Deep Space Explorations Research Centre, Mars Camera and Planetary Mapping

Module: 04 Research · Sub-file: Institutional profile This profile focuses on PolyU's Research Centre for Deep Space Explorations (RCDSE) — centred on the institution and its two co-directors (Kai Leung Yung and Bo Wu) — and fills in the research-centre perspective missing from the existing instrument profiles (sampling and sealing system: see lunar-sampling-system.md; Mars camera: see mars-camera-tianwen.md). Sources are primarily PolyU official first-hand materials and PolyU publications.

---

# I. Institutional Snapshot

The following figures come from PolyU official first-hand sources (RCDSE website^※, July 2024 press release^※):

---

# Why was the Deep Space Explorations Research Centre founded in 2021?

PolyU's track record in aerospace engineering stretches back to the 2000s, but consolidating space-science efforts scattered across its engineering and surveying departments into a standalone research centre was a strategic move taken only in May 2021^※, when RCDSE was formally established under PAIR.

RCDSE's official mission is to "bring together interdisciplinary researchers and engineers to explore fundamental questions such as the evolution of the universe and the origin and demise of life, and to study technologies for planetary resource prospecting and utilisation". The centre lists four applied visions: alleviating the energy crisis through mining lunar helium-3 (³He); helping tackle climate change; discovering new minerals and materials; and providing technological support for future crewed lunar-base construction. This positioning binds fundamental science (lunar evolution, the origin of water) tightly to national strategic needs (the Chang'e-7/8 lunar research station).

The 2021 timing was no accident. In December 2020, Chang'e-5 carried out the first lunar sample return in 44 years — with a key contribution from the PolyU team (led by Kai Leung Yung), whose "surface sampling and sealing system" did the collecting. The opening of a new phase in the lunar exploration programme gave birth to a research centre that fuses "building the tools" with "doing the science".

---

# Who is Kai Leung Yung, and what role does he play in precision engineering and spaceflight?

Ir Prof. Kai Leung Yung, BBS is Director of RCDSE, holding the "Sir Sze-yuen Chung Professor in Precision Engineering^※" chair, and is a Chair Professor and Associate Head of PolyU's Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering. The BBS (Bronze Bauhinia Star) is a Hong Kong SAR government honour awarded for distinguished service to the community and the professions.

His academic background spans precision engineering, mechatronics, automatic control and micro/nano manufacturing. For more than three decades, his team has built the core precision instruments for major national space missions: the camera-pointing systems for Chang'e-3 and Chang'e-4; the surface sampling and sealing systems for Chang'e-5 and Chang'e-6; and the landing-status monitoring camera for the Tianwen-1 Mars mission. Every instrument must pass "space qualification" — proof that it works reliably in vacuum, under extreme temperature swings and intense radiation, with no possibility of on-orbit repair.

For his contribution to the Chang'e-5 sample-return mission, Yung received the "Outstanding Individual Award" jointly conferred by five national ministries including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology^※ (2023), cementing his standing within the national lunar programme. The chair's namesake, Sir Sze-yuen Chung, was chairman of the Polytechnic's first governing council in 1972 — a historical line running from industrial education to national spaceflight that is one of PolyU's most symbolic inheritances.

---

# Who is Bo Wu, and how does lunar mapping support sampling and exploration?

Prof. Bo Wu is Associate Director of RCDSE, holding the "Fiona Cheung Endowed Professorship in Spatial Science^※" chair. He is based in and serves as Associate Head (Research) of the Department of Land Surveying and Geo-Informatics (LSGI). The "Fiona Cheung" chair was endowed by Hong Kong businesswoman Ms Fiona Cheung, MH, who has said she is "proud that scientists from PolyU have participated in a number of national space missions".

Wu earned his PhD in photogrammetry and remote sensing from Wuhan University in 2006, then worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Ohio State University in the US on NASA-funded lunar and Mars exploration projects before joining PolyU in 2009. His core speciality is planetary 3D topographic mapping and geomorphological analysis — in plain terms, using remote-sensing imagery and photogrammetry to produce precise 3D terrain maps of the Moon and Mars to support landing-site selection.

Wu's team has provided landing-zone topographic mapping and site-selection analysis for Chang'e-3, 4 and 5^※, and successfully identified safe, scientifically valuable landing sites for the Tianwen-1 Mars mission. For his contribution to Tianwen-1, he too received an "Outstanding Individual Award" from the five national ministries^※. To date he has published more than 140 peer-reviewed papers in international journals and secured research funding totalling over HK$20 million from Hong Kong's Research Grants Council and the National Natural Science Foundation of China.

---

# How did Chang'e-5 lunar regolith land on campus, and how is it preserved?

On 3 July 2024, PolyU announced it had successfully obtained Chang'e-5 lunar regolith samples; Wu personally travelled to the National Astronomical Observatories in Beijing to carry the samples back to Hong Kong.

The two samples total 442.6 mg^※, made up as follows:

The samples are held in a purpose-built lunar regolith storage and analysis system in RCDSE's on-campus Space Resources Laboratory. The system protects the samples under 99.999% high-purity nitrogen, shielding them from air and moisture contamination; it is also equipped with nine advanced instruments supporting 12 different in-situ analytical methods, enabling multidimensional analysis — from morphology to chemical composition — without ever removing the samples or disturbing the preservation environment. This gives PolyU the long-term research capacity to handle lunar, Martian and even asteroid samples.

On receiving the samples, Yung said: "We designed the sampling device for Chang'e-5 that brought back the youngest lunar regolith samples ever recovered. Now this regolith is stored on the PolyU campus — which means a great deal to the team." (Roughly translated from the Chinese quote; source: ScienceNet / China News Service report^※)

---

# "Finding water in lunar soil": what is the PolyU team studying, and why does it matter?

RCDSE's in-depth lunar-regolith analysis programme is organised around the central question "Finding Water in Lunar Soil", focusing specifically on the microstructural analysis of agglutinates.

"Agglutinates" are a distinctive class of particle in lunar soil — formed when micrometeorite impacts generate extreme heat on the lunar surface, fusing mineral fragments with glassy melt. They are a product of the "space weathering" process and are key to understanding the interaction between the solar wind and the lunar surface. The research team is chiefly asking:

• What is the micromorphology of agglutinates?
• How much water do they contain internally, and in what chemical state?
• Where does that water come from — implantation by the solar wind, delivery by comets or meteorite impacts, or remnants of ancient lunar volcanic activity?

Wu explains the scientific value of water: "Lunar water may come from multiple sources, including solar wind implantation, comets or meteorite impacts, and volcanic activity on the Moon^※." This is not pure scientific curiosity — establishing where the water comes from and how it is held bears directly on the engineering feasibility of "in-situ utilisation of lunar water resources" during the construction of the future Chang'e-7 and Chang'e-8 lunar research stations.

The team executing this programme is co-led by Yung and Wu, with core members including Dr Xing Wang (postdoctoral fellow, Department of Land Surveying and Geo-Informatics) and Dr Sergey Krasilnikov (Research Assistant Professor in the same department).

---

# What do RCDSE's three laboratory platforms each do?

RCDSE currently operates three dedicated research platforms^※, with complementary roles:

Together, the three platforms cover the full research chain, from "orbital remote sensing for site selection → development of in-orbit instruments → analysis of returned samples". The Space Resources Laboratory is also positioned as a future-facing "sample bank" — when Chang'e-6 far-side samples (about 2 kg) and, later, Martian samples are returned, the platform can directly take on a new round of comparative studies.

---

# How does PolyU's lunar research chain extend from "building tools" to "doing science"?

Over the past three decades, PolyU's relationship with the national space programme has been primarily that of an "instrument contributor" — from camera-pointing systems to the surface sampling and sealing system, developing key payloads for national probes through precision engineering. The arrival of lunar regolith in 2024 marks a pivotal turn: PolyU is no longer just an "upstream equipment provider" but has entered the core arena of lunar science directly as a "scientific analysis institution".

There is clear material evidence of this shift: of the 442.6 mg of regolith obtained, the 400 mg surface scoop sample was collected by the very sampling and sealing system PolyU designed and built — so this regolith carries PolyU's imprint from collection through to analysis, as it were. Yung calls this "meaningful in a special way" — more than sentiment, it is a confirmation of the institution's changing role.

On the academic-output front, in 2024^※ RCDSE published research developing the "PolyU-1 lunar regolith simulant" based on Chang'e-5 samples and remote-sensing imagery (in the International Journal of Mining Science and Technology, Vol. 34), providing a standard reference material for international lunar engineering experiments and in-situ resource utilisation (ISRU) technology development — one of the first fruits of PolyU turning sample research into reusable scientific tools.

Meanwhile, with Wu's team involved, RCDSE has published research on glass globules in the Chang'e-4 far-side samples in Science Bulletin, and on carbonaceous-chondrite material at the Chang'e-4 landing site in Nature Astronomy (2021) — building a sustained voice in the international lunar-sample research community.

Per the PAIR@PolyU journal publication list^※, the RCDSE team's core academic output for 2021–2022 also includes:

These papers span the two main threads of surveying (Wu) and precision engineering (Yung), with several co-signed across departments within the team — evidence that RCDSE's institutional logic of "build the tools first, then do the science" is bearing fruit at the level of international journals.

---

# How is RCDSE positioning itself for Chang'e-8 and the lunar research station?

In October 2024, Wu became Associate Director of the InnoHK Lunar Robotic Exploration Research Centre, led by HKUST in partnership with several Hong Kong institutions and the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology; the centre will develop multifunctional lunar-surface robots and mobile charging stations for the Chang'e-8 mission^※. Chang'e-8 is expected to launch around 2028 and serves as the technology-validation precursor to building the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS).

RCDSE's website also lists in-situ lunar resource utilisation as a long-term strategic goal: "the research will provide important avenues for solving energy shortages (mining lunar helium-3), mitigating climate change, and discovering new minerals and materials." Helium-3 is an ideal fusion fuel, and the lunar polar regions may harbour substantial water ice — creating a natural narrative link between RCDSE's fundamental science and longer-range energy strategy.

Yung has told the media that the team "looks forward to continuing to contribute to the nation in the coming years", naming crewed lunar landing before 2030 and Mars sample return as the next major milestones. With its three core fields of surveying (Wu), precision engineering (Yung) and structural engineering (Yu), PolyU has built sustainable research capability across four layers: planetary remote-sensing site selection, instrument development, sample analysis and lunar-surface construction.

---

# How does Tao Yu's arrival broaden RCDSE's disciplinary landscape?

RCDSE's leadership structure is not static. According to the centre's website personnel directory^※, Prof. Tao Yu of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering now serves as Associate Director alongside Wu. The centre's core decision-making layer has grown from the original "Yung + Wu" duo into a three-person leadership spanning precision engineering, surveying and remote sensing, and structural engineering.

Yu's specialities are fibre-reinforced polymer (FRP) composite structures, strengthening of concrete and steel structures, and nonlinear finite-element analysis of complex structures; he also serves as Director of PolyU's Wenzhou Technological Innovation Research Institute and Associate Director of its Research Institute for Sustainable Urban Development. This disciplinary background complements Yung (precision instruments) and Wu (remote-sensing mapping): building research stations on the Moon and Mars requires not only knowing "where to land" and "building the instruments to get there", but in the longer term "what structural materials to build with on the lunar surface". Yu's appointment is read as a signal that RCDSE is extending from "exploration and sampling" into "planetary surface construction and geomechanics" — one of the four research themes listed on its website — consistent with PAIR's overall logic of "incubating new directions through interdisciplinary platforms" (see PAIR Interdisciplinary Research Academy profile).

---

# RCDSE's International Advisory Committee: connecting the global deep-space research network

Beyond research collaboration within Hong Kong and mainland China, RCDSE maintains an International Advisory Committee^※ drawing members from leading deep-space research institutions across Europe:

The committee's membership spans the European deep-space exploration powers (Sweden, Switzerland, Germany, Russia) plus the UK, covering RCDSE's core research directions: solar wind and planetary plasma physics (Barabash, Wurz), planetary science and deep-space mission planning (Zelenyi, Zakharov), and planetary mapping and remote sensing (Oberst, Muller). For a research centre founded only in 2021, this advisory list is concrete evidence of how quickly it has embedded itself in the international deep-space research community — and it dovetails with the research path of Wu's team, which has long tracked literature from NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA).

---

# Latest developments 2025–2026: Tiandu Forum, international association and space-education outreach

Internationalising the academic network: On 4–5 September 2025, the "Tiandu Forum" — the 3rd International Deep Space Exploration Conference^※ — was held in Hefei, Anhui, attracting more than 400 participants. PolyU was a co-organiser, represented by Prof. Cheng Dong, Vice President (Mainland Research); Wu, in his capacity as RCDSE Associate Director, moderated an academic sharing session and accepted, on behalf of PolyU, the membership certificate of the International Deep Space Exploration Association (IDSEA) — marking PolyU's formal admission to the international academic body. PolyU subsequently planned to showcase its space research at the 76th International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Sydney, and hosted a "PolyU Space Connect" research-networking event on 30 September.

Space education for secondary students: On 24 January 2026, PolyU, together with Bank of China (Hong Kong) and the Hong Kong Education Bureau, launched the "Building Dreams for the Future: Robotics for the International Lunar Research Station" space-themed education programme, targeting Secondary 3–5 students in Hong Kong and the Greater Bay Area^※. It runs a "lunar-surface robot design competition": participating teams must design a robot capable of carrying out scientific exploration at the lunar south pole, with proposals required to be science-based; the submission deadline is 31 March 2026. At the launch ceremony, Wu delivered a public lecture on "robotic exploration of the lunar south pole". These activities extend a tradition of space-experiment competitions and online lectures for secondary students that RCDSE has run since 2022, reaching down to local school education — and echoing PolyU's long-running commitment to cultivating talent through its Department of Aeronautical and Aviation Engineering (see Aeronautical and Aviation Engineering Department profile).

---