Submission + - Chinese Moon Satellite Enters L2 Halo Orbit (spacenews.com)
hackingbear writes: Chinese satellite Queqiao (‘Magpie Bridge’,) which is a communication relay satellite launched on May 20 to facilitate China’s Chang’e-4 lunar far side landing mission late in 2018 has entered its intended halo orbit around Earth-Moon Lagrange point 2. The Beijing Aerospace Command and Control Center (BACC) sent commands for the spacecraft to fire its engines at 11:00 p.m. EDT June 13, with the burn complete at 11:06 p.m. The satellite will now undergo on-orbit testing of its communications functions, while maintaining a complex Lissajous orbit, which is a three-dimensional irregular curve, rather than a two-dimensional halo. “The satellite is the world’s first communication satellite operating in that orbit, and will lay the foundation for the Chang’e-4, which is expected to become world’s first probe soft-landing and roving on the far side of the Moon,” said Zhang Hongtai, president of the China Academy of Space Technology (CAST.) A spacecraft in such a halo orbit, proposed during Apollo missions, would be in continuous view of both the Earth and the far side of the Moon. In the end, neither a communication link satellite nor an Apollo co-mission positioned at L2 for a far side Apollo lunar landing ever took flight.
