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Record-Setting Retreat of Hektoria Glacier
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Record-Setting Retreat of Hektoria Glacier
- Earth
- Earth Observatory
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- About
#791: Chang’e Sample Return
Last week we talked about samples from other worlds delivered to Earth by meteorites. But sometimes you’ve gotta do the job yourself. Visit the far off place and bring the samples home. And today we’re gonna talk about China’s Chang’e sample return program. How they’ve delivered rocks from different parts of the Moon, and how this sets the stage for their upcoming human lunar missions.
Show Notes- Chang’e Program Overview
- Chang’e 6 Mission Details
- Mission Accomplishment
- Mission Significance
- Chang’e 5 Mission Findings
- Chang’e 5 Mission Outcome
- Lunar Exploration Challenges
- Lunar Research Focus
- Moon Formation Theories
- International Lunar Collaboration
- Mission Objective
- Mission Timeline
- Mission Details
- Mars Sample Return Mission
- Mars Human Mission
- Artemis Mission Concerns
Fraser Cain:
AstronomyCast, Episode 791, Chang'e Sample Return. Welcome to AstronomyCast, our weekly facts-based journey through the cosmos, where we help you understand not only what we know, but how we know what we know. I'm Fraser Cain, I'm the publisher of Universe Today.
With me, as always, is Dr. Pamela Gay, a Senior Scientist for the Planetary Science Institute, and the Director of CosmoQuest. Hey, Pamela, how are you doing?
Dr. Pamela Gay:
I am doing well. How are you doing?
Fraser Cain:
Good. I am doing well as well. We are both enjoying the spring and getting out there with our saws and our clippers and our lawnmowers and starting to process nature, bring it back into the fold.
And yeah, it's crazy. Our mason bees just came out today. We've got a house wren that is sitting on a birdhouse that I made that is just calling and calling for a mate.
We've got swallows that have all showed up and are examining all of the swallow boxes that I built. We saw an alligator lizard yesterday, which is a highlight. It's our native lizard here on Baker Island.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
I had no idea they went that far north.
Fraser Cain:
Yeah, we have salamanders. So my wife found a salamander climbing out of our thyme shrubs, which was awesome. And she delivered it out into the forest.
It's just, you know, deer, I'm ready for the bears. It always just, it's always surprising. Like I've even written all this stuff down in my calendar that I talk about and yet still they show up and you're like, finally, I never knew that this would return.
And here we are, spring is returning and I just love it so much.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
That is absolutely amazing. The thing that has not returned is my video camera functionality. So it was working and then everything said, no, I shall die now.
So those of you watching this on YouTube, I have disappeared. And we're going to continue to talk while I continue to work on this and we will go to break and I will finish fixing it when we get a break.
Fraser Cain:
I don't look at you when we record anyway.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
No, I know.
Fraser Cain:
Last week, we talked about samples from other worlds delivered to earth by meteorites, but sometimes you've got to do the job yourself, visit the far off place and bring the samples home. And today we're going to talk about China's Chang'e Sample Return Program, how they've delivered rocks from different parts of the moon and how this sets the stage for their upcoming human lunar missions. All right.
So first, I think we need to talk about the pronunciation of Chang'e, Chang'e, so Chang'e. So the uh part, the last part is, and this is my instinct is because, you know, I've been learning Mandarin. And so when you are hungry, you are uh-la, so if I say I am hungry, I say wa-uh-la.
So and it's that same uh, and so it's that sort of E by itself.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
But the name has nothing to do with hunger. Hunger.
Fraser Cain:
No, no, no, no. So no, no, no.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Just to be clear.
Fraser Cain:
Chang'e, Chang'e is, is the moon goddess.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Yes.
Fraser Cain:
And so uh, that's why the whole, the whole lunar exploration program is named after the moon goddess. So uh, now we're going to sort of end on the actual sample return missions and then talk a bit about what's coming next, but let's sort of start at the beginning of the, of the Chang'e program.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
So this is the Chinese program to uh, go to the moon, explore very completely. They've been doing slow and steady wins the race. I think it's the best way to describe their mission profile.
This started in the early 20 teens, uh, they have systematically orbited it with two different missions at successfully higher resolution. They have done landings, uh, they have done communication satellites, uh, Chang'e 5 was nearside sample return, Chang'e 6 was the, the triumvirate of awesome. It was a landing in South Aitken Basin in Apollo crater, uh, which is one of the lowest sites on the moon.
So like, holy heck, how did you do that? Um, then they, they, uh, also landed on far side as part of that and, um, they had a communication satellite, so it worked. And then the third amazingness is they then brought back nearly two kilograms of sample, um, including they drilled.
So they were able to do like things that we dreamed of doing with the Viper Rover. They have done it and they have brought the stuff back and they even took a stealth Rover that they didn't announce ahead of time and people realized was there from photos of the mission. Um, so yeah, for selfies, yeah, it's what they do.
They take selfies. It's excellent.
Fraser Cain:
Yeah. I mean, whoever is running the, um, the promotional arm of the, of the missions of the lunar exploration missions from China has, is on the ball and they did this for Mars too. So, so when they had their, um, their Tianwen mission go to Mars, they had a little selfie, free flying selfie camera that detached from the mission and took a picture of it.
And you know, we are always talking about how, like, obviously there are no pictures of the spacecraft in orbit because you haven't sent another spacecraft to take a picture of your spacecraft. That's ridiculous. Yeah.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
They do that.
Fraser Cain:
Unless you're the Chinese and you send a separate spaceship with your spaceship so you can take a picture. And they, so they do this. And so you've got this great, this great picture of the Chang'e, um, on the surface of the moon taken by this, this little, uh, this little Rover that they had, they had attached.
But, but, I mean, you just, you went through six missions there very, very quickly.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
So, so that was, that was the overview.
Fraser Cain:
Um, but let's, let's focus on their first sample return mission.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Okay. So that, that's Chang'e 5 and this, this was a mission that landed like we did basically on the near side of the moon, uh, northern hemisphere. And, uh, it brought back, uh, 1.7 kilograms of lunar soil. And then what they did with the spacecraft is kind of almost more exciting to me than the lunar sample. But this is an episode on the lunar sample. So I should go into that.
Fraser Cain:
No, no, no. But I'm like, no. Tell us the thing that's more exciting.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Go on. So, so they do something that we don't generally do with our earth moon system spacecraft, which is they, they took the spacecraft, they then stored it out at L2 and continue doing exploring. It wasn't a matter of just going, grabbing a sample and then ditching whatever they didn't need any further.
They're like, no, we're going to go over here now. We're going to do more stuff now. And I just kind of love that for them.
Fraser Cain:
Yeah. Yeah. So the, the, the service module, they flew it out to the earth moon L2 Lagrange point, not to be confused with the earth sun L2 Lagrange point where James Webb and so such are.
But, um, and you know, these require a little bit of fuel to maintain your position. And so the spacecraft has gone out there and then we'll be sort of testing maneuvers for future lunar missions. And so trying to just understand how to move in this Lagrange point area.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
And they've also been testing communications. They built a neat, uh, they're, they're using a very long baseline interferometry tests as, as part of what they're doing. Uh, so, so they have three ground based stations and now they're sticking things out there to continue running their tests.
Fraser Cain:
Yeah. They, they put a, uh, we'll talk about this for the, for the, the sixth mission, but they, they put, they put a, um, a relay satellite on the far side of the moon because obviously you can't communicate with the far side of the moon from the surface of the earth. And so, uh, again, this is, this is all going to lead into the conversation about what the future of a, of a Chinese, uh, human mission is going to look like, because a lot of this is the same kind of, of technology.
Okay. So, uh, so they, and so what, what went to the surface of the moon?
Dr. Pamela Gay:
I mean, they, they had a, a lander and a module on Chang'e-5, um, oh, it's, it's mainstream media has completely ruined me for pronouncing this, but I'm going to try and get it right.
Fraser Cain:
Um, well the, the, the, the first part is just like, like you're saying like kind of shung and so think about it like cheese, Chung, cheese, Chung, yeah, Chung-ge, Chung-ge.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
All right. So, so they had a, a orbiter, they detached from the orbiter, they had a lander and the sender module, um, and they left the lander behind, which is kind of what you do with a lander. And, uh, then they flung the sample skyward, re-docked, came, and they did a whole lot of transferring of the sample back and forth between things, which kind of surprised me.
They didn't do the, we scoop it up and then we dropped what we scooped it up into, which is kind of what we saw with OSIRIS-REx. Um, so they transferred things around and then they dropped it on the Mongolian desert as they do.
Fraser Cain:
Right. Yeah. Um, and there's great pictures of them retrieving the sample capsule from the desert.
And what did they discover from, from bringing these samples home? Apart from we can return samples from the moon, that's what we've discovered.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
They did find, uh, one configuration of titanium oxide that was different from minerals previously found. So they added a new mineral to the list of lunar minerals, which is always exciting. Um, they, as we have been continuously doing, they, uh, were looking to see what is the age dating of the sample.
There was nothing exciting with this side compared to the other side, which we're gonna get to. Um, but it was just like standard. Everything goes along, crater dating matches lunar sample.
Everything is happy. We found potassium. It was the creep elements.
They discovered creep elements as expected.
Fraser Cain:
Right. Creepy. So creep, K potassium, uh, rare earth, the R E and then, uh, wait, phosphorus, right?
Yeah. I forget which one is which.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
So there's, there's potassium and there's phosphorus both in there. Um, yeah, it's the standard set of elements. Nothing on the near side was a surprise and that's good.
That means their science matches the USSR science matches the U S science. As you would expect for the Northern hemisphere near side of the moon.
Fraser Cain:
I mean, the biggest thing that they learned was that the volcanism lasted longer on the moon. You're talking about the creep, the such K R E E P, um, but this mixture of, of elements and this was an indication of just the volcanism on the surface of, of the moon lasting longer. So there had been volcanism more recently on the surface of the moon than, than people had originally believed.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Now, wasn't that a China six though?
Fraser Cain:
That was five.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Okay. So they got it both from six. Yeah.
Fraser Cain:
Yeah.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Both missions.
Fraser Cain:
Yeah. Six. I mean, six really helped us understand, um, more about why the near side and the far side are, are so different.
So five was this sort of technical demonstration that China can drop a probe down onto the surface of the moon, retrieve samples, load them up, take them to space.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
And it wasn't any dropping. It was a precision landing.
Fraser Cain:
Yeah. Precision precision land on the surface of the moon, pick up samples, bring them to space, return them safely to the surface of the planet to put them in the hands of, of scientists. But China six was much more ambitious.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Just, I, I can't stress enough how impressed I am with their landing site. So they landed in the Apollo crater, which is one of the deepest places on the lunar surface. It's in the Southern hemisphere on the far side.
So they weren't flying completely blind as we would have been because they put a communication satellite there. They were, they were smart that way. Um, but like we're seeing OIG reports coming out, expressing concern about landing anywhere on the South pole with our planned landers.
We've been watching the CLPS missions, practice gymnastics, except for you, Firefly Aerospace, you did good.
Fraser Cain:
Yeah. The rest of them fell over, crashed. Yeah.
Yeah. There's a lot of, of man, how many? Many.
Many. Yeah. There was an Indian failure.
There was two Japanese failures, three Japanese failures. And then like two NASA failures, three NASA failure. Yeah.
So it was like the moon, the, the galactic ghoul. Yeah. It eats things.
The great galactic ghoul has moved homes from Mars to the moon has set up shop and is now gobbling down spacecraft as quickly as we can send them. Only, as you said, Blue Ghost has successfully stuck the landing in, in a while. So yeah, it's been, uh, well, there was the second, the Chandrayaan three, the other Indians.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
So yeah, India, India eventually succeeded.
Fraser Cain:
Yeah.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Um, but.
Fraser Cain:
And Israeli, two Israeli. Yeah. Yeah.
Just gobble, gobble, gobble, yum, yum, yum.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Bear Sheath had a bad day.
Fraser Cain:
Yeah. Bear Sheath had a bad day. Yeah.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Poor tardigrades. Um, anyways, anyways, so they landed in the bottom of a crater on the far side in the Southern hemisphere, basically going, we're here. We did it.
They extended their arm. They scooped up a sample. They extended their drill.
They drilled up a sample. They were able to get two different kinds of basalts, uh, which is basically solidified lunar lava. Um, and, and they've discovered in looking at this, that there is the potassium.
There's the rare earth elements. There's the phosphorus, all of the creep stuff. And they were able to use a variety of radioactive elements to also measure the age.
And some of the basalt was as expected about 4.2 billion years old. But the other sample was less than 3 billion years old, which tells us that there was active volcanism for significantly longer than expected. Um, now with, with the Chang'e 5, we, Che'an 5?
I'm going to mispronounce. How do you say it again? I'm asking.
Fraser Cain:
Chang'e, Chang'e.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Chang'e 5.
Fraser Cain:
Chang'e 5 and Chang'e 6.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
So with the Chang'e 5, uh, they, after three years released, uh, some grains of the sample to be, uh, researched by non-Chinese researchers. We have not gotten past that three-year date. Uh, so we're, we're still waiting for release of these particles for more experiments to be done.
Um, but from the, the research that they've had, and there was a very impressive paper in nature that came out, um, they found that volcanism persisted for over 1.4 billion years. Um, and, and that is, is new. So they, they were using the uranium to, uh, lead, um, ratio.
Um, and this is also the, the 4. billion year sample is the oldest sample so far returned. So they have this great dynamic of really old chunk, younger chunk, allowing us to span all the eons of volcanism that occurred.
Now, things that, that we're hoping for with this is one of the things that makes the South Aitken Basin, uh, region so exciting is when that was excavated, bedrock should have gotten flung up to the surface. So the, the two bits that have been discussed so far are both basalts. So the question starts to become, are they also going to find any bedrocks in the sample?
What else is going to be in there? So we have one paper so far, um, here is hoping for more papers that bring us more information on was there bedrock, uh, what all is, can we learn about the difference between the near side and the far side? We would love to be able to figure out, is this actually two different moonlets that combine to form one great big moon billions of years ago?
Fraser Cain:
Yeah, that's one of the, one of the sort of theories, right? Is that, you know, why is the far side of the moon so heavily cratered while the near side of the moon is, is more volcanic.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
And the gravitational center of the moon is closer to the near side than the far side. They have very different densities.
Fraser Cain:
Yeah. Yeah. And one of these ideas, as you said, is that there was actually a second moon and it crashed into the far side of the moon.
And then that sort of added more depth to the, to that and push the center, as you said, more to the, the, the near side until the volcanism erupted from the near side of the, of the moon. But it is still definitely an ongoing mystery. You know, that was one of the big surprises when we got the first spacecraft had ever gone around the far side of the moon.
It was like a Soviet with a Luna 2. Anyway, one of the, the Soviet missions had, had taken pictures of the far side of the moon. And suddenly you saw this world look totally different than the, than the near side.
Um, and you know, one of the things that was interesting with, with Chang'e 6 was that they, there was an international collaboration. So there was, uh, instruments on board from other countries, Italy, uh, and with Chang'e 5 and with Chang'e 6, there's this sort of sharing of the, of the information with other nations. Uh, they have like a three-year headstart, I think.
And then they give the samples out to, to other nations as sort of part of their agreement as well. So, you know, people always ask, you know, what are the Chinese sharing this information out to, to other countries? And they, they definitely are, you know.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
There's a French instrument called Dorne, which I don't know why that like, why the name amuses me, but it was looking for outgassing from radon or outgassing of radon. Um, there's an Italian instrument, uh, that's doing laser retro reflector investigations.
Fraser Cain:
So you can like measure the distance to the, to the moon, although it's tough on the, on the far side, but yeah.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Well, and, and then there's a Swedish negative ions on lunar surface, which is literally detecting negative ions reflected by the lunar surface.
Fraser Cain:
Yep. And then of course you mentioned it had the, the Jin Chan, uh, mini rover, which crawled away and then, and took some pictures and did some other, uh, work as well. So there are some more Chang'e missions in the works before we see humans.
So let's talk about seven and eight. Chang'e seven is going to go this, this year. Um, and it is going to be a lunar scout, uh, and they're going to try and land in Shackleton crater near the lunar South pole.
And they're going to have a, uh, a, like a hopping probe. That's really cool. That's going to sort of hop around on the surface of the, of the moon.
Uh, and then, uh, like bring a, bring a ton of, uh, of size to the surface of the moon. And then, uh, Chang'e eight is going to be one where they're going to be doing, um, and that's going to be in 2028 and that one they're going to be doing, uh, going to be testing out, well, they're looking at potential landing sites for, uh, upcoming human mission from the Chinese astronauts. And they're going to be doing a bunch of testing of some of their institute resource utilization technologies, you know, the ISRU.
So they've got a 3d printer on board this, this, uh, lander that's going to be shoveling in lunar regolith and then spitting out, uh, precision 3d elements from it that then you could build bricks. You could build, uh, you could build stuff that, um, you know, could be used in the construction of a, of a future habitat. And, and then, you know, that sets the stage for 2030, which is, which is when the, um, in theory, the, the human mission is going to be going to the moon and, you know, have you been following sort of their plans for the, for the human mission?
Dr. Pamela Gay:
I know it's two astronauts. I know they're using their Long March 10.
Fraser Cain:
Yeah. They've got a new version of the Long March, a heavy lift version of the Long March that they're working on. Uh, and it's going to be two separate rockets.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Yes.
Fraser Cain:
One, which carries the crew and the service module, uh, and then one in the, in the command module, and then one that carries the lander and the rockets are going to meet up in lunar orbit. Yeah. And then the crew is going to transfer from their, from their capsule to the lander, go down to the surface of the moon, frolic about on the surface of the moon, fly back up to orbit with their ascent module, return to the capsule and then return to earth.
And, and this is very different from the, the Saturn five mission where they, you know, we think about it, they had the whole stack on the one rocket. And this is also extremely different from the plans from NASA, which is where you've got the crew on the space launch system. And then you're going to have the starship or blue origins.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Or mark two. I think it's very similar to blue origin, actually.
Fraser Cain:
Yeah. In either case, there's going to be a lander that is going to have to be refueled in, in earth orbit and then flown out to lunar orbit that then the astronauts will arrive at dock with, get in, go down to the surface of the moon, come back up and then return. So it's, you know, you won't have all of the refueling that you will with the, with the American version, but it's also a much lighter weight process.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
So it's, it's similar to what we were thinking could happen with a blue origin modified for use in 2028. So there's currently two different blue origin landers under development. One is let's just get her done.
And the other is the reusable future one. So I think the US get her done and the Chinese are fairly similar in, in concept.
Fraser Cain:
But I would not be surprised if the US in the end follows the same plan that the Chinese are going with, where you have a, you have the space launch system, carry the astronauts in the Orion capsule, and then you have a second rocket, probably a blue origin, maybe a Falcon heavy carrying a lander out to lunar orbit. And then they make the transition over and get into it and go down to the surface of the moon. Like that just seems much closer to what the, except no lander exists yet, but it's, it's in the works by both SpaceX and blue origin.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
And they're looking to go to the South pole. And what's cool is with the, the lunar samples that they were able to get with mission six, they, they showed that the crater age dating scenario that we have on the near side appears to play out on the far side, where when you count the number of, of craters, you get an age and the ages match on both the near side and far side, which means we have the same cratering rate on both sides. But one sample from one place is not enough to verify that, but they are sticking to the South pole region, which is also where we're looking to find water in these ancient craters.
There was a paper that came out either last week or the week before showing that the longer crater has been around, the more water will have had time to accumulate inside of it. So these ancient craters really are where you want to go and they just found the oldest sample so far found. So go team, go Apollo crater.
Fraser Cain:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. So, uh, so keep your eyes peeled. So we're going to have that the, the Chang'e 7 is going to launch later this year.
Chang'e 8 is going to launch in 2028 and then by 2030, and then the other big launch that's going to happen. And I know you don't think about the future. So allow me to give me a second here, which is that in 2028, they're going to launch their Mars sample return mission.
And so by probably 2031, we will have samples of Mars in the hands of scientists here on earth. Not the full, you know, not the nice samples taken by Perseverance, but still, and it's the same technology, right? You can see this same technology stack is being tested out on Mars.
And then what comes after a Mars sample return is probably a Mars human mission. So, uh, you're sort of watching the technology be tested stage after stage, step after step.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
And one of the, it's, I mean, they're slow in study. They're massive financial investment. They're doing it right.
There, there was a NASA office of the inspector general report that came out today that expressed concern that just the EVA suits for the Artemis mission are in extreme jeopardy right now. Um, because NASA moved to using fixed cost contracts, which means they're saying, hey, company X, go innovate this thing that no one has ever done before.
Fraser Cain:
And eat the cost if you fail.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
And eat the cost if you fail. And, and OIG is like, yeah, they're behind this problem, problem, red alert, danger, Will Robinson. And, and so we're in a position where we're asking commercial companies to innovate where NASA assists with the costs, but there's no profit scenario.
There's no lunar economy right now. And so until there can be a lunar economy that drives innovation in the name of future profits, why are companies going to worry about being on time, um, in their development? There's no motivation.
Fraser Cain:
So, yeah. And this has nothing to do with the Chinese Air Force missions.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
No, it's just sort of like, it just sets the playing field. Yeah.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Yeah. It's the false economy of the space race.
Fraser Cain:
All right. Thanks Pamela.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Thank you Fraser. And thank you everyone out there in our Patreon, who is so tolerant of my failure to know phonics or pronounce anything correctly as this episode has shown. And we would now like to thank all of you at the $5 a month level and higher.
Our show wouldn't be here without the amazing support of so many of you over on Patreon. I'm now going to try and thank you by name and I am really bad at phonics. So thank you.
And I'm sorry for what I'm about to do to your name. This week we would like to thank a pronounceable name, Abido Bear, Alex Rain, Andrew Allen, Andrew Stevenson, Arno DeGroot, Bebop Apocalypse, Benjamin Carrier, Buzzy Gowen, Buzz Parsec, Cammy Rassian, Christian Bearcolt, David Bogarty, Dr. Wo, Frederick Salvo, Frank Stewart, Frodo Tanenbach, Gerhard Schweitzer, Greg Davis, Greg Vild, Hannah Tackery, J. Alex Anderson, Jeff Wilson, Joe McTee, John Drake, John Herman, John Vays, J.P. Sullivan, Kim Barrow, Christian Golding, Labrat Matt, Les Howard, Lou Zeeland, Mark Schneider, Mike Haizu, Rhythm Chameleon, Robbie the Dog with the Dot, Robert Cordova, Robert Hundle, Ron Thorson, Rizzard with a Z, Sergio Sansevero, Sam Brooks and his mom, Shersom, Scott Briggs, Semyon Torfason, Sergei Monolov, The Big Squish Squash, The Brain, The Lonely Sandperson, Wanderer M101, Will Hamilton. Thank you all so very much.
Fraser Cain:
All right. Thanks, everyone. And we will see you next week.
Dr. Pamela Gay:
Bye-bye, everyone.
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