2023-10-02 22:48:00
BEIJING, Oct. 2 (Xinhua) — The China National Space Administration (CNSA) is offering opportunities for international cooperation on payloads that will add to the country’s planned Chang’e-8 lunar exploration mission for around 2028.
The Chang’e-8 mission is open to collaboration of all countries and international organizations, whether at the mission, system or single machine level, in order to foster more important original discoveries, says a statement from the CNSA published today Monday.
The CNSA also announced the invitation to participate in the International Astronautical Congress that is being held in Baku, Azerbaijan.
The Chang’e-8 mission, a key task of the fourth stage of China’s lunar probe, will carry out more lunar geological detection and research activities, Earth observations from the Moon, in situ lunar sample analysis and exploitation of resources, as well as a small closed terrestrial ecosystem experiment on the lunar surface, the CNSA noted.
Preference will be given to international cooperation offers at the mission level involving a collaborative probe and interaction between two spacecraft.
Likewise, the joint development of lunar robots capable of basic operations on the surface of the Moon, as well as other complementary scientific payloads and highly innovative scientific projects, will be preferred.
The Chang’e-8 lander will provide a payload resource of 200 kilograms, but any autonomous module for single-engine, system-level collaboration must weigh less than 100 kilograms.
The deadline for submitting proposals for international cooperation in Chang’e-8 is December 31, 2023. The preliminary and final selections will conclude in April and September next year, respectively, as planned.
Chang’e-8 will constitute, together with Chang’e-7, the basic model of a lunar research station. The Chang’e-7 probe is expected to be sent into space around the year 2026 to implement resource exploration at the south pole of the Moon.
Meanwhile, China will send Chang’e-6 to the Moon around 2024 to collect samples from its far side as planned, and will carry payloads from France, Italy, Pakistan and the European Space Agency, including a detector of negative ions and a radon gas detector.
Chang’e-5, launched in 2020, is the country’s most recent mission to the Moon. Its probe recovered a total of 1,731 grams of lunar soil from the near side.
During its current congress in Baku, the International Academy of Astronautics presented the 2023 Team Achievement Awards to the Chang’e-5 group. The team’s chief designer, Hu Hao, announced that lunar soil samples will soon be available for international research requests. End
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