Chang'e-6, which is scheduled to be launched in the first half of 2024, arrived at Hainan Nanlan International Airport on January 8 and 9 aboard the An-124 and Y-20 aircraft, respectively, and then transported to the Wenchang Cosmodrome by road.
Parts transfer for Chang'e-6.
The Chang'e-6 mission landed in the Apollo crater region of the Moon's South Pole-Aitoken Basin, and sought to return to Earth with a 2,000-gram souvenir.
The more important task of Chang'e-6 is the exploration mission of the follow-up probe, because the area where China will build a lunar research station near the south pole of the moon is located here.
What is surprising is that in 2023, the European Space Agency (ESA), which has just unilaterally torn up the agreement and said that it has no interest in participating in the cooperation of China's space station, still has a payload that Chang'e-6 needs to be brought to lunar orbit.
The 10 kg international cooperation payload reserved for Chang'e-6 includes:
Pakistan iCube-Q CubeSat.
Italian roaming laser corner reflector.
European Space Agency Swedish Lunar Surface Negative Ion Detector.
French radon detector.
The European Space Agency lives as a joke! Europe was brain-dead by the United States! Although I personally don't think we should take Europeans to play, we still abide by contracts and keep promises, unlike people who say "contract spirit" all day long and don't do personnel!
The focus this time is actually that during the transportation of Chang'e-6, we also have to find Maozi to rent a large transport plane.
Since the An-225 was destroyed by Da Mao and Ermao, the An-124 and C-5 have become the largest transport aircraft in the world.
The C-5 is an intercontinental range transport aircraft of the United States, and the upgraded C-5M can take off with a take-off weight of 418 tons and a load of nearly 130 tons, and can fly more than 9,000 kilometers even when fully loaded.
C-5 that easily swallows the "Sea Stallion".
In the absence of a large transport aircraft comparable to the C-5, we can only ask Maozi for rent the An-124.
The An-124 has a take-off weight of more than 400 tons, an ultimate load of 150 tons, a theoretical range of more than 16,000 kilometers, and a full load range of 3,200 kilometers
China's Y-20 has proven its reliability in the current flight situation. If it is only a large number, with the current number of Y-20 in China, it is enough to meet it, and this time we have to resort to a larger aircraft, which shows that the luggage of Chang'e-6 is not small.
The An-124 that swallowed an airplane
Today, there are more than 40 An-124s in existence, of which the Russian Aerospace Forces have at least 25 An-124s. Since the beginning of the war between Russia and Ukraine, an An-124 that took off from China was also seized by the Canadian side, and Trudeau later claimed that it would be transferred to Ukraine. And Russia's industrial capacity also makes the An-124 can only become less and less.
In the long run, we will have a lot of tasks to transport large objects like Chang'e-6.
Therefore, China must also develop its own large transport aircraft to meet the delivery requirements of "large objects"!
When the Y-20 rushed to the aid of the Pakistani Railway Brothers, the cargo hold was opened.
You tell me?