In order to solve the problem of frequency stability and transmission accuracy decrease caused by temperature fluctuation during on-orbit operation of an extravehicular load equipment, a highly efficient thermal control scheme is proposed which bases on passive thermal control as the main approach and active thermal control as the auxiliary method. The scheme employs a single-phase liquid cold plate as the main heat dissipation surface, and 10-unit multi-layer insulation components for comprehensive encapsulation. High thermal conductivity materials are utilized to achieve efficient heat conduction. Simultaneously, heating sheets and TEC semiconductor ceramic sheets are used for precise temperature control. Through finite element simulation analysis of temperature distribution under both high and low temperature conditions and optimization design, the temperature variation of key components is controlled within ±0.5 K. The ground constant-temperature thermal balance experiment and the in-orbit data results indicate that this scheme effectively suppresses the interference of temperature fluctuations on the load equipment, significantly improves the overall temperature uniformity of the equipment. It enables photodiodes and other sensitive devices to operate within the optimal temperature range (25-50°C). The temperature change rate of temperature-sensitive devices on the extravehicular load equipment is better than 0.1 K·min^–1, meeting the on-orbit stability requirements of high-precision time-frequency transmission systems. It can provide an important reference for the thermal control design of similar space load equipment.

The Muon Telescope at Siziwang Station in Inner Mongolia is used to detect the secondary cosmic ray muons reaching the ground. The Muon Telescope began construction in November 2019, was completed in April 2023, and produced scientific data. The muon telescope consists of a scintillator observation stack, an electronics recorder, a monitoring platform, and a power supply. The scintillator observation stack is composed of 48 detector units, divided into upper and lower layers with 24 units in each layer, arranged in a 6×4 array. In each detector unit, the plastic scintillator has dimensions of 50 cm × 50 cm × 5 cm. The distance between the upper and lower layers is 89 cm. A 5cm-thick layer of lead bricks is laid between the upper and lower layers to filter out low-energy cosmic rays and low-energy particles in the surrounding environment. The detectors have a total area of 6 m². Muon signals generated by the 48 detector units of the Muon Telescope are processed through front-end circuits for amplification, discrimination, and shaping, then sent to the FPGA logic circuit for directional coincidence calculation. This produces raw muon counts in 15 directions. After undergoing barometric correction calculation, a dataset of corrected muon counts in 15 directions is formed, with a temporal resolution of 1 hour. The count rate in the vertical direction is the highest, with the 1-hour count rate being around 600000 counts and the relative statistical error approximately 0.13%. The muon data can sensitively reflect diurnal variations, long-term variations of cosmic rays, and short-term Forbush decrease perturbations induced by coronal mass ejections. Spanning from May 2023 to April 2025, this dataset covers the high-activity phase of the 25th solar activity cycle. It provides valuable data resources for research on solar eruptions, their interplanetary disturbance propagation, and geomagnetic response processes, while also supporting space weather early warning efforts.

The temperature field during solidification has an important influence on the microstructure and properties of the material. Due to the difference of heat convection in space and ground environment, natural convection driven by gravity plays an important role in heat transfer in ground environment. However, in space, the microgravity environment almost eliminates the influence of gravity-dominated natural convection, which will lead to certain differences in the heat transfer characteristics between space and ground, resulting in differences in the temperature field distribution in the material experimental furnace. As a result, the temperature field obtained on the ground is different from that in space under the same temperature control conditions, thus affecting the equivalence of experimental conditions between space and ground materials. The heat transfer characteristics obtained from ground experiments cannot be directly applied to space experiments. This mismatch has a major impact on the space materials experiments. In order to obtain the heat transfer characteristics under microgravity conditions, a three-dimensional numerical model of heat transfer in the high temperature material experimental rack of the space station is established. In the modeling process, reasonable simplification is carried out according to the actual physical conditions, some minor heat transfer factors which have little influence on the overall temperature field are ignored. The temperature field simulation of the ground experiment and the space experiment was carried out respectively, and the temperature distribution of the sample box was obtained. The temperature obtained by simulation was compared with the measured temperature. Through comprehensive analysis of the changes of heat transfer parameters in the space microgravity environment and the normal gravity environment on the ground, the heat transfer law similar to the space condition was obtained. The research results provide a new way to predict the space temperature field distribution based on the ground experiment results of high temperature materials experiment rack and have important guiding significance for the future research of space materials.

To address the critical need for efficient image storage and transmission in aerospace applications, this study presents a CCSDS 122.0-B-1-compliant compression core implemented on FPGA. The design incorporates innovative encoding control logic and optimized data organization through co-optimization of algorithmic features and hardware constraints. A segment-based architecture with 256-pixel blocks achieves superior compression efficiency among existing solutions, while effectively containing error propagation through segmented compression. The architecture further enables continuous quality adaptation and progressive image transmission. To resolve performance bottlenecks in scanning and encoding processes, fully parallelized scanning with adaptive parallel encoding was developed, and a 50% efficiency improvement was demonstrated in validation tests. Supporting images up to 4096×4096 pixel with 16-bit depth, the core delivers 90.64×10⁶ sample·s^–1 throughput, meeting operational requirements for diverse space missions.

The Chang’E-7 mission carries a Lunar Penetrating Radar (LPR) for investigating lunar shallow subsurface structures. To ensure the validity of the acquired data and improve the accuracy and consistency of its interpretation, this study presents a comprehensive calibration framework suitable for space-grade penetrating radar systems, incorporating full-system gain calibration and system transfer function calibration, among others. Applying this methodology, the lunar radar system was rigorously calibrated, clarifying the optimal parameter configuration for its in-orbit operation. Under this parameter setting, all performance metrics of the radar system meet the design requirements: the system gains of the Low-Frequency (LF) and High-Frequency (HF) channels are 171.02 dB and 169.70 dB, respectively, fulfilling the detection depth requirements of 400 m and 40 m. The acquired Time-Varying Gain (TVG) curve and system transfer function, validated through simulated lunar regolith experiments, can provide effective calibration baselines for scientific data obtained during lunar surface exploration. This calibration scheme can serve as a technical reference for the calibration of radar systems in future deep-space exploration missions.

The Moon provides a unique and advantageous platform for astronomical observations, particularly in the visible and ultraviolet wavelength ranges, owing to its extremely tenuous exosphere, the absence of atmospheric turbulence, and a stable surface environment. These characteristics enable long-duration, continuous observations free from atmospheric interference. As one of the international payloads aboard the Chang’E-7 mission, the International Lunar Observatory Camera (ILO-C) project aims to exploit these advantages to observe the Milky Way and the broader universe from a distinctive lunar perspective. In addition to its scientific objectives, the project offers unique value for astronomy education and serves as a technology demonstration for future lunar-based astronomical observatories. The ILO-C camera will be mounted on the +y panel of the Chang’E-7 lander and will experience multiple mission phases, including cruise, lunar orbit, and surface operations. This paper systematically investigates the scientific calibration workflow for the ILO-C across these mission phases, with particular emphasis on fundamental calibration, color calibration, and flux calibration, and further presents observational and calibration pathways for cross-validation. The quality of the project’s scientific output will largely depend on the optimized implementation of these calibration schemes. Ideally, in-flight activation and observations are expected to be achieved, allowing coverage of a broader sky area and enabling cross-comparison with observations from other space-based and ground-based astronomical facilities.

The lunar pole’s water ice is essential for understanding the Moon’s evolution and building future lunar research station. Nevertheless, existing orbital remote-sensing missions and returned samples remain insufficient to resolve the key unknowns of polar water, including its occurrence modes (e.g., adsorbed water/hydroxyl, pore-filling ice, or ice-cemented regolith), its abundance and vertical variability, and its potential origin and evolutionary pathways. To address this gap, the Chang’E-7 mini-flying probe will carry the Lunar soil Water molecule Analyser (LUWA) to conduct in-situ detection of water ice at the permanently shadowed region for the first time. This paper describes the compositional structure of LUWA and the detection approach, comprising drilling, sampling, sealing, heating and analysis. We detail the calibration parameters, apparatus, and procedures for its three core analytical modules: the Tunable Diode Laser Absorption Spectrometer (TDLAS), the Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometer (TOF-MS), and the Differential optical Absorption Spectrometer (DAS). The operational chain is designed to release water through thermal extraction, quantify water content with high sensitivity across a wide dynamic range, and enable the determination of D/H isotopic signatures. A systematic ground calibration methodology and a unified calibration framework are established for three functional modules dedicated to water measurement. The framework defines calibration objectives, procedures, and traceability pathways to characterize module response functions, assess background and temperature-dependent effects, verify detection limits and linearity, and evaluate accuracy and repeatability, thereby supporting robust conversion from raw observables to calibrated water-content and isotope products in flight. In parallel, a dedicated lunar in-situ exploration test platform is developed to replicate LUWA’s full operational workflow using lunar regolith simulants, including drilling, sampling, sealing, heating, and analysis. Integrated tests validate key performance metrics and the measurement workflow, providing crucial technical support for interpreting Chang’E-7 LUWA data and for assessing the abundance and occurrence of water ice in lunar soil within PSRs.

The bidirectional Medium-Energy Proton Detector (MEPD) onboard the lunar surface exploration subsystem of the Chang’E-7 lander represents the first-ever implementation of dual-direction medium-energy proton measurements on the Moon. It is capable of providing spectral data of upward- and downward-directed medium-energy protons in the range of 0.03～30 MeV, offering crucial support for modeling the lunar particle radiation environment and for radiation protection in future crewed lunar missions. The unique challenges of ground calibration for the MEPD were addressed in this study. An electron accelerator was employed to achieve proton-equivalent energy calibration, while the full energy range was validated by analyzing the deposited energy of penetrating high-energy protons. In addition, the suppression capability against electron contamination was quantitatively evaluated through a combined approach of accelerator experiments and numerical simulations. The results show that the detector’s energy calibration deviation is better than 3%, its electron-rejection efficiency exceeds 94% for energies at or below 1.4 MeV, and the average geometric factors of the upward-and downward-facing detectors are 0.053 cm^–2·sr^–1 and 0.3041 cm^–2·sr^–1, respectively. These calibration results provide a reliable foundation for in-orbit data inversion. Furthermore, the established calibration and simulation framework offers valuable reference for the future calibration of lunar and deep-space charged-particle detectors.