To the moon and back: Lunar mission to test China's space program..

I have not seen this posted... maybe no interest or maybe not seen.. Anyway China is going to launch a capsule which will go to the moon and return to earth...hopefully all in one piece and land in Mongolia.. They plan on having a lunar soil return mission in the near future.. India and China seem to be having their very own "LOOK AT ME" space race ... Good for them !

Hong Kong (CNN) -- China says it will launch an experimental spacecraft between Friday and Sunday that will orbit the moon before returning to Earth, in a first for the country's ambitious space program.

edition.cnn.com...

Wish they weren't so secretive. Friday or Saturday? Hell, this article says Thursday, today.
www.space.com...
So does this one:
www.newscientist.com...
And if you go to the website for the LuxSpace company that's piggybacking a payload it looks like it leaves earth orbit by this evening. 20,000 km from my location by 19:09 UT. I know you're not a big fan of me OP, but I will try to track and photograph this probe in cislunar space if at all possible.

Certainly seems on track for eventually doing a manned mission.

I wish them the best of luck. I also agree with ngchunter: wish they are a bit more open with their missions.

And people on here complain about NASA not being open!

a reply to: eriktheawful
I see you're a mod now Erik. Congratulations! Well deserved in my opinion.

I found a way to get the ephemeris for the spacecraft on the way to the moon and back; thankfully LuxSpace is piggybacking a commercial payload on the Chinese craft. It will even be transmitting radio signals for Ham operators to pick up as part of a memorial to the company's late CEO and as part of a contest.
moon.luxspace.lu...
The Chinese are increasingly open to commercial cooperation, though as you mentioned nowhere near as open and transparent as NASA. I have yet to find the actual orbital elements, though I could hypothetically reverse engineer them from the ephemeris given by the website above. I will at least be constructing an excel sheet to convert the altitude and azimuth to equatorial coordinates for a variety of observatory sites on the iTelescope.net network. Wish they gave more of a heads-up though; there's very little time available to do this.

originally posted by: ngchunter
Wish they weren't so secretive. Friday or Saturday? Hell, this article says Thursday, today.
www.space.com...
So does this one:
www.newscientist.com...
And if you go to the website for the LuxSpace company that's piggybacking a payload it looks like it leaves earth orbit by this evening. 20,000 km from my location by 19:09 UT. I know you're not a big fan of me OP, but I will try to track and photograph this probe in cislunar space if at all possible.

I think you have me confused with someone else.. I am a fan of everyone who takes the time to post on this sight.. If I agree with a poster good for me if not then I agree to disagree usually.. Life is to short to get wrapped up in my thoughts or bigger than your thoughts, kinda stuff.. hahah I don't even agree with my wife all the time and yet I love her more than life..

I hope they'll share some of the awesome videos they get there , they seem a bit secretive

a reply to: 727Sky
It's possible I do. I recognized the avatar, but it's quite possible that someone else has used the same gif animation as well.

Wow, it's going to be tricky to catch. In most locations it will be above the horizon during the day and only briefly visible at twilight as it heads to the moon (new moon/solar eclipse today). The best chance to catch it is in the southern hemisphere. I generated the following observing table for Siding Spring, Australia for iTelescope.net's Q62 observatory for tomorrow evening (early morning eastern US time).
dropcanvas.com...

Rumor has it that they are going to see if they can make a cheaper copy of the Moon and sell them on Ebay. (free shipping)

a reply to: ngchunter
Word is that the launch has occurred and the mission is on its way.
twitter.com...
I've booked some time on a telescope in Australia to try to catch it tomorrow morning (US time) as it travels to the moon.

a reply to: 727Sky

Good catch it is rare to see anything about space on the MSM now days they just show a 10 second clip well after the event has gone ahead when i was a kid every event was announced weeks ahead of it going on

Here are some more details, from the Smithsonian:

www.airspacemag.com...
FIRST PRIVATELY FUNDED MOON MISSION LAUNCHES ON A CHINESE ROCKET
"The Luxembourg-based company LuxSpace is attaching its “4M” payload to the upper stage of a Long March 3C rocket, whose main job is to launch a capsule that will round the moon and re-enter Earth’s atmosphere at high speed to test the spacecraft’s protective heat shield. China plans to use such a capsule in 2017 for the Chang’e 5 lunar sample return mission."

a reply to: MKMoniker

Back in the day they used wood for the heat shield



it is kind of like the joke about America spending years in testing and millions to get a pen that worked in space and the Russians just used a pencil

Aren't these the same folks that launched a lunar rover that went about 50ft and went kaput?

I give them credit for their efforts though. It seems like they're really serious about Lunar exploration. It also highlights the fact that the US hasn't really done squat in quite a long time...

I would so much rather see my tax dollars spent on something like that than what the idiots in Washington are currently spending them on...

originally posted by: samkent
Rumor has it that they are going to see if they can make a cheaper copy of the Moon and sell them on Ebay. (free shipping)

ebay has big plans

a reply to: ngchunter

No pictures, it was cloudy at Siding Spring