Trajectory Determination of Chang’E-5 during Landing and Ascending

Yang, Peng; Huang, Yong; Li, Peijia; Liu, Siyu; Shan, Qiuli; Zheng, Weimin

doi:10.3390/rs13234837

Cited by 4 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…The elongation of the Chang'e-3 blast zone has been interpreted as the result of maneuvering during the hovering and obstacle avoidance stage at a height of ∼100 m (Clegg-Watkins et al, 2016). This comparison indicates that relatively fewer maneuvers have been implemented during the Chang'e-5 soft-landing process, consistent with landing trajectory reconstruction results: the Chang'e-3 spacecraft adjusted its position 6 m in the north-south direction and 6 m in the east-west direction (Liu et al, 2014), while the Chang'e-5 re-located only ∼4 m in the north-south direction (Yang et al, 2021). The small lobes extending from the edge of the landing blast zone are probably attributed to the accommodating of exhaust gases by small topographical depressions, such as impact craters.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 78%

Extensive Lunar Surface Disturbance at the Chang'e‐5 Mission Landing Site: Implications for Future Lunar Base Design and Construction

Qiao

Hess

et al. 2023

JGR Planets

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Lunar surface disturbances by spacecraft engine jets are of particular concern in the current new phase of lunar exploration, when dozens of landing missions and permanent bases are being planned. Some of these exploration efforts will involve multiple landings and liftoffs around the same lunar site; thus, it is essential to evaluate their effect on astronauts and assets on the lunar surface. Here, we assess the surface disturbances during the Chang'e‐5 landing and liftoff procedures through the photometric analysis of high‐resolution multi‐temporal surface and orbital images. Centimeter‐scale surface images reveal a four‐stage evolution of the landing plume impingement over a period of ∼50 s, which involves phenomena such as dust devils and streaks, and displacement of cobbles. Temporal‐ratio calculation of orbital images (including one acquired between landing and liftoff) enables the first direct observation of ascent plume effects. The ascent blast zone consists of two separated sub‐areas (∼3,400 km2 in total), which is nearly twice larger than that of the landing blast zone. The final disturbed surface is characterized by a central main zone (∼2,300 m2) surrounded by a marginal diffuse zone (∼15,300 m2). Phase‐ratio analyses suggest that plume impingement destroys the micro‐porous structure of the uppermost regolith. We estimate that future lunar landers (e.g., SpaceX's Starship) may cause significant lunar surface disturbances over an area of square kilometers. Our results provide unique insights into Chang'e‐5 mission activities, and instructive references for the planning of future lunar endeavors, including the design and construction of surface experiment packages and permanent lunar bases.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 78%

Extensive Lunar Surface Disturbance at the Chang'e‐5 Mission Landing Site: Implications for Future Lunar Base Design and Construction

Qiao

Hess

et al. 2023

JGR Planets

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“…So that we calculate the residuals of VLBI delay and delay rate using TRO_P, TRO_S, and TRO_G as tropospheric delay correction methods at low elevation angle, respectively. The specific trajectory determination strategy using VLBI technique can be referred to in the reference (P. Yang et al., 2021).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For the CE‐5 mission, very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) is one of the real‐time techniques to determine the CE‐5 spacecraft's trajectory from the Earth to the Moon and the back trip, especially in the part of landing on the Moon and ascending from the Moon. China's VLBI measurement and control network includes four radio telescope stations located in Beijing, Shanghai, Urumqi, and Kunming and a VLBI data processing center located in Shanghai (He et al., 2017; P. Yang et al., 2021). When the radiometric signal passes through the Earth's troposphere, a signal delay is caused due to tropospheric refraction (Sun et al., 2019), which heavily influences the precision of the real‐time trajectory determination of CE‐5 using VLBI technique, and requires accurate calibration.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tropospheric Delay Correction of VLBI Stations for the Real‐Time Trajectory Determination of the Chang'E‐5 Spacecraft

Zhou

Song

et al. 2022

Radio Science

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The Chang'E‐5 (CE‐5) spacecraft was launched on 24 November 2020 with the purpose to implement unmanned lunar surface sampling and return. Very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) technique played an important role in real‐time precise trajectory determination and attitude determination of the CE‐5 spacecraft in the Earth to Moon transfer, circumlunar, landing, and ascending phases. However, tropospheric delay is one of the main error sources for VLBI observations which has to be corrected accurately for precise trajectory determination. To deal with this error properly, a prediction model (TRO_P) and a method with Global Navigation Satellite System observations (TRO_G) are proposed for tropospheric zenith delay correction for real‐time and 30 min latency trajectory determination of the CE‐5 spacecraft, respectively. The results demonstrate that the mean root mean square (RMS) of residual error of VLBI delay and delay rate for TRO_P are 0.62 ns and 0.75 ps/s at low elevation angle, respectively. Moreover, the improvement for the mean RMS of VLBI delay using TRO_G is 39.5% meaning from 0.43 to 0.26 ns compared with that using the method with meteorological data (TRO_S) at low elevation angle. This study can provide a reference for tropospheric delay calibration for trajectory determination of the spacecraft using VLBI or other techniques.

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“…Among all the planets, the moon and Mars are the primary targets for exploration [2]. Although China was a late starter in planetary exploration, the series of missions from Chang'e-1 to Chang'e-5 marked the success of the three-step mission of "around, down, and back" in the lunar exploration project [3][4][5]. In addition to the lunar exploration project, Mars Remote Sens.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Trajectory Recovery and Terrain Reconstruction Based on Descent Images under Dual-Restrained Conditions: Tianwen-1

Chen

Liu

et al. 2022

Remote Sensing

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Tianwen-1 is the first Mars probe launched by China and the first mission in the world to successfully complete the three steps of exploration (orbiting, landing, and roving) at the one time. Based on the unverifiable descent images which cover the full range of the landing area, trajectory recovery and fine terrain reconstruction are important parts of the planetary exploration process. In this paper, a novel trajectory recovery and terrain reconstruction (TR-TR) algorithm employing descent images is proposed for the dual-restrained conditions: restraints of the flat terrain resulting in an unstable solution of the descent trajectory and of the parabolic descent trajectory causing low accuracy of terrain reconstruction, respectively. A landing simulation experiment on a landing field with Mars-like landform was carried out to test the robustness and feasibility of the algorithm. The experiment result showed that the horizontal error of the recovered trajectory didn’t exceed 0.397 m, and the elevation error of the reconstructed terrain was no more than 0.462 m. The algorithm successfully recovered the descent trajectory and generated high-resolution terrain products using in-orbit data of Tianwen-1, which provided effective support for the mission planning of the Zhurong rover. The analysis of the results indicated that the descent trajectory has parabolic properties. In addition, the reconstructed terrain contains abundant information and the vertical root mean square error (RMSE) of ground control points is smaller than 1.612 m. Terrain accuracy obtained by in-orbit data is lower than that obtained by field experiment. The work in this paper has made important contributions to the surveying and mapping of Tianwen-1 and has great application value.

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Trajectory Determination of Chang’E-5 during Landing and Ascending

Cited by 4 publications

References 15 publications

Extensive Lunar Surface Disturbance at the Chang'e‐5 Mission Landing Site: Implications for Future Lunar Base Design and Construction

Extensive Lunar Surface Disturbance at the Chang'e‐5 Mission Landing Site: Implications for Future Lunar Base Design and Construction

Tropospheric Delay Correction of VLBI Stations for the Real‐Time Trajectory Determination of the Chang'E‐5 Spacecraft

Trajectory Recovery and Terrain Reconstruction Based on Descent Images under Dual-Restrained Conditions: Tianwen-1

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