needed to locate the lunar orbiter but the more that are used, the more precise the probe positioning will be, officials said.

China has finished the plan of its first moon probe and the orbiter, called Chang'e-1, will be launched next April.

Chang'e is a beautiful goddess living on the Moon in Chinese mythology.

The satellite, part of a three-stage program, will be followed by the landing of an unmanned vehicle on the Moon in 2010. Samples of lunar soil will be collected in the final phase in 2020.

The satellite project was designed to obtain three-dimensional images of the lunar surface, analyze elements and materials on the surface and probe the depth of the lunar soil.

Source: Xinhua News Agency

Email This Article

Related Links
Shanghai Astronomical Observatory
Mars News and Information at MarsDaily.com
Lunar Dreams and more

The Sky Is Falling
NASA Science News
Huntsville AL (SPX) Jun 05, 2006 Up on the Moon, the sky is falling. "Every day, more than a metric ton of meteoroids hits the Moon," says Bill Cooke of the Marshall Space Flight Center's Meteoroid Environment Office. They literally fall out of the sky, in all shapes and sizes, from specks of comet dust to full-blown asteroids, traveling up to a hundred thousand mph.







  • Optimize Trade Study Analyses With Software From Phoenix Integration And AGI
  • Stephen Hawking Calls For Mankind To Reach For Stars
  • TPS Enables Study Of Mysterious Pioneer Anomaly
  • One For The Record Books Malaysian Heads Into Space

  • British Scientists Unveil Latest Craft To Search For Life On Mars
  • Spirit Finds Possible Iron Meteorite
  • Aeroflex Awarded Mars Science Lab Contracts
  • An Ancient Martian Caldera In Apollinaris Patera

  • Could NASA Get To Pluto Faster? Space Expert Says Yes - By Thinking Nuclear
  • NASA plans to send new robot to Jupiter
  • Los Alamos Hopes To Lead New Era Of Nuclear Space Tranportion With Jovian Mission
  • Boeing Selects Leader for Nuclear Space Systems Program

  • Ultraviolet Stripping Creates Super Earth Sized Planets
  • FUSE Finds Young Solar System Awash In Carbon
  • Astronomers Find Planets With No Stars
  • Like Planet, Like Sun

  • Nano World: Water Harvesting Surfaces
  • Border Patrol Chief Spells Out Growth Plan
  • Invisibility Through Nano
  • Beyond The Hype And The Scare Stories, How Safe Are Nanoparticles

  • Researchers Make Progress With Robotic Telesurgery
  • Deputy SG Talks About Future Of Air Force Medicine
  • Space Technology To Help Hospitals Contain Spread Of Avian Flu Infection
  • Stem-Cell Tech Improves Spinal-Cord Injury

  • Sea Launch Awarded Assignment For Thuraya-3 Satellite
  • Sea Launch To Orbit Telecom Satellite June 17
  • NASA Picks Atlas V To Launch Mars Science Laboratory Mission
  • Sea Launch Prepares For Galaxy 16 Liftoff

  • Mitsubishi Heavy To Invest In Next-Generation Rocket
  • Irvin Aerospace to Develop CEV Airbags For NASA
  • Pratt and Whitney Rocketdyne J-2X Engine To Power CLV Upper Stage
  • US Astronauts To Fly New Space Ship By 2014

  • The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2006 - SpaceDaily.AFP and UPI Wire Stories are copyright Agence France-Presse and United Press International. ESA PortalReports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additionalcopyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by SpaceDaily on any Web page published or hosted by SpaceDaily. Privacy Statement