What is it like to "drive" the lunar rover and the Mars rover? Beijing Aerospace Flight Control Engineer reveals the secrets

In recent years, the number of annual launches of China's space program has hit new highs. The young scientific and technological talent group of the Beijing Flight Control Center has mastered more than 50 key technologies of space flight control, aiming at the goal of "faster, more accurate, more stable and better", and has played an important supporting role in my country's construction of space stations, completion of lunar exploration projects, and entry into the world's advanced ranks in the field of planetary exploration.

In the construction mission of China's space station, the types of spacecraft are diverse and the status is complex. In particular, the manned spacecraft, cargo spacecraft, and experimental cabin innovatively adopt the rapid rendezvous and docking technology with autonomous long-distance guidance, which has many fault entry points, tight disposal time, and difficult collision avoidance. Spacecraft space rendezvous and docking is recognized as one of the most complex and difficult technologies in the world's aerospace field. The Beijing Flight Control Team has carried out technical research on rapid rendezvous and docking, precise orbit determination and prediction of large spacecraft with complex configurations, and collision avoidance, helping my country become the third country in the world to master near-Earth rapid rendezvous and docking, and providing solid guarantees for the on-orbit assembly and construction of the space station.

The Chang'e-5 mission is the most complex and technologically advanced space system project in my country's space history. Especially during the lunar sampling phase, it faces many challenges, such as tight time constraints, high requirements for robotic arm control accuracy, and high requirements for timeliness and accuracy of status monitoring and interpretation.

Rong Zhifei, engineer at the Beijing Aerospace Flight Control Center: In the Chang'e-5 lunar sampling mission, we only have 30 hours left for sampling, so we optimized the sampling control process, from the original sampling every 4 hours to every 2 hours during the mission.

The team members worked continuously for 48 hours without closing their eyes, efficiently and accurately controlling the lunar surface sampling subsystem to complete the sampling work, bringing the "three-step" plan of my country's lunar exploration project to a successful conclusion.

Compared with driving a lunar rover, Mars has more constraints than the moon. Various restrictions such as energy, communication data volume, and mobile behavior bring many challenges to ground remote control. The team has made breakthroughs in a series of key technologies and formed my country's first interplanetary space remote control flight control technology system. Through delicate operations, the Zhurong Mars rover has achieved the goal of traveling 20 meters a day and 1,000 kilometers a day, and obtained a large amount of high-value scientific exploration data.

Rong Zhifei, an engineer at the Beijing Aerospace Flight Control Center: We still have the Queqiao-2 relay satellite and the Chang'e-6 mission to prepare and execute. There are still many follow-up tasks, which are also very heavy. It is a good platform and opportunity for our young generation to grow and exercise. We must not forget our original mission and contribute our own strength to my country's aerospace industry.