Newshot Aiming for Jupiter! China Solicits Payload Development Proposals for Tianwen-4
IT Home, November 13 news: According to CCTV News reports, the main objectives of China's Tianwen-4 mission are to achieve Jupiter orbit, Callisto orbit, and landing exploration, and to deepen scientific research on the Jovian system.
On November 13, the Lunar Exploration and Space Engineering Center issued a notice to solicit payload development proposals for the Tianwen-4 mission, selecting payload design schemes and implementing units through competitive merit-based selection.
According to the application guidelines, the Tianwen-4 orbiter payloads include 10 engineering development tasks such as a soft X-ray spectrometer, a far-ultraviolet imager, and a Jupiter magnetospheric particle detector. For example, the soft X-ray spectrometer must be able to support detection tasks such as studying the characteristics of Jupiter's multi-energy aurora and the processes by which they are controlled by the solar wind and Io; the far-ultraviolet imager must be able to acquire far-ultraviolet images of Jupiter's aurora and the Io plasma torus and conduct related research; the laser altimeter needs to have the capability to detect icy moons such as Callisto.
IT Home has learned that the Tianwen-4 lander payloads include a surface composition analyzer and a surface magnetic field detector, which will support tasks such as Raman spectral detection of the surface of the Callisto landing zone, acquisition of surface material composition types, and in-situ detection of the surface magnetic field.
- "China plans to launch Tianwen-3/4 around 2030, respectively carrying out Mars sample return / Jovian system exploration missions"
Extended reading: Tianwen-4 is the first Jovian system and interplanetary flyby exploration mission in China's planetary exploration program. According to public information, the probe is named "Gan De," after Gan De, an astronomer of China's Warring States period, who authored Sui Xing Jing and Tian Wen Xing Zhan and is believed to be possibly the first person in history to observe Jupiter's moons with the naked eye. According to the Kaiyuan Zhanjing compiled by Gautama Siddha of the Tang Dynasty, Gan De observed Jupiter's moons with the naked eye in the 4th century BC, nearly two thousand years earlier than Galileo's discovery of Jupiter's moons using a telescope. Callisto, the key target of this mission, is the outermost-orbiting of Jupiter's four Galilean moons and the third-largest moon in the solar system. Its size is close to that of Mercury, but its density is relatively low, and it is composed overall of roughly equal halves ice and rock. Callisto's surface is covered with impact craters and almost lacks significant tectonic deformation and volcanic activity, and it is believed to have relatively completely preserved the early impact and surface evolution history of the outer solar system. Electromagnetic observation results also suggest that beneath its thick ice shell there may be a layer of salty subsurface ocean, so Callisto is regarded as one of the key targets for studying the internal thermal evolution of icy moons and exploring potentially habitable environments in the outer solar system. According to publicly available trajectory designs, Tianwen-4 may adopt a flight sequence with multiple Venus and Earth gravity assists: flying by Venus in April 2030, flying by Earth twice in February 2031 and May 2033, and finally reaching Jupiter; after entering Jupiter orbit, the probe will split into two parts, a Jupiter orbiter and a Callisto orbiter, and the Callisto orbiter will enter an orbit at an altitude of about 500 kilometers through multiple Callisto gravity assists and deep space maneuvers. China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation has previously stated that the Tianwen-4 mission is planned to set off around 2030 to explore Jupiter and its moons, and that scheme demonstration and key technology research are currently being steadily advanced. In the "Tianwen" series, Tianwen-1 has already achieved Mars "orbit, land, and rove" in one step; Tianwen-2 has completed rendezvous with asteroid 2016HO3 and is currently conducting accompanying flyby exploration; Tianwen-3 aims at humanity's first Mars sample return, is planned to launch around 2028, and the mission has now entered the preliminary prototype development stage. Tianwen-3 takes "searching for potential traces of life on Mars" as its primary scientific goal, has preliminarily selected 8 candidate landing sites, plans to carry out drilling sampling to a maximum depth of about 2 meters, and to build the world's first "planetary protection laboratory."
Extended Reading
Tianwen-4 is the first Jovian system and interplanetary flyby exploration mission in China's planetary exploration program. According to public information, the probe is named "Gan De," after Gan De, an astronomer of China's Warring States period, who authored Sui Xing Jing and Tian Wen Xing Zhan and is believed to be possibly the first person in history to observe Jupiter's moons with the naked eye. According to the Kaiyuan Zhanjing compiled by Gautama Siddha of the Tang Dynasty, Gan De observed Jupiter's moons with the naked eye in the 4th century BC, nearly two thousand years earlier than Galileo's discovery of Jupiter's moons using a telescope.
Callisto, the key target of this mission, is the outermost-orbiting of Jupiter's four Galilean moons and the third-largest moon in the solar system. Its size is close to that of Mercury, but its density is relatively low, and it is composed overall of roughly equal halves ice and rock. Callisto's surface is covered with impact craters and almost lacks significant tectonic deformation and volcanic activity, and it is believed to have relatively completely preserved the early impact and surface evolution history of the outer solar system. Electromagnetic observation results also suggest that beneath its thick ice shell there may be a layer of salty subsurface ocean, so Callisto is regarded as one of the key targets for studying the internal thermal evolution of icy moons and exploring potentially habitable environments in the outer solar system.
According to publicly available trajectory designs, Tianwen-4 may adopt a flight sequence with multiple Venus and Earth gravity assists: flying by Venus in April 2030, flying by Earth twice in February 2031 and May 2033, and finally reaching Jupiter; after entering Jupiter orbit, the probe will split into two parts, a Jupiter orbiter and a Callisto orbiter, and the Callisto orbiter will enter an orbit at an altitude of about 500 kilometers through multiple Callisto gravity assists and deep space maneuvers. China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation has previously stated that the Tianwen-4 mission is planned to set off around 2030 to explore Jupiter and its moons, and that scheme demonstration and key technology research are currently being steadily advanced.
In the "Tianwen" series, Tianwen-1 has already achieved Mars "orbit, land, and rove" in one step; Tianwen-2 has completed rendezvous with asteroid 2016HO3 and is currently conducting accompanying flyby exploration; Tianwen-3 aims at humanity's first Mars sample return, is planned to launch around 2028, and the mission has now entered the preliminary prototype development stage. Tianwen-3 takes "searching for potential traces of life on Mars" as its primary scientific goal, has preliminarily selected 8 candidate landing sites, plans to carry out drilling sampling to a maximum depth of about 2 meters, and to build the world's first "planetary protection laboratory."
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- China plans to launch Tianwen-3/4 around 2030, respectively carrying out Mars sample return / Jovian system exploration missions