The Long March 7 rocket launched the Thien Chau 8 spacecraft to the Thien Cung space station carrying lunar bricks to test their suitability for base construction.
Thien Chau 8 launched at 10:13 p.m. on November 15 (Hanoi time), docking with the Thien Cung space station a few hours after launch, providing supplies for the astronauts of the Shenzhou 19 mission.
Thien Chau 8 carries many sets of scientific experiments. One of the experimental sets on board is the Moon brick. They will be exposed to the harsh space environment to test their suitability for building a future lunar base.
Moon Bricks must undergo 1 – 3 years of testing, samples will be recovered annually for analysis. This process helps test the durability and sturdiness of tiles in harsh environments and how the material changes in a vacuum environment.
Professor Zhou Cheng at Huazhong University of Science and Technology and his colleagues designed this brick to withstand harsh conditions on the Moon, including large temperature fluctuations, from -190 degrees Celsius to 180 degrees Celsius. degrees Celsius, strong cosmic radiation and micrometeorites crashing down due to the lack of a thick atmosphere to protect them.
“We will mainly dry the tiles in space. We put them outside the space station and leave them there, exposed to environmental factors to see if the quality deteriorates,” Zhou Cheng said.
The brick prototype is made from ingredients that mimic lunar soil, such as basalt and anorthosite, materials that are abundant on the Moon. Fired at temperatures above 1,000 degrees Celsius, bricks are capable of bearing more than one ton per square centimeter. One notable feature of them is their ability to bond without the need for adhesives – which is difficult to use on the Moon. Therefore, they help enhance the integrity of the structure and simplify the construction process.
This initiative is part of China’s ambition to build the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) by the 2030s. This is a joint project with Russia and involves many other countries, including Venezuela, Thailand, Pakistan, Senegal, along with about 40 foreign organizations. China also aims to send astronauts to the Moon by 2030, marking an important milestone in the country’s space exploration efforts.