The Moon already has its own artificial satellites. They sent us the first picture.
Satellites are already orbiting the moon. The Chinese space program aims to provide telecommunications and navigation services on our natural satellite. Among other things, of course. Two small experimental probes are already orbiting the moon. They have passed the first test and we can see the effect.
A picture of the Moon directly from the satellite
The Tiandu-1 and Tiandu-2 satellites and the Quegiao-2 communications satellite were placed in lunar orbit. They left Earth aboard the Long March 8 rocket, which was launched on March 19. The next stage of the mission is to collect samples from the side of the moon, which we cannot see from our planet, but for now the Chinese have conducted communication tests.
And here is the result. The equipment successfully passed the transmission test between the surface of the Moon and the surface of the Earth. In addition, an image of the “far” side of the moon reached Earth. It was taken with an infrared sensor. It looks much more attractive than many other pictures of our satellite, but it has a special flavor. The distant Earth can be seen under the Silver Globe. We rarely see our planet from such a perspective.
Tiandu satellites entered lunar orbit on April 3, 2024. They circle the globe at a distance of 200 kilometers from each other. The Chinese Deep Space Exploration Lab has already announced further communication and navigation tests using satellites. The results will help design the International Lunar Observatory and the Queqiao constellation of navigation and communication satellites.
Photo credit: Paitoon Pornsuksomboon / Shutterstock, CNSA/DSEL
Text source: CSNA/DSEL, Space.com
2024-04-21 12:15:00
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