Contents
1 ______ Daredavil - Felix Baumgartner 3 __________ Space exploration 2012 7 __________ Space exploration 2013 11 ______________ Astrophotography 17 ____________ Mars in near future 21 _________ Returning to the Moon
Daredevil
With
a passion for expanding boundaries, especially in the air, Red Bull Stratos pilot Felix Baumgartner is an expert parachutist best known for completing an unprecedented freefall flight across the English Channel using a carbon wing. Felix, born April 20, 1969, grew up in Salzburg, Austria where he dreamed of skydiving and flying helicopters and was inspired by astronauts on TV. He made his first skydive at age 16. After sharpening his parachute skills as a member of a Special Forces demonstration team for the Austrian military, he supported himself by repairing motorcycles before becoming a skydiving professional. Eager to test the limits, Felix set a record for history’s lowest BASE jump (from Rio de Janeiro’s Christ the Redeemer statue), twice set world records for the hig hest BASE jump from a building (Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur and Taipei 101 tower), and even landed his canopy inside a cave in Croatia.
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Felix Baumgartner
Now that Felix has reached the ultimate goal, he’s gone around the world spreading the news and excitement of his record breaking supersonic freefall. When asked how he felt following his Oct. 14th 2012 achievement he said, “It’s still too much to fully comprehend. Besides the physical exhaustion and mental exhilaration, the huge response from people from around the world has been humbling.” The purpose of the Red Bull Stratos mission is to transcend human limits. Supported by a team of experts Felix Baumgartner ascended to 39 045 meters in a stratospheric balloon and made a freefall jump rushing toward earth at supersonic speeds before parachuting to the ground. His successful feat on Oct. 14, 2012 holds the potential to provide valuable medical and scientific research data for future pioneers.
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Space exploration
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2012
It’s
easy to overlook because it’s been happening for more than a decade, but the five partner space agencies behind the International Space Station will continue to send people to the outpost to maintain the human presence in space that’s been constant since 2000. The year 2012 saw a number of significant events in spaceflight. In May and October, the first Commercial Orbital Transportation Services resupply missions took place, during which the SpaceX Dragon became the first private spacecraft to dock with the International Space Station (ISS). In June, China launched the manned Shenzhou 9 orbital mission, and North Korea achieved its first successful orbital launch in December. 2012 also saw China’s first successful asteroid exploration mission, and the landing of NASA’s Curiosity rover on Mars. The Vega and Unha-3 rockets made their maiden flights in 2012, while the Proton-K made its last. A total of 78 orbital launches were attempted in 2012, with 72 being reported as successful, and a total of 139 payloads launched. The three most prolific spacefaring nations were Russia, with 29 launches and 27 successes; China, with 19 launches, all of which succeeded; and the United States, with 13 launches, of which 12 succeeded and one was a partial failure. European nations conducted eight orbital launches, all successfully, while India and Japan conducted two each, also successfully. Iran and North Korea both achieved one successful orbital launch during 2012, but Iran also suffered two launch failures, while North Korea suffered one. Five manned orbital launches were conducted during 2012, all successfully, carrying a total of 15 astronauts into orbit. Four of these missions were flown using Russian Soyuz spacecraft, while the fifth was a Chinese Shenzhou launch. All of the year’s manned missions rendezvoused with space stationsthe four Soyuz missions docked with the International Space Station (ISS), while China’s Shenzhou 9 docked with the Tiangong-1 orbital laboratory. Five spacewalks were also undertaken in 2012, all by ISS crewmembers. Numerous significant milestones in robotic spaceflight occurred in 2012, including the landing of NASA’s Curiosity rover on Mars in August, and the first commercial resupply missions to the ISS in May and October.The latter also marked the first fully operational use of SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft. Elsewhere in the Solar System, NASA’s Dawn spacecraft completed its mission to 4 Vesta in September 2012, while China achieved its first asteroid flyby in December.
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Space exploration
The space shuttle program is over, but that did not mean a lack of launches in 2012. In the wake of 2012’s space shuttle retirement, NASA has been encouraging commercial companies to develop spaceships that can pick up the slack in carrying both cargo and crew to the International Space Station. Тhe first of these private vehicles was set to make its maiden voyage to the orbiting laboratory. The Dragon space capsule developed by Hawthorne, Calif., company Space Exploration Technology (SpaceX - Elon Musk) was scheduled to launch atop the company’s Falcon 9 rocket Feb. 7. A few days later, the craft was due to autonomously rendezvous with the space station. Another burgeoning field of commercial spaceflight is the suborbital space tourist industry. A leader in this market is Mojave, Calif.based Virgin Galactic, headed by British billionaire Sir Richard Branson. Virgin Galactic’s plans was to fly paying passengers on suborbital joy rides to the edge of space and back, initially at $200,000 a pop. China, a growing player in space, was working on its own manned space station. In 2012 the nation launched its first space station test module and conducted its first in-orbit rendezvous and docking. The next docking missions, which will further develop this critical skill for building a space station, will be Shenzhou 9 and Shenzhou 10. At least one of them will be crewed, Chinese officials have said. NASA’s Dawn probe, launched in 2007, has been in orbit around the asteroid Vesta since July 2011. Vesta is the second-most- massive body in theasteroid belt betweenMars and Jupiter. In July, the $466 million Dawn spacecraft was due to depart Vesta and head toward the dwarf planet Ceres, the only larger body in the asteroid belt. Its arrival is set for February 2015. The probe aims to study these space rocks for clues about the history of our solar system and the formation of the planets. NASA’s huge new rover Curiosity, the centerpiece of the space agency’s Mars Science Laboratory mission, was expected to land on the Red Planet 6th of August. The $2.5 billion Curiosity lifted off Nov. 26, 2011. It’s the largest and most ambitiously designed Mars rover to date, packed with 10 different science instruments to search for signs that Mars is, or ever was, habitable to life.
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2012
The Dream Chaser is a private space plane built by Sierra Nevada Corp., of Colorado. This orbital flier was another bid to take over the task of ferrying NASA astronauts to the International Space Station. The International Space Station, though practically complete, is not quite done with new facilities and tools. The orbiting laboratory is a $100 billion, football field-size collaboration among the United States, Russia, the European Space Agency, Japan and Canada. In May 2012, Russia launched the Nauka Multipurpose Laboratory Module (MPLM), a new room added onto the space station’s Zvezda nadir port, replacing the Pirs docking compartment. Nauka housed science experiments and cargo and was used for docking, as well as work and rest areas for the crew. The same Russian Proton rocket that launched Nauka carried the European Robotic Arm. This new tool was attached to the Russian side of the space station to assist with work on the station’s exterior. Many of the robotic probes currently exploring the solar system was reached milestones previous year. For example, the Cassini orbiter, which has been circling Saturn since 2004, made multiple flybys of the Saturnian moons Titan and Enceladus, as well as distant flybys of many other moons, including Helene, Mimas, Janus, Polydeuces, Telesto, Pallene and Dione. NASA’s Messenger mission, which arrived in orbit around Mercury, will continue its up-close study of the planet closest to the sun. And the agency’s New Horizons mission, which launched in 2006, came closer to Pluto than any other spacecraft yet. New Horizons is due to reach its target in 2015, when it will fly by Pluto to study the dwarf planet and its moons. The craft has already passed the orbit of Uranus and is due to pass Neptune’s orbit in 2014. It’s easy to overlook because it’s been happening for more than a decade, but the five partner space agencies behind the International Space Station will continue to send people to the outpost to maintain the human presence in space that’s been constant since 2000. Though NASA’s space shuttles retired in 2011, the agency didn’t stop sending astronauts to help crew the space station, which will continue to operate to at least 2020.
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Space exploration
This year saw a host of significant test flights for the private space companies developing manned suborbital vehicles to take paying passengers on brief joyrides to the edge of space. Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo has flown numerous glide tests, but it made its first powered flight using its rocket engine. Another company called XCOR Aerospace tested its Lynx suborbital vehicle. Both firms aim to carry their first passengers in 2014. South Korea tried for a third time to loft its Korea Space Launch Vehicle (KSLV) 1 booster successfully to orbit. Previous launch attempts in August 2009 and June 2010, which lifted off from a site in southern South Korea, both failed. KSLV-1 (The First Korea Space Launch Vehicle) carrying a South Korean research spacecraft, the STSAT-2C, was successfully launched from the Naro Space Center on 30 January. It had been 10 years since Korea began this project, and officials are confident the rocket has been well-maintained. The SARAL satellite, developed by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), was successfully launched on 25 February from the Satish Dhawan space center in southern India by the Indian launch vehicle PSLV-C20. It features an innovative Ka-band altimeter, AltiKa, made by Thales Alenia Space for the French space agency CNES and dedicated to the precise measurement of ocean surfaces.
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2013
SARAL/AltiKa is a joint oceanography mission between the French and Indian space agencies, CNES and ISRO. The satellite will be placed in the same orbit as Envisat, at an altitude of 800 km. The platform was developed by ISRO and the payload by CNES. The payload module carries several instruments, including AltiKa, a radar altimeter/radiometer which, for the first time in the history of altimetry, uses a Ka-band frequency (35 GHz). This high frequency allows the instrument to limit the effects of the ionosphere, and to offer better spatial and vertical resolution, thus improving the observation of ice, coastal zones and bodies of inland water. The private space company Orbital Sciences Corp. is one of two firms with a NASA contract to deliver cargo to the International Space Station on unmanned spacecraft (the other is SpaceX). In February, Orbital Sciences launched its Antares rocket on its first test flight, which carried a model of its robotic Cygnus spacecraft. The launch blasted off from the company’s complex on Wallops Island in Virginia. The first functional Cygnus spacecraft was scheduled to fly on its initial test flight to the International Space Station on April 5, but The rendezvous between the new Cygnus cargo freighter and the International Space Station was delayed due to a computer data link problem. The mission was successfully launched on 18 Septermber. Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX), the other commercial spchinaace company hired by NASA to carry supplies to the space station, launched its Dragon cargo ship maiden test flight to the orbital laboratory May 2012. The company, founded by billionaire Elon Musk, will continue to fly cargo delivery missions to the space station. This year launch was scheduled for 1st of March out of the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. These flights were vital for keeping the space station fully stocked, and also help pave the way for the manned missions SpaceX hopes to launch aboard Dragon in coming years. Three launches of crewmembers to the International Space Station were planned for 2013, with liftoffs from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Each launch carried three spaceflyers from the space station partner agencies - the United States, Russia, Canada, Japan, and Europe aboard Russian Soyuz spacecraft. Crewmembers typically stay for five or six months each, and a rotating crew of three to six people is always onboard the orbiting laboratory.
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Space exploration
The Canadian Space Agency’s Cassiope (short for Cascade Smallsat and Ionospheric Polar Explorer) spacecraft launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from California’s Vandenberg Air Force Basesometime in April. The satellite carried a suite of science instruments to study how solar storms interact with charged particles in Earth’s ionosphere. The vehicle also tested out new communications technology. The flight was significant not just for Canada, but for SpaceX, which has never before launched from Vandenberg. Additionally, the launch marked the first time a Falcon 9 used the company’s new in-house made Merlin 1D engines. The Swarm spacecraft, built by the European Space Agency, was launched into a polar orbit in April on a Eurockot Rockot rocket from Russia. The satellite carried three instruments to study how Earth’s geomagnetic field changes over time. The mission aiming is to offer insight into Earth’s climate and interior composition. NASA’s Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (Iris) satellite was a sunstudying mission to analyze the flow of energy through our star’s atmosphere and heliosphere. Iris was launched aboardan Orbital Sciences Pegasus XL rocket, which takes off in midair after being lofted by a carrier plane from Vandenberg Air Force Base. China’s Shenzhou 10 mission was the fifth manned spaceflight for China. The mission took launch three Chinese astronauts, including a female spaceflyer, to dock with the nation’s Tiangong 1 module in orbit. The flight was a follow-up to the historic Shezhou 9 mission of June 2012, which marked the country’s first manned space docing. Shenzhou 10, like Shenzhou 9before it, lifted off from China’s Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on a Long March 2F rocket. The Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Experiment (Ladee) from NASA was a moon orbiter intended to study the moon’s transient atmosphere and the ubiquitous particles of dust blanketing its surface that are often seen levitating due to electrostatic forces. Ladee was launched aboard a U.S. Air Force Minotaur 5 rocket from Wallops Island on 12 Aug. NASA’s next Mars orbiter was launched sometime in a 20-day window between 18 Nov. and 7 Dec. to enable it to enter orbit around the Red
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2013
Planet in September 2014. The Mars Atmosphere And Volatile EvolutioN spacecraft, or Maven for short, will study how Mars loses atmospheric gases to space. The mission was launched aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. NASA’s probes continueed their exemplary exploration. The Juno mission, en route to Jupiter, made a flyby of Earth to pick up speed. But other spacecraft might not be so lucky. With its planetary science budget slashed, NASA is not sure it will have sufficient funds to continue the MESSENGER mission around Mercury, which recently spotted ice at the planet’s poles. There were also rumors that the long-running Cassini mission could be on the chopping block. In the meantime, NASA remained most focused on Mars and was began soliciting proposals for instruments on its new rover, a twin probe to Curiosity. The Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), informally called Mangalyaan, is a Mars orbiter launched into Earth orbit on 5 November by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). The mission is a “technology demonstrator” project aiming to develop the technologies required for design, planning, management and operations of an interplanetary mission. The Mars Orbiter Mission probe lifted-off from the First Launch Pad at Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh near Chennai, using a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) rocket C25 on 5 November. The MOM probe spent about a month in Earth orbit, where it made a series of seven altitude-raising orbital manoeuvres before trans-Mars injection on 30 November. It is India’s first interplanetary mission and, if successful, ISRO would become the fourth space agency to reach Mars, after the Soviet space program, NASA, and European Space Agency.
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Astrophotography The concentric arcs traced by the stars as planet Earth rotates on its axis often produce dreamlike scenes in otherwise familiar situations. Fall asleep, though, and the results might surprise you...
July 2011
Image by Mike Rosinski
In the foreground, lies the largest glacier in Iceland: Vatnajokull. On the far left, bright green auroras appear to emanate from the glacier as if it was a volcano. Aurora light is reflected by the foreground lake Jökulsárlón. March 2012
Image by Stéphane Vetter
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August 2010
Image by Yuri Beletsky
One of the four Unit Telescopes of the Very Large Telescope (VLT) site in Chile is trying to measure the distortions of Earth’s ever changing atmosphere.
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Astrophotography Đžctober 2011
Image by Tommy Eliassenn
The milky way, northern lights and a meteor in this picture taken outside Mo i Rana, Norway.
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The photographer has managed to catch the moment when the Milky Way appears to line up with the giant 64m dish of the radio telescope at Parkes Observatory in Australia.
Image by Wayne England
Because the eclipse occurs within a few days of lunar apogee, the Moon’s silhouette does not quite cover the Sun during mid-eclipse, momentarily creating a spectacular ring of fire. May 2012
Image by Tunç Tezel
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Astrophotography
The sequence of rings shows an annular eclipse. May 2013
Image by Jia Hao
Guiding Light to the stars. January 2013
Image by Mark GeeTezel
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Perseid meteor shower, which appears annually in August from the constellation Perseus August 2013
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Image by David Kingham
Mars in near future
Mars One, the project that aims to put a group of colonists on Mars in 2025, is poised to take its first big step forward. On 10 December, the Mars One foundation announced partnerships with Lockheed Martin and satellite company SSTL for an exploratory mission in 2018, potentially sending the first private spacecraft to Mars. Instead of launching a crew of astronauts, as per the final goal, this mission is meant as a proof of concept - and, likely, a way to whet the public’s attention for Mars One’s eventual astronaut reality TV show. The two partners will each be working with Mars One on a different project. Lockheed Martin will be contributing a modified version of the Phoenix lander it sent to Mars in 2007, though the new craft is still in the conceptual stage. It’s meant to perform experiments similar to those of NASA’s probes, scooping soil samples, extracting water from the soil, and testing the deployment of solar panels. It’s also, however, taking the Curiosity rover’s social campaign up a few notches, planning a “live” Martian video feed for viewers on Earth. That video will be sent through a relay satellite built by SSTL, and Mars One CEO Bas Lansdorp says he hopes the feed will stay active for at least two years. Like Planetary Resources and several smaller space outfits, Mars One is offering the chance for a few people to participate in the project. Before launch, it will ask teams of university students to propose ideas for the mission, starting a contest in 2014 and carrying the winners’ experiments or projects in the lander. These ideas, Lansdorp says, could be as complex
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as a new experiment or as simple as a camera-equipped balloon to take overhead photos of the planet’s surface. In the long term, Mars One will also be taking direction from backers of an Indiegogo campaign, letting them vote on “mission decisions” - including the above contests. While these partnerships signal real progress in the coming years, it’s not yet clear how well Mars One’s ambitious long-term plans are panning out. Lansdorp initially said he expected a million people to submit applications to take a one-way trip to Mars, paying an application fee that would help fund the trip. Mars One set a goal of half a million applicants by August 31st, but the final number was slightly over 200,000. Over the next two years, that pool will be winnowed to between 24 and 40 people selected for training, with one four-person team chosen to ascend in 2025. That’s two years later than the original estimate, as Lansdorp noted in a press conference today. Everything from selection to colonization is supposed to be broadcast on TV and the internet, building publicity and allowing the company to make sponsorship deals to bring in money; audiences will be asked to vote for their favorite candidates as part of the selection process. The project’s business model, in fact, will supposedly be based largely on media deals and crowdfunding, though money from individual wealthy benefactors seems a likely possibility. Mars One isn’t the only group hoping to visit the red planet soon: billionaire space tourist Dennis Tito tried and failed to recruit NASA for an extremely unlikely two-person mission in 2017, and NASA itself plans a manned mission sometime in the 2030s.
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Mars in near future
Two orbiters launched in November 2013, Mars Orbiter Mission and MAVEN, are currently on their way to Mars. The Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), informally called Mangalyaan (Sanskrit: “Mars-Craft”), is a Mars orbiter launched into Earth obit on 5 November 2013 by the Indian Space Research Organistion (ISRO). It is India’s first interplanetary mission and, if successful, ISRO would become the fourth space agency to reach Mars, after the Soviet space program, NASA, and European Space Agency. The Mars Orbiter Mission probe lifted-off from the First Launch Pad at Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh near Chennai, using a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) rocket on 5 November 2013. The MOM probe spent about a month in Earth orbit, where it made a series of seven altitude-raising orbital manoeuvres before trans-Mars injection on 30 November 2013. The primary objective of the Mars Orbiter Mission is to showcase India’s rocket launch systems, spacecraft-building and operations capabilities. Specifically, the primary objective is to develop the technologies required for design, planning, management and operations of an interplanetary mission, comprising the following major tasks: • design and realisation of a Mars orbiter with a capability to perform Earthbound manoeuvres, cruise phase of 300 days, Mars orbit insertion / capture, and on-orbit phase around Mars; • deep-space communication, navigation, mission planning and management; • incorporate autonomous features to handle contingency situations. The secondary objective is to explore Mars’ surface features, morphology, mineralogy and Martian atmosphere using indigenous scientific instruments. The spacecraft is being currently monitored from the Spacecraft Control Centre at ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) in Bangalore with support from Indian Deep Space Network (IDSN) antennae at Byalalu.
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The second mission is MAVEN - Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution. I’is a space probe designed to study the Martian atmosphere while orbiting Mars. Mission goals include determining how the Martian atmosphere and water, presumed to have once been substantial, were lost over time. MAVEN was successfully launched aboard an Atlas V launch vehicle at the beginning of the first launch window on 18 November 2013. Following the first engine burn of the Centaur second stage, the vehicle coasted in lowEarth orbit for 27 minutes before a second Centaur burn of five minutes to insert it into a heliocentric Mars transit orbit. The plan is for MAVEN to be inserted into an areocentric elliptic orbit around Mars, 6,200 km by 150 km above the planet’s surface, on 22 September 2014.The principal investigator for the spacecraft is Bruce Jakosky of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado Boulder. Features on Mars that resemble dry riverbeds and the discovery of minerals that form in the presence of water indicate that Mars once had a thicker atmosphere and was warm enough for liquid water to flow on the surface.Scientists suspect that over millions of years, the planet’s core cooled and its magnetic field decayed, allowing the solar wind to sweep away ninety-nine percent of the atmosphere and thus most of its water and volatile compounds. MAVEN is intended to determine the history of the loss of atmospheric gases to space so that answers about Martian climate evolution will emerge. From its measurements of how quickly the atmosphere escapes into space and the relevant processes, scientists will infer how the planet’s atmosphere evolved. The satellite is expected to reach Mars in September 2014. By then, the S a m - ple Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument suite on board the Curiosity rover will have made similar surface measurements from Gale crater, which will help guide the interpretation of MAVEN’s upper atmosphere measurements. MAVEN’s measurements will also provide additional scientific context with which to test models for current methane formation in Mars.
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Returning to the Moon
Following the abandoned US Constellation program, plans for manned flights followed by moonbases were declared by Russia, Europe (ESA), China, Japan and India. All of them intend to continue the exploration of Moon with more unmanned spacecraft. China plans to conduct a sample return mission in 2017. India expects to launch another lunar mission by 2016, which would place a motorized rover on the the Moon. Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) plans a manned lunar landing around 2020 that would lead to a manned lunar base by 2030; however, there is no budget yet for this project and plan reverts to robotic missions. Russia also announced to resume its previously frozen project LunaGlob, an unmanned lander and orbiter, which is slated to launch in 2016.
Germany also announced in March 2007 that it would launch a national lunar orbiter, LEO in 2012. However the mission was cancelled due to budgetary constraints. In August 2007, NASA stated that all future missions and explorations of the Moon will be done entirely using the metric system. This was done to improve cooperation with space agencies of other countries which already use the metric system.
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The European Space Agency has also announced its intention to send a manned mission to the Moon, as part of the Aurora programme. In September 2010 the agency introduced a “Lunar lander” programme with a target of autonomous mission to the moon in 2018. On September 13, 2007, the X Prize Foundation, in concert with Google, Inc., announced the Google Lunar X Prize. This contest requires competitors “to land a privately funded robotic rover on the Moon that is capable of completing several mission objectives, including roaming the lunar surface for at least 500 meters and sending video, images and data back to the Earth. India’s national space agency, Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), launched Chandrayaan-1, an unmanned lunar orbiter, on 22 October 2008. The lunar probe was originally intended to orbit the Moon for two years, with scientific objectives to prepare a three-dimensional atlas of the near and far side of the Moon and to conduct a chemical and mineralogical mapping of the lunar surface. NASA launched the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, on 18 June, 2009, which has collected imagery of the Moon’s surface. It also carried the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS), which investigated the possible existence of water in Cabeus crater. GRAIL is another mission, launched in 2011. On 7 September 2013 NASA launched LADEE - The Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer. During its nominal 100-day scientificmission, LADEE will orbit around the Moon’s equator, and use instruments aboard the spacecraft to study the lunar exosphere and dust in the Moon’s vicinity. China landed the rover Chang’e 3 on the Moon on 14 December 2013. Chang’e 3 is the first spacecraft to soft-land on lunarsurface sinceLuna 24 in 1976.
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Returning to the Moon
Chang’e 3 was launched in December 2013 as part of the second phase of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program. It is China’s first lunar rover. The spacecraft is a follow-up to the Chang’e 1 and Chang’e 2 lunar orbiters. The rover was named Yutu (Chinese: “Jade Rabbit”). The official mission objective is to achieve China’s first soft-landing and roving exploration on the Moon, as well as to develop and analyze key technological developments, while identifying resources that could potentially be mined in the future. Chang’e 3 will attempt to perform the first direct measurement of the structure and depth of the lunar soil down to a depth of 30 m, and investigate the lunar crust structure down to several hundred meters deep. The Chinese Lunar Exploration Program has been divided into three main operational phases, which are: • orbiting (Chang’e 1 and Chang’e 2); • landing (Chang’e 3 and Chang’e 4); • sample return (Chang’e 5)
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