Scientific Progress in China’s National Space （在中国国家空间科学进步）.pdf

SPACE SCIENCE ACTIVITIES IN CHINA Scientific Progress in China’s Lunar Exploration Program AUTHORS XU Lin Key Laboratory of Lunar and Deep Space Exploration, National Astronomical Observatories, OUYANG Ziyuan Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100012 ABSTRACT Chang’E-1, the first lunar mission in China, was successfully launched on October 24, 2007, which opened the prelude of China’s Lunar Exploration Program. Later on, the Chang’E-2 and Chang’E-3 satellites were successfully launched in 2010 and 2013, respectively. In order to achieve the science objectives, various payloads boarded the spacecraft. The scientific data from these instruments were received by Beijing and Kunming ground stations simultaneously. Up to now, about 5.628 Terabytes of raw data were received totally. A series of research results has been achieved. This paper presents a brief introduction to the main scientific results and latest progress from Chang’E-3 mission. KEY WORDS China’s Lunar Exploration Program, Chang’E satellite, Scientific result, Moon 1 Introduction a global, integral and synthetic exploration on the lunar topography, lunar surface chemical composition, lunar China’s Lunar Exploration Program (CLEP) was also soil characteristic features and Earth-lunar space named as Chang’E mission, whi