Chinatour's Blog

China's first lunar probing satellite, Chang'e-1, will be put to test Thursday morning when the Earth eclipses the Sun and blocks the supply of solar energy.

From about 10 a.m., the satellite will be hidden from the solar rays and lost the contact from the Earth for two and a half hours, said Ye Peijian, chief commander and designer in charge of the satellite system.

Scientists have redirected the orbit of the satellite and shortened the time it is out of direct sunlight by almost one hour and a half, Ye said.

Ye said the European Space Agency would also help to monitor the satellite and the final results would not be clear until this evening.

The satellite would also perform a second orbital adjustment during another eclipse in August, he said.

The 2,350-kilogram satellite carrying eight surveying facilities aims to make a three-dimensional survey of the moon's surface. It will also analyze the abundance and distribution of elements on the lunar surface, investigate the characteristics of the powdery soil layer on the surface, and explore the environment between the Earth and the moon.

This is the first step in China's three-stage moon mission, which will lead to a landing and launch of a rover vehicle around 2012. In the third phase, another rover will land and return to the Earth with lunar soil and stone samples for scientific research around 2017.

A virtual image of an astronaut spacewalking outside the Shenzhou VII spaceship.  [Photo: enorth.com.cn]

An airlock module for the Shenzhou VII spaceship and an extravehicular spacesuit - key elements of China's first spacewalk mission scheduled for later this year - have passed initial ground tests, a top scientist said yesterday.

"This boosts our confidence in the spacewalk," he said on the sidelines of an event to celebrate the academy's 40th anniversary.

The academy designed all previous Shenzhou spaceships and the moon probe Chang'e I, launched last year.

Although an exact date has yet to be set for the spacewalk, the Shenzhou VII will be launched from Jiuquan, Gansu Province, with three astronauts on board. It will be the latest milestone in China's manned flight history.

The airlock is a pressure chamber linking the main body of the spacecraft to the outside. It is a complex piece of equipment but was not required on the previous six Shenzhou space flights, Yang said.

Similarly, the extravehicular spacesuit, developed by other scientific institutes, is also technologically much more demanding, compared with the intra-vehicular spacesuits worn by astronauts on earlier missions. It must protect astronauts from dramatic temperature changes and radiation in space, as well as provide them with food, oxygen and equipment to communicate with the spaceship, experts said.

But the final three have yet to be named.

The spacewalk mission is expected to be broadcast live on television.

Yang Baohua said the spaceship's re-entry module is the largest in the world in terms of its available space. Once it returns to Earth, the orbital module will remain in space to carry out experiments.

A successful spacewalk mission will lay the foundation for a space laboratory and space station, he said.