Technical advancements and significance of circumlunar return and reentry spacecraft

As one of the vital steps in the 3rd phase of China’s lunar exploration program (CLEP), the circumlunar return and reentry spacecraft, developed by China Academy of Space Technology (CAST), is used to demonstrate the key technologies of hyper-speed return and reentry spacecraft. The system configuration and flight process are presented in this paper, as well as the analysis of mission characteristics, the key technologies and the technical advancement during the R&D progress. The significance of circumlunar return and reentry spacecraft is given at the end.