China News Service, Beijing, December 3 (Guo Chaokai) At 22:00 on December 2, after about 19 hours of lunar surface work, the Chang'e-5 probe successfully completed automatic sampling of the lunar surface, and the samples have been packaged and stored in the predetermined format. In the storage device carried by the device.
China's first automatic lunar surface sampling task was successfully completed.
As one of the core keys of the Chang'e-5 exploration mission, the automatic sampling and packaging of the lunar surface is the most eye-catching part of the mission.
At this stage, the "Five Girls" of Chang'e will land on a selected area on the lunar surface and will do all they can to collect lunar soil.
For this reason, the designers of the China Academy of Space Technology affiliated to China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation adopted the combination of surface drilling and multi-point sampling, and meticulously designed two "digging" modes: drilling and surface extraction.
When the landing ascent assembly smoothly landed on the lunar surface, Chang'e-5 began a two-day lunar surface work.
The “artifacts” such as the drilling and sampling device, the surface sampling device, the surface sampling primary packaging device, and the sealed packaging device carried by Chang'e "Five Girls" are scientific division of labor, precise coordination, and deep drilling, shallow drilling, and shoveling. , "Excavation", "Soil" and other methods, collect about 2 kilograms of lunar soil and seal and encapsulate the lunar samples safely through lunar take-off, lunar orbital rendezvous and docking, lunar-ground transfer, and re-entry recovery. To Earth Home.
The first lunar surface sampling is difficult. First of all, the sampling device is newly developed with new technology and difficult. It needs to consider various constraints such as flight missions and the detector's measurement and control, lighting conditions, power supply, and thermal control; secondly, it faces the lunar surface during the sampling period. High temperature working environment, while sampling task timing is tight, there are many mechanism actions and many uncertain factors.
In addition, the lander cannot move after landing, and whether the ground directly under the drilling sampling device is soft soil or hard rock is uncertain, which also affects the smooth completion of the sampling plan.
In order to ensure the smooth completion of the first lunar surface sampling task, the Chang'e-5 probe development team took various measures. It not only conducted a joint design and analysis of the lunar surface sampling process, but also determined the working procedures of drilling first and then surface, coordinated with the device, and on the device. The three-in-one flight control mode of operation, ground measurement and control, and ground physical verification; and three working modes of remote control, pre-programming and semi-autonomous work are also designed to ensure the reliability of the sampling process; in addition, each stand-alone machine has also developed a corresponding environment Tests and special tests, the subsystems carried out special tests for drilling, metering and sealing and packaging, verifying the functional performance of the single machine and the subsystem.
Hundreds of tests, dozens of simulations of working conditions, and multiple sampling and packaging exercises in the "three-in-one" mode, the development team tried every means to ensure the smooth completion of China's first automatic lunar surface sampling mission. (Finish)