China space engineers kick ‘doomed’ satellite pair into life in lunar orbit

The satellites were presumed lost when they were not delivered to their destination tens of thousands of kilometres above the moon in March

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China is using the experimental satellites to test laser-based navigation and timing technologies between Earth and the moon. Photo: Shutterstock

Published: 12:00pm, 22 Aug 2024Updated: 7:25pm, 22 Aug 2024

China has “kicked” two of its experimental satellites into their designated lunar orbit, five months after they were left in limbo when the launch rocket’s upper stage did not fire properly.

The satellites, developed by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, were shown operating in their planned distant retrograde orbit (DRO) in a PowerPoint slide attributed to CAS that started circulating on social media platform Weibo from Tuesday.

A researcher who works for CAS in Beijing and is familiar with the project confirmed to the Post on Wednesday that the satellites DRO-A and B had been recovered.

The recovery was achieved by getting the spacecraft to fire their engines in a series of “perigee kicks” aimed at the closest point to the Earth, increasing velocity and extending their reach, the researcher said, on condition of anonymity.

The satellites left the Xichang launch centre on March 13 on top of a Long March 2C rocket but did not reach their destination, tens of thousands of kilometres above the moon’s surface.

The rocket’s first and second stages worked normally, but the Yuanzheng-1S upper stage did not, state news agency Xinhua reported the next day. “The satellites have not been inserted into their designated orbit, and work is under way to address this problem,” it said.

Two weeks later, the US Space Force tracked the pair at a raised orbit compared to the time of the incident, suggesting they were “still trying to get to the moon”, according to Harvard astronomer and space historian Jonathan McDowell.