China will launch the Chang’e 7 spacecraft around 2026 and fly a flag on the Moon thanks to the interaction of electromagnetic fields.
Simulation of China’s Chang’e 7 mission on the lunar surface. Image: CNSA/CCTV
During China’s Chang’e 7 exploration mission, scientists researched and developed a special flag that could flutter in the thin and thin atmosphere of the Moon.
“The lunar environment is a vacuum, lacking air, so it is difficult for the flag to flutter in the wind like on Earth,” said Zhang Tianzhu, deputy director of the future technology institute of the Deep Space Exploration Laboratory. (DSEL), said. This laboratory was co-founded by the China National Space Administration (CNSA) and the University of Science and Technology of China, and began operations in June 2022. DSEL’s headquarters is located in Hefei city, capital of Anhui province, and has a branch in Beijing.
Zhang said the solution to making the flag fly would be based on arranging closed-loop wires on the surface of the flag connected to positive and negative bidirectional currents. This will help the flag flutter through the interaction between electromagnetic fields.
China plans to launch the Chang’e 7 lander to find traces of water ice at the Moon’s south pole around 2026. If successful, this will be the first flag to actually fly on the Moon’s surface.
“Currently, to complete the development of the scientific test payload in February, we are urged and divided into different groups to move the mission forward,” Zhang said.
In addition, China is also promoting the next lunar lander mission, Chang’e 8, and the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS), an outpost that China plans to build near the lunar south pole with Russia. and a number of other partners. ILRS is expected to be built around 2035. “Our goal is to establish a comprehensive, sustainable and scalable scientific testing facility on the lunar surface and in lunar orbit, Capable of long-term automatic operation and short-term human participation,” Zhang shared.