I have a new blog post up at Air & Space about the flight of Chang’E 5T and its significance to the Chinese space program. Comment here, if so desired.
Update added 10 December, 2014:
I have been directed to a news story from Chinese media indicating that the portion of the Chang’E 5T spacecraft that did not re-enter Earth’s atmosphere has looped around the Earth and returned to to the Moon, parking at Earth-Moon L-2 (a point about 60,000 km directly above the center of the lunar far side). The story goes on to say that the plan is to bring the spacecraft back down into low lunar orbit for additional high resolution mapping next month.
Once again, this new development demonstrates Chinese ability to position assets throughout cislunar space at will and loiter there for extended periods. No one in the American space program seems to be concerned about this capability, but they should be.
Thanks Paul!
A straightforward yet not hysterical assessment.
Dave Huntsman
All of the propulsion technologies required for Moon missions are in production or late stage development in China. Hypergolic, LOX/kerosene, and LOX/hydrogen are now all flying or testing, along with the prerequisite solid fuel escape tower system.
They have demonstrated all the capabilities needed while we……..continue to wait for “entrepreneurs” with hobby rockets to provide travel to LEO. The world is laughing at the superpower that once had no equal and is now third-rate.
But next month Orion goes up…..that could be the turning point.
“The fact that China is adding the step of rendezvous and docking in lunar orbit is significant, as this step is a critical milestone for the certification of an architecture for human missions to the Moon. China’s choice of this mission profile for Chang’E 5 is a clear indication that they are planning such missions.”
Good catch. That is a very significant point.
The new Congress needs to nix the wasteful meteoroid retrieval mission and refocus its efforts on the Moon by deploying a lunar habitat and a lunar water extraction and propellant production facility as a bridge to Mars.
Marcel
When the time comes that Mars is mentioned as infrequently as the Moon has been I will know we are back on the right path. I don’t quite understand why it is not the Moon that these “visionaries” want to retire on but I am positive Mars is the mistake that keeps on screwing up everything having to do with space exploration.
Mars, (like LEO) is a dead end. Not enough solar energy, too much gravity to make landing easy and not enough to stay healthy. There is no real justification for trying to colonize; just emoting sci-fi fans dreaming of……what? What do they think it will be like? There will not be much hiking around the surface with the cosmic radiation and no atmosphere to speak of.
The Moon is actually a far superior site. Not enough gravity means not enough and the lower lunar gravity will actually make it easier to engineer a solution to that problem. O’Neill was right.