Chinese Voyager-like missions could begin in 2024, making planetary planes before focusing on heliosphere science.
HELSINKI – China is developing a mission to send some spacecraft to study the corners of the solar system and reach interstellar space by the middle of the century.
The project aims to send separate spacecraft to the nose and tail of the heliosphere, an area of space dominated by solar wind created by our sun, to study different areas of this bubble and how it relates to the interstellar medium interacts.
Wu Weiren, a senior figure in China’s lunar reconnaissance project, tell official industry newspaper China Space News Friday that scientists are working on an implementation plan for the mission.
Wu says the mission aims to reach 100 astronomical units by 2049 – one AU equals one distance between the sun and the earth, or 150 million kilometers – from 2049, when the People’s Republic of China celebrates its centenary.
No launch date was provided by Wu. An overview of the proposed mission offered at the European Planetary Science Congress in 2019 indicates that the Chinese heliosphere probes would begin in 2024. The first would be Jupiter flying in 2029 before going to the nose of the heliosphere.
The second probe would make a flight from Jupiter in 2033 before an ice giant Neptune would fly in 2038. The spacecraft may also release a small impactor probe shortly before arrival, with the main probe observing the interaction with the Neptune atmosphere.
The project somewhat reflects NASA’s Voyager missions, but the intermediate targets of sin are limited by the current relative positions of the planets. The Voyagers used a rare planet alignment to visit all four outer planets. Voyager 1 and 2 is now 22.7 and 18.9 billion kilometers (152 and 126 AU) respectively from Earth.
For the Chinese probes, there is more scientific focus on the heliosphere and interstellar medium, including the study of phenomena such as Anomalous Cosmic Strays and the ‘hydrogen wall’, at the boundary of the solar system and interstellar space.
The Chinese heliosphere probes will take advantage of the advances in propulsion and ground station and deep space communications made by China’s space industry over the past few years. Such progress has recently enabled missions to Mars, a return of the lunar monster, and a planned mission to Jupiter.
China’s “Interstellar Express”
It was understood that the mission profile above was still developed. At the end of 2019, a workshop hosted by the International Space Science Institute in Beijing explored the mission trading space and presented possibilities, including a fly of the Kuiper Belt object. Quaoar and his little moon Weywot. The workshop also used the name “Interstellar Express” for the proposed Chinese mission.
A 2019 paper on the study of the boundary of the solar system, published in Scientia Sinica by Wu and other high-profile Chinese scientists in space exploration, provides insight into possible launch and design of spacecraft.
The spacecraft will be powered by radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs) with a scientific payload of more than 50 kilograms. Long March 3B and larger Long March 5 rockets are being considered for launch, depending on the propulsion systems – dual mode chemical propulsion systems or monopropellant and ion electric propulsion – selected.
A further mission proposal noted in the newspaper will depart from the sun perpendicular to the plane of the ecliptic. The mission would be launched in 2030 and powered by a nuclear power reactor.
At a velocity of about 6 AU per year, the spacecraft can also aim extreme objects of the Kuiper belt at its very oblique orbit. The technological maturity level for the mission is considered low, requiring breakthroughs and verification.
The two 2024 Chinese missions would become the sixth and seventh spacecraft that could escape the speed of the solar system, following NASA’s Pioneer 10 and 11, Voyagers 1 and 2, and New horizons.
Pioneer 10 is the only spacecraft moving to the tail of the heliosphere. Communication with the spacecraft was lost in 2003 at a distance of 12 billion kilometers (80 AU) from Earth.
Meanwhile, scientists at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab are studying the Interstellar probe mission that could begin before 2030.
China recently approved a 14th five-year plan for the period 2021-2026. Wu noted that missions for a fourth phase of Chinese lunar exploration, including a basic international lunar research station, will be executed or developed during the period.
Wu added that the 2010 Chang’e 2 lunar orbit, which later led a flight of the asteroid Toutatis, is expected to return to Earth around 2027.