Also it appears that after McGregor Texas, Wenchang is also a major habitat of Rocket Cows (TM):pic.twitter.com/GYTWHDV0fr
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Getting the sampling working as planned may be more difficult than it seems (ask
@NASAInSight's thermal probe or Apollo astronauts etc.), but here comes the hairy part of taking off from the Moon, 1st major launch from a major solar system object since Luna 24 of 1976:pic.twitter.com/lyrV6mbzL6
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So after ~2 days of surface operations the ascent stage will have only 1 chance to get to the right rendezvous orbit (15 x 200 km towards the orbiter at 200 km circular per a 2014 paper). Then it has to dock w/ it - never tried robotically that far from Earth.pic.twitter.com/d3f73nYjFR
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Those who have read the details of the
@NASA/@ESA Mars Sample Return mission plans would probably have a headache on this. Now the Chinese are attempting s/t only slightly easier all by themselves.pic.twitter.com/RJD6CLk0CX
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It appears the docking mechanism is some sort of "soft docking" one with claws on the orbiter/return capsule side. The sample container would slide (?) into the return capsule and then automatically sealed. Quite tricky to get that right it seems...pic.twitter.com/HbeGj4C4eh
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The orbiter would wait for ~10 days before making the TEI burn (can't remember why). Another 5 days would pass before they come across Earth around December 16-ish. The return capsule would separate from the orbiter at ~5000 km altitude.pic.twitter.com/jbHzIOsPH2
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Then came the hottest part of skip re-entry - so hairy that the Chinese rehearsed w/ the Chang'e 5-T1 mission way back in Oct./Nov. 2014. After bouncing back to 140+ km high the capsule would make a 2nd dip into the atmosphere before landing.pic.twitter.com/y3GwdgtBRt
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IF everything went as planned (a very big IF I shall say) the lunar rocks would land at the existing Shenzhou landing site in Inner Mongolia in mid December (per 1 source, Dec. 16 ~17:00 UTC). Quite a signal to the rest of the world about NASA's Artemis Program eh?
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As for the Moon rocks...well (naturally) the Chinese said that their own institutions will have priority in getting them (and it appears demand is overwhelming), but they did promise to share portions of them internationally.
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Well, that's it for my (way later than planned) walk through. Since the Chinese are full of stresses of risk we don't know what kind of coverage we'll get through to landing on the Moon and back. Sit back and wait is all we can do. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯pic.twitter.com/RvWcSPEL8P
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Ah, I can end this thread with the REAL launch window and target T-0! **T-0 is set for 20:30:12 UTC.** Launch window extends to 21:15:07 UTC.pic.twitter.com/85xkSCpyjf
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