Manfred Memorial Moon Mission

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
4M mission
Type: Lunar probe, amateur radio satellite
Country: LuxembourgLuxembourg Luxembourg / GermanyGermanyGermany 
Operator: LuxSpace / OHB
COSPAR-ID : 2014-065B
Mission dates
Dimensions: 14 kg
Size: approx. 61 cm × 26 cm × 10 cm (L × W × H)
Begin: October 23, 2014, 18:00 UTC
Starting place: Xichang Cosmodrome
Launcher: Long March 3
Status: burned up on October 6, 2015
Orbit data
Rotation time : 15,746.1 minutes
Orbit inclination : 30.4737 °
Apogee height 404,724 km
Perigee height 1,282 km

The Manfred Memorial Moon Mission (also 4M mission ) was a German / Luxembourgish moon probe and an amateur radio satellite .

The 4M mission was a flyby probe that examined cosmic rays on its way to the moon and back. 4M also carried an amateur radio payload that carried telemetry and contained an amateur radio experiment. The cost of the project was EUR 400,000. The mission was dedicated to the founder of OHB , Manfred Fuchs , who died in 2014. Fuchs was still involved in the preparation of the mission.

assignment

The 4M payload was attached to the final stage of the Chinese Chang Zheng 3C launcher of the main Chang'e 5-T1 payload . This stage was designated CZ-3C R / B and followed the primary payload on the orbit around the moon. The distance during the flyby at the point closest to the moon was approx. 13,000 km. The rocket stage and probe then orbited the earth in a high elliptical orbit, initially every 10.5 days. On October 6, 2015, they burned up in the earth's atmosphere.

construction

The satellite consisted of the following assemblies:

  • Primary battery (28 pieces of non-rechargeable battery cells that provided 6 W during the main mission)
  • Second power supply (2 × 9 triple layer solar cells and 4 × Li-ion cells)
  • Radiation experiment with a dosimeter from the manufacturer iC-Málaga to determine the radiation dose over the flight path
  • FM430 on-board computer and interface card
  • I / Q modulator
  • VHF power amplifier 1.5 watts
  • Quarter-wave rod antenna

The satellite transmitter transmitted the telemetry and about 2500 prepared beacon texts in the JT65B operating mode . The mission ended just under three weeks after launch on November 11, 2014 after the battery voltage dropped to 8.4 volts.

literature

  • Bernd Michlewski: LX0OHB: German moon mission to receive on 145 MHz , RADIO AMATEUR (63rd year) 12/2014 page 1291–1292.
  • Thorsten Schmidt: 4M - A moon mission for radio amateurs , AMSAT-DL Journal (41st year) 4/2014, pages 16-17.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Orbit data according to CZ-3C R / B - satellite information. Heavens-Above, November 15, 2014, accessed November 15, 2014 .
  2. CZ-3C R / B - Satellite Information. Heavens-Above, accessed December 21, 2017 .