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China has successfully launched its Tiandu-1 satellite into a 3:1 Earth-Moon resonant orbit. After a week of testing, the spacecraft is now moving along a complex petal-shaped trajectory. This means that Tiandu-1 makes three orbits around the Earth during the time the Moon makes one orbit around our planet, which takes about 27.3 days, bigasia.ru reports.
This orbit allows the spacecraft to consume less energy due to its special mechanical properties. For Chinese astronomers, this is also a valuable opportunity to gain unique experience and improve navigation skills in difficult gravitational conditions.
The Tiandu-1 satellite, launched in March last year, became the first in the world to reach such an orbit. Scientists are convinced that the use of orbital resonance will be key to the development of near-Earth infrastructure and the implementation of China's ambitious lunar exploration program in the future.