Chang'e 2: China's 2nd lunar orbiter

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China to launch second lunar probe next October
By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN (AP) – 9 hours ago

BEIJING — China is set to launch its second lunar probe next October in preparation for an unmanned moon landing by the end of 2012, space program officials were quoted Friday as saying.

The Chang'e 2 probe is an advanced version of the Chang'e 1 that crashed into the moon in a controlled collision at the end of a 16-month mission in March.

Chang'e 2 will orbit 60 miles (100 kilometers) closer to the moon and carry a higher resolution camera, designer Ye Peijian was quoted as saying by the official China Daily newspaper.

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China's second moon orbiter Chang'e-2 goes to outer space
by Staff Writers
Beijing, China (XNA) Jun 10, 2011

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/China_second_moon_orbiter_Change_2_goes_to_outer_space_999.html

China's second moon orbiter Chang'e-2 on Thursday set off from its moon orbit for outer space about 1.5 million km away from the earth, Chinese scientists said Thursday. The orbiter left its moon orbit at 5:10 p.m. and it will take about 85 days for the orbiter to reach outer space, according to the State Administration of Science,Technology and Industry for National Defence (SASTIND).

The orbiter had finished all its tasks within its designed life span of six months by April 1.

Scientists decided to let it carry out additional exploratory tasks as the orbiter still had fuel in reserve.

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Moon exploration means about 400,000 km away from the earth, but outer space exploration means 1.5 million km, posing great challenges to the country's technology in measure and control, telecommunications, data transaction and orbit design, scientists said.

Before flying away, the orbiter had finished two additional tasks as of May 23.

One was to take photos of the northern and southern poles of the moon. The other was to descend again to the perilune orbit, about 15 km away from the surface, to catch high-resolution images of the Sinus Iridum, or Bay of Rainbows, the proposed landing ground for future moon missions.

Scientists hope the satellite can continue operations until the end of next year.

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At that time, the satellite can be used to test the two stations' functions, the scientist said.

Challenges exist as Chang'e-2 was not designed for the additional task and it is now in extended service without extra capacities to deal with abnormal risks, Zhou said.

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