China’s Chang’e-5 spacecraft entered a far retrograde lunar orbit ahead of the US Artemis 1 mission’s Orion spacecraft. writes spacenews.
It is noted that in a far retrograde orbit, Chang’e-5 orbits the moon once every two weeks. “Such an orbit has not been previously used, but it is planned to be used in NASA’s upcoming Artemis 1 mission later this year,” the publication says.
According to expert Jonathan McDowell, in this way China is gaining experience in the field of astrodynamics. According to him, after the completion of the main mission, Chang’e-5 is used “like a toy.”
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In November 2020, a heavy rocket launcher Long March-5 was launched from the Wenchang cosmodrome in China with the Chang’e-5 mission, during which lunar soil samples were delivered to Earth within a month. The last time a successful delivery of soil from the surface of the Moon was carried out in the 1970s by the USSR and the USA.
In January 2019, the China National Space Administration released a video of the world’s first soft landing on the far side of the moon. The lander carrying the 140-kilogram rover of the Chang’e 4 mission made a soft landing in the South Pole-Aitken Basin on January 3. Before that, no country in the world had landed on the far side of the moon.
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