Chinese spacecraft flies past asteroid Toutatis
Posted: Sun, Dec 16, 2012, 11:54 AM ET (1654 GMT)
A Chinese spacecraft originally launched to orbit the Moon flew past and successfully returned images of the near Earth asteroid Toutatis this week. Chang'e-2 passed by Toutatis on December 13, with its closest approach at a distance of only 3.2 kilometers at 3:30 am EST (0830 GMT, 4:30 pm Beijing time) that day. The spacecraft returned several images of the asteroid from the flyby. China launched Chang'e-2 in October 2010 as a lunar orbiter, and it studied the Moon from orbit until June 2011, when it departed orbit to travel to the Earth-Sun L2 Lagrange point, 1.5 million kilometers from Earth, making it the first Chinese spacecraft to travel beyond the vicinity of the Moon. The spacecraft left L2 earlier this year to make a flyby of Toutatis.
A Chinese spacecraft originally launched to orbit the Moon flew past and successfully returned images of the near Earth asteroid Toutatis this week. Chang'e-2 passed by Toutatis on December 13, with its closest approach at a distance of only 3.2 kilometers at 3:30 am EST (0830 GMT, 4:30 pm Beijing time) that day. The spacecraft returned several images of the asteroid from the flyby. China launched Chang'e-2 in October 2010 as a lunar orbiter, and it studied the Moon from orbit until June 2011, when it departed orbit to travel to the Earth-Sun L2 Lagrange point, 1.5 million kilometers from Earth, making it the first Chinese spacecraft to travel beyond the vicinity of the Moon. The spacecraft left L2 earlier this year to make a flyby of Toutatis.
Related Links:
| <<previous article | next article>> |
|
news in brief
|
|
|
|
news links
|
|
Thursday, May 28
Thales Alenia Space Submits LEO Cargo Return Bid
Aviation Week — 1:45 am ET (0545 GMT) EU Satellite Proposal Makes Limited Room for Musk’s Starlink
Bloomberg News — 1:43 am ET (0543 GMT) European companies to get bulk of mobile satellite spectrum in EU tech push
Reuters — 1:42 am ET (0542 GMT) Space Force awards $2.29B deal to SpaceX to accelerate ‘backbone’ SATCOM network
Defensescoop — 1:40 am ET (0540 GMT) Dept. of Air Force ‘still working’ to sort space programs into acquisition portfolios: Ainsworth
Breaking Defense — 1:40 am ET (0540 GMT) |
