Review Article
Development and Prospect of Chinese Lunar Relay
Communication Satellite
Lihua Zhang
DFH Satellite Co., Ltd., China
Correspondence should be addressed to Lihua Zhang; zlh70717@sina.com
Received 18 October 2020; Accepted 5 February 2021; Published 27 April 2021
Copyright © 2021
Lihua Zhang. Exclusive Licensee Beijing Institute of Technology Press. Distributed under a Creative Commons
Attribution License (CC BY 4.0).
Relay communication satellites play a very important role on the lunar far side and pole areas exploration missions. Queqiao relay
communication satellite was developed to provide relay communication support for the lander and the rover of Chang’e-4 mission
landing on the far side of the Moon. From entering into the halo mission orbit around Earth-Moon libration point 2 on June 14,
2018, it has operated on the orbit more than thirty months. It worked very well and provided reliable, continuous relay
communication support for the lander and the rover to accomplish the goals of Chang ’e-4 lunar far side soft landing and patrol
exploration mission. Exploration of the lunar south polar regions is of high scientific interest. A new relay communication
satellite for Chinese south pole exploration mission is also under study. The system design and on-orbit operation status of
Queqiao relay communication satellite were summarized in this paper. The system concept of the relay communication satellite
for lunar south pole exploration missions is proposed. Finally, the future development and prospect of the lunar relay
communication satellite system are given.
1. Introduction
The south pole and the far side of the Moon are ideal places
for some scientific investigations. Due to tidal locking,
Earth’s ground stations can only cover the nearside of the
lunar surface. Therefore, the spacecraft on the lunar nearside
always have direct line of sight with Earth, whereas those on
the far side of the Moon are always invisible from Earth. The
landing assets on the far side of the moon would have to rely
on relay spacecraft on the orbit to establish communication
contacts with Earth ground stations. The landing sites
located on the south pole regions of the Moon are in direct
line of sight of the Earth about half the time, in general, two
weeks on, two weeks off. Additionally, many of the regions
of interest, for example, the inside of the impact craters near
the pole, often have no direct line of sight to Earth. Thus, for
the most of lunar south pole missions, the relay communica-
tion satellite is also needed. The relay communication satel-
lite must be in an orbit position convenient to receive data
from the spacecraft on the lunar surface and transmit com-
mands to the spacecraft to support the landing, surface activ-
ities, and taking off, etc. The development and establishment
of a lunar relay communication infrastructure that provides
communications and navigation services for long-term lunar
explorations are very important.
This paper first discusses two important issues of the
lunar relay communication satellite development, which are
the mission orbit selection and relay communication links.
Then, the system design and on-orbit operation status of
Queqiao relay communication satellite from the orbit inser-
tion to current relay communication support for the lander
and the rover of Chang’e-4 mission [1] are summarized. In
order to support Chinese south pole exploration mission in
the near future, a new relay communication satellite is con-
sidered, and th e system design concept of this satellite is pre-
sented in this paper. Finally, the future development and
prospect of the lunar relay communication satellite system
are given.
2. Mission Orbit Selection
The selection and design of the mission orbit are crucial for
the development of the lunar relay communication satellite.
The relay communication support for the lunar exploration
spacecraft should consider the coverage locations based on
the sites of the future lunar bases or surf ace exploration
AAAS
Space: Science & Technology
Volume 2021, Article ID 3471608, 14 pages
https://doi.org/10.34133/2021/3471608
