Lunar exploration, the heyday was coming!

In April 2007, China is expected to launch a lunar exploration ship named Heng Nga 1. But China is not the only Asian country with this big ambition.

In the race against the two experienced great powers, the US and the former Soviet Union (Russian Federation today) on the moon, India, Japan and Malaysia also want to contribute.

According to Western scientists, it can be said that the "golden age of the moon expedition " was opened in 2003 when the European Aerospace Agency (ESA) launched the SMART- space probe. 1 on September 27, 2003. This is the first ESA probe designed by Swedish scientists.

On September 3, 2006, according to the plan, SMART-1 crashed its head into the moon, completing the mission gloriously after sending thousands of precious photos to the moon's surface in various angles. different. This massive data warehouse will help ESA get a three-dimensional moon map, analyzing the chemical composition of the lunar soil by X-ray spectroscopy.

Hang Nga project

Chinese astronaut model on the moon in Hang Nga project (Photo: astronautix)

The expedition became more exciting when China (China), Japan, India and Malaysia also planned to conquer Hang for ' equal to her sister ' to the three great Americans, Russia and the European Union. (EU).

The most majestic and also the most powerful is currently China. In November 2000, the country's state council announced its ambitions in a white paper about moon exploration with ' the Hang Nga project '.

This project consists of three steps:

1 . Launching a probe flying around the moon at a height of 200 km, taking three-dimensional images of the entire moon.

On October 12, Ton Lai Yen, Director of China National Aerospace Agency (CNSA), said in a press conference that the probe - named Hang Nga 1 - was completed and China will launch to the moon next year. (An Indian source said Hang Nga 1 will be launched in April 2007).

Scientists will use data from the Hang Nga 1 ship to analyze the surface of the moon, measuring the density of the lunar soil. This step will end in 2010.

2 . Take one or more robots to land on the moon to take soil samples and send data to the ground using radio waves.

This step will be carried out from 2010 to 2012.

3 . 2015 will bring more advanced robots to the moon to take specimens (soil and rock) and fly back to earth.

The three steps above are just the first phase of the moon exploration program, completely done by machines. The China Daily in 2001 said that in the next phase, China could bring people to the moon by 2020.

However, the general monk Wang Yongzhi said China could shelve the program due to limited financial capacity, although China has twice taken people to orbit and plans to walk in space. in 2008.

What is China's purpose? According to Xinhua News Agency, ' China needs a more important position in the field of world aerospace science and enhances China's space exploration technology to a new level. It allows to raise national prestige and promote nationalism '.

India's second great brother

India - the second most populous country in the world - also has ambitions to explore the moon no less than China. In September 2004, the Indian Aerospace Research Organization (ISRO) announced a plan to launch an exploration ship Chandrayaan 1 (Sanskrit meaning Moon Boat) in February 2008.

Chandrayaan 1 will be launched from Satish Dhawan Aerospace Center located on Sriharikota island, 100 km from Chennai city. Its mission is - within 2 years - to gather information to board a three-dimensional Atlas table of the topography and chemical characteristics of the moon.

Another important task is to identify the huge reserves of water and helium gas, an extremely valuable source of clean energy for future moon expeditions. Chandrayaan 1 also has an ambition to uncover the secret of the moon's origins and formation, which is a headache for astronomers.

According to The Tribune, India, Chandrayaan 1 weighs about 1.3 tons (in which the spacecraft flies around the moon weighs 504 kg), will carry 6 scientific equipment of ISRO and 6 other devices of 3 Your aerospace agency is NASA (USA), ESA (EU) and Bulgaria.

From launching a 9-kilogram rocket at a space research facility located in the Thumba fishing village in Kerala state in 1963 to the Chandrayaan 1 lunar exploration program, India took a leap in technology.

From Selene to Kuala Lumpur

If calculated from time to time, Japan is the first Asian country to launch moon exploration spacecraft. In 1990, Japan visited the moon with the Hiten spacecraft and became the third country (after the US and the Soviet Union) with spacecraft flying in the moon's orbit.

However, the following Japanese moon exploration projects encountered many problems, mostly because the H-2A missile launched a malfunctioning probe. There are also funding issues.

Project Selene (Moon Spirit, in Greek) for example, is expected to be postponed until August 2007. The Selene ship, which weighs nearly 2 tons, consists of 3 units: orbital ship, relay satellite and VLBI satellite. The orbiter, weighing 1.6 tons, will fly around the moon at a height of 100 km collecting information about the origin and evolution of the moon.

After registering with the Russian Space Agency for an astronaut to fly to the ISS International Space Station in October 2007 (in exchange for buying 18 famous Russian Sukhoi planes), Malaysia made public opinion. Asia shook when it announced it would bring a Malaysian citizen to the moon by 2020.

The Star daily reported that Malaysia is selecting 8 of the 11,275 Malaysians registered to be astronauts for 8 months to practice in Russia. A single person will be chosen to perform the first space expedition.

Van Anh