Completed
Three 5-meter long monopole antenna mounted on the Chang’e 4 satellite designed to address a multitude of high-profile science cases
The Netherlands-China Low-Frequency Explorer (NCLE), is a low-frequency payload part of the Chang’e 4 mission. The NCLE instrument consists of three 5-meter long monopole antennas that it is mounted on the Chang’e 4 satellite, and it is sensitive in the 80 kHz – 80 MHz radiofrequency range.
The instrument is designed to address a multitude of high-profile science cases, but predominantly NCLE will open up the low-frequency regime for radio astronomy and will prepare for the ground-breaking observations of the 21-cm line emission from the Dark Ages and the Cosmic Dawn, considered to be the holy grail of cosmology.
Start date: May 2016
Launch date: April 2018