Chang'e 2

Chang'e -2 (Chinese嫦娥 二号, Pinyin Chang'e he Hào ) is the second spacecraft of the China National Space Administration ( CNSA ) and the second planned by at least three missions in the lunar program of the People's Republic of China. The probe was launched on 1 October 2010 at 10:59 UTC clock from the space center in Xichang. The probe circling the moon six months to measure him and take pictures.

The mission serves as preparation for the soft landing of Chang'e -3 in 2013. Costs are estimated at around 900 million yuan, or just under 100 million euros.

Construction

Chang'e -2 was originally intended as a backup for Chang'e -1. The probe is also based on the Dong Fang Hong - III bus. Solar cells ( less than 2 kW) generate electrical energy and momentum wheels and cold gas jets provide position control.

The eight instruments likely to resemble those of the previous mission. Has been developed further, the CCD camera; whose resolution is of about 100 kilometers above the now seven meters. By lowering the lunar orbit at the end of the mission, even a resolution can be achieved by one meter. The other instruments are a detector for measuring the particle radiation from the sun, a laser altimeter optical X-ray and gamma spectrometer and a microwave radiometer.

Mission History

Unlike its predecessor Chang'e -1 flew Chang'e -2 with a larger fuel use directly to the moon. Thus, the flight time of nearly 14, shortened to 5 days .. The moon's orbit was only half as high as that of Chang'e -1 with 100 kilometers above the surface. In May 2011, the moon next point on the path has been further lowered and was only 15 kilometers above the sinus iridium. Thus recordings were made ​​with a resolution of 1.5 meters per pixel from the planned landing area of the rover Chang'e 3 on 9 June 2011, the engines of Chang'e -2 were ignited, and the probe left the orbit in the direction the Lagrangepunkts L2 of the sun-Earth system, where it remained for about ten months the solar wind measured and China provided important experience in the operation of a deep space probe. In April 2012, she left the L2 Lagrange point to the near-Earth asteroid ( 4179 ) Toutatis achieve. On 13 December 2012, at 08:30 UTC, the probe flew past 3.2 km distance and at a relative velocity of 10.73 km / s at Toutatis. Here, a series of images was taken from a distance 93-240 km.