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Critical roles played by Hong Kong researchers on China’s Chang’e 4 mission to far side of the moon
- Polytechnic University engineers helped design and make camera mount for moon lander
- Another team had hand in planning and selecting landing site – the 190km wide, 5km deep Von Karman crater
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January 3 was a nerve-racking day for Professor Yung Kai-leung and his team at Polytechnic University’s industrial and systems engineering department.
The researchers had helped design and make the mission-critical camera mount for the world’s first landing on the far side of the moon, an undertaking by China’s Chang’e 4 space mission, which was declared a success on Friday more than a month after its launch.
Whether the multi-axis mount – built from a hardened aluminium alloy at the Hung Hom campus – would extend on the top of the moon lander, let alone swivel, would determine whether mankind captured panoramic images from the surface for the first time in history.
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“It was early in the morning. We were so nervous we didn’t even dare to breathe,” the associate department head said. “But at the same time, it was also very boring. We had to watch the landing frame by frame.”
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After many hours, it was finally confirmed in the evening that the system was functioning.
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