First Commercial Mission To the Moon Launched From China

mbone writes with news about the first privately-funded spacecraft to travel the Moon. Cold War competition between superpowers dominated the first decades of space travel and exploration. Individual governments took the lead, bankrolling most of the process in the name of competition and nationalism. Ultimately international cooperation and collaboration took root, and the landscape is already very different. The present and future of space exploration is more collaborative, more international, and involves both space agencies and private companies. One such project is the combination Chang’e 5-T1 and Manfred Memorial Moon Mission (4M), which launched together last Thursday. Both projects are testbeds for ideas: Chang’e 5-T1 is a prototype for a robotic probe intended to return samples from the Moon to Earth, while 4M is a simple communications experiment encouraging amateur participation. But the intriguing bit is that 4M is a project of the private Luxembourg-based company LuxSpace, while Chang’e 5-T1 is a Chinese project, and the whole endeavor was launched on a Chinese rocket.

Comments

China is more capitalistic than the USA

[Taco Cowboy]

I am from China. At the time I left China it was really deep in communism, so deep that the entire society went upside down and a lot of people died because of it

But the China of today is very different. China of today is much more capitalistic than the United States of America --- since I am from China and that I am a citizen of the United States of America after staying in the US for decades, if I am to compare the two I would say that the USA is becoming more and more socialistic (turning more and more pinko) while China has turned blue, deeeeep blue

Yawn

[Anonymous Coward]

The summary and article call it "the first privately-funded spacecraft to travel the Moon", but it appears to be nothing more than payload that will be dumped off a Chinese (publicly-funded) rocket in an orbit that will take it around the moon and then back to earth.

It would be more accurate to call it the first privately-funded piece of cargo carried to lunar orbit by a publicly-funded rocket, but I suppose that would kill the capitalism boner all the Randroids got upon reading this story.

Correction

[wonkey_monkey]

It's the first deliberate commercial mission to the moon.

I forget the details but there was a commercial satellite that ended up in the wrong orbit, and the easiest way to fix it was to send it out around the moon and back. Okay, it didn't do any actual science or anything, but still.

Re:Correction

[wonkey_monkey]

ORLY?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...

Okay, the article's not clear if it actually went around the Moon, so it probably didn't do that, but it got to within 6,800km, which is 99% of the way there.

So, what was objection based on rudimentary orbital mechanics, then?

Re:Correction

[FireFury03]

Really? Considering normal moon missions need a significant boost to get to the moon, how did a commercial satellite do that?

Inclination changes are really expensive. By comparison, a Hohmann transfer orbit to the moon and back can be cheaper and can use the moon's gravity to change inclination. The Apollo missions used a free-return trajectory rather than Hohmann transfer orbit since they needed to get to the moon quickly (don't want a bunch of astronauts spending a few months in deep space), which is why they needed significantly more delta-V. Its worth noting that a commercial satellite generally has a significant amount of station keeping fuel since its expected to stay in service for many years - sacrificing a few years of service is reasonable if the alternative is to completely abandon the satellite because its in the wrong orbit.

I think in the incident in question, someone (Lockheed?) ended up patenting the manouver...