China says rocket that will hit the moon is not from Chang’e mission

The stage of an ancient rocket, which is on its way to collide with the far side of the moon, does not belong to the vehicle used in the launch of the Chang’e 5 T1 mission. That’s what Wang Wenbin, China’s foreign minister says. According to him, the monitoring conducted by the country shows that the upper stage related to the Chang’e 5 mission entered the Earth’s atmosphere and was completely burned.

A Chang’e 5 T1 was a test mission for the Chang’e 5, more ambitious and focused on the collection and return of lunar samples. “China’s aerospace endeavors are always in line with international law,” Wang said in response to a question about the stage of the rocket on its way to collide with the Moon. “We are committed to ensuring the long-term sustainability of the rocket’s activities. external space, and we are ready to carry out exchanges and collaborate with all sides”, he concluded.

Tracking data obtained by the United States Space Force’s 18th Space Control Squadron suggests that the object designated “2014-065B” re-entered the atmosphere in 2015, that is, one year after its launch. If, on the one hand, this supports China’s claim, the data brings even more mystery to the nature of the object, which has attracted international attention in recent months.

The issue also raises discussions about space debris and how to track it – mainly because of the risks they pose to manned and unmanned spacecraft, if collisions end up happening. In the case of the impact, which should occur in March, there are no foreseen risks for satellites and other spacecraft. who study the moon.

How the rocket on its way to the moon was discovered

In January, astronomer Bill Gray announced that an object identified as “WE0913A” was following a trajectory that the would put on the way to collide with the moon on the 4th of March. Initially, he associated the object with a Falcon 9 rocket, launched by SpaceX in 2015. As early as February, Gray revised his calculations and suggested it was something different.

Upon further analysis of the data, he realized that the object more closely matched the upper stage of a Long March 3C rocket, used in the launch of the Chang’e-5 mission in 2014 — at the time, he described these as “circumstantial evidence” of the object’s nature. The description of the object’s identity was supported by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) of the NASA.

According to the Center for Near Earth Object Studies at JPL, WE0913A was likely the rocket booster that launched the Chang’e 5 T1 mission. Subsequently, spectral analyzes conducted by students at the University of Arizona appeared to confirm that, in fact, the object appeared to be from the China mission.

If, indeed, the object belongs to China, it indicates the scale of the challenges involved in monitoring objects in deep space — in his publications on WE0913A, Gray stated that the garbage monitoring in deep space is not a major concern, as the US Space Force works with tracking objects in lower orbits.

Source: Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Via: SpaceNews

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