Provider: China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation
Mission
Type: Planetary Science
Orbit: Lunar Orbit
Pad: 201, Wenchang Space Launch Site, People's Republic of China
Mission Description
Queqiao-2 is a Chinese artificial satellite to serve as a communications relay for future Chinese lunar far side missions that cannot communicate directly with the Earth, beginning with the Chang'e 6 lunar sample return mission in 2024.
It will operate from a Distant Retrograde Orbit (DRO) of the Moon.
The launch also carries the Tiandu-1 & 2 small satellites testing cis-lunar space navigation and inter-satellite communication techniques for CNSA’s Deep Space Exploration Laboratory (DSEL).
