78
C. Maccone
But nobody cared to ask to reserve the central part of the Farside, specifically
crater Daedalus, for usage by radio astronomers only. Again this author’s voice was
a voice in the desert, once again.
8.2 The Year 2018
The year 2018 has seen a couple of innovative and politically quite important Chinese
space missions (for more details, please see the Wikipedia site https://en.wikipedia.
org/wiki/Chang%27e_4#Queqiao_satellite, from which we now freely quote):
(1) Direct communications with Earth are impossible on the Farside of the Moon,
since transmissions are blocked by the Moon itself. Communications must go
through a communications relay satellite, which is placed at a location that has
a clear view of both the Farside landing side and the Earth. On May 20, 2018,
the Chinese National Space Agency (CNSA) launched the Queqiao (“Magpie
Bridge”) relay satellite to a halo orbit around the Earth–Moon L2 Lagrangian
point. The relay satellite has a mass of 425 kg, and it uses a 4.2-m antenna to
receive X band signals from the lander and rover of the Chang’e 4 space mission
to the Farside and relay them to Earth control on the S band. This spacecraft
took 24 days to reach L2, using a lunar swing-by to save fuel. On June 14, 2018,
Queqiao finished its final adjustment burn and entered the L 2 halo mission orbit,
which is about 65,000 km above the Moon Farside. This is the first lunar relay
satellite ever at this location, but there might be more in the future, when other
space-faring nations decide to explore the Farside.
(2) The Chang’e 4 spacecraft, including a robotic lander and a rover, was launched
on December 7, 2018, and landed on the Farside on January 3, 2019, in the Von
Kármán crater (180 km in diameter), that is in the South Pole-Aitken Basin on
the Moon Farside. These two space missions are marking an historic change in
the Moon exploration. In fact, not only this is the first time that the exploration
of the Moon Farside is attempted, but the Moon Farside “radio silence” that
existed prior the Queqiao arrival at L2 is now partially polluted for the first time
by the radio emissions of Queqiao in both X and S bands.
(3) As we mentioned already, the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA,
based in Paris) had been studying since the 1990s the possibility of setting
up a future radio telescope inside crater Daedalus, an 80 km crater practically
located at the center of the Farside. One might also say that Daedalus is very
close to the Antipode, the point along the Earth-Moon axis exactly opposite to
the Earth on the Farside. On 10 June 2010, this author presented at the United
Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS, based in
Vienna) his proposal to create a “Protected Antipode Circle” (PAC) area around
the Antipode to let a future radio telescope landed inside Daedalus to observe
the radio sky as “purely” as it was before Humans discovered radio waves. In
other words, this author’s proposal to the UN was to ask the space-faring nations
C. Maccone
But nobody cared to ask to reserve the central part of the Farside, specifically
crater Daedalus, for usage by radio astronomers only. Again this author’s voice was
a voice in the desert, once again.
8.2 The Year 2018
The year 2018 has seen a couple of innovative and politically quite important Chinese
space missions (for more details, please see the Wikipedia site https://en.wikipedia.
org/wiki/Chang%27e_4#Queqiao_satellite, from which we now freely quote):
(1) Direct communications with Earth are impossible on the Farside of the Moon,
since transmissions are blocked by the Moon itself. Communications must go
through a communications relay satellite, which is placed at a location that has
a clear view of both the Farside landing side and the Earth. On May 20, 2018,
the Chinese National Space Agency (CNSA) launched the Queqiao (“Magpie
Bridge”) relay satellite to a halo orbit around the Earth–Moon L2 Lagrangian
point. The relay satellite has a mass of 425 kg, and it uses a 4.2-m antenna to
receive X band signals from the lander and rover of the Chang’e 4 space mission
to the Farside and relay them to Earth control on the S band. This spacecraft
took 24 days to reach L2, using a lunar swing-by to save fuel. On June 14, 2018,
Queqiao finished its final adjustment burn and entered the L 2 halo mission orbit,
which is about 65,000 km above the Moon Farside. This is the first lunar relay
satellite ever at this location, but there might be more in the future, when other
space-faring nations decide to explore the Farside.
(2) The Chang’e 4 spacecraft, including a robotic lander and a rover, was launched
on December 7, 2018, and landed on the Farside on January 3, 2019, in the Von
Kármán crater (180 km in diameter), that is in the South Pole-Aitken Basin on
the Moon Farside. These two space missions are marking an historic change in
the Moon exploration. In fact, not only this is the first time that the exploration
of the Moon Farside is attempted, but the Moon Farside “radio silence” that
existed prior the Queqiao arrival at L2 is now partially polluted for the first time
by the radio emissions of Queqiao in both X and S bands.
(3) As we mentioned already, the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA,
based in Paris) had been studying since the 1990s the possibility of setting
up a future radio telescope inside crater Daedalus, an 80 km crater practically
located at the center of the Farside. One might also say that Daedalus is very
close to the Antipode, the point along the Earth-Moon axis exactly opposite to
the Earth on the Farside. On 10 June 2010, this author presented at the United
Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS, based in
Vienna) his proposal to create a “Protected Antipode Circle” (PAC) area around
the Antipode to let a future radio telescope landed inside Daedalus to observe
the radio sky as “purely” as it was before Humans discovered radio waves. In
other words, this author’s proposal to the UN was to ask the space-faring nations