Chang'e 7's Long March 5 Rocket Delivered to Wenchang for Moon Launch
With a launch towards the lunar south pole expected several weeks from now, the launch vehicle is now in Wenchang alongside the robotic spacecraft.
Over two days, July 12th and July 13th, the next Long March 5 launch vehicle set to fly arrived at the Wenchang Space Launch Site, after being trucked from Qinglan Port (清澜港) in Wenchang (文昌市), Hainan (海南) province, and several days of sailing from its production sites in Tianjin (天津)1 and Shanghai (上海市)2 aboard a specialized transport ship.
The newly delivered launch vehicle is set to send the Chang’e 7 robotic Moon mission towards a polar lunar orbit, where it will reside for about ninety days ahead of a landing near the south pole's Shackleton crater. That landing site has been chosen to search for and study water ice.
With the Long March 5 at Wenchang, the China Manned Space Agency3 and the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology shared:
“Next, the launch vehicle will undergo final assembly and testing at the launch site alongside the Chang’e 7 spacecraft, which arrived earlier. Currently, all systems involved in the mission at the launch site are proceeding with preparations for the Chang’e 7 mission according to schedule.”
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As noted by the two organizations, the Chang’e 7 spacecraft has been at the launch site for a few months, having been shipped overnight in April. Previous weeks have seen the mission’s orbiter, lander, rover, and hopper undergo final instrument installation and integration with one another. One of those is the U.S.-Hong Kong-led ILO-C astronomical observatory.
Upcoming preparatory processes ahead of launch will see the Long March 5’s first-stage, second-stage, and four boosters individually inspected and tested. They will then be brought together on top of a mobile launch platform. At the same time, the complete Chang’e 7 spacecraft will be encapsulated inside the vehicle’s 5.2-meter-diameter fairing, later being placed atop of the rest of the Long March 5.
Joint testing ahead of a rollout to Launch Complex 101 is expected to take a few weeks to ensure all systems for the launch vehicle and spacecraft are working as designed. Barring the appearance of major issues, Chang’e 7 should be on the launch pad in the second half of August.
The upcoming launch will see the Long March 5 send its third lunar-bound spacecraft towards the Moon, with Chang'e 7 being the payload for its twelfth flight and the nineteenth of the Long March 5 series. The Long March 5 last flew in June with a geostationary satellite.
Where the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology produces the first and second stages.
Where the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology manufactures the four boosters.
Starting this year, the China Manned Space Agency manages Chang’e missions and their supporting satellites to improve spacecraft resource usage in support of sending taikonauts to the Moon this decade.