Looking down on the Chang'e 4 landing site; lander is just beyond tip of large arrow, rover at tip of small arrow. Image is 468 meters (1535 feet) across, 2x enlargement, LROC M1303619844LR [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University].
Just after midnight (UTC) on 1 February 2019 LRO passed nearly overhead the Chang'e 4 landing site. From an altitude of 82 kilometers the LROC Narrow Angle Camera pixel scale was 0.85 meters (33 inches), allowing a sharper view of the lander and Yutu-2 rover. At the time the rover was 29 meters northwest of the lander, but the rover has likely moved since the image was acquired. This view has close to the smallest pixel size possible in the current LRO orbit. In the future however, LROC will continue to image the site as the lighting changes and the rover roves!
Chang'e 4, the second Chinese lunar lander, set down on a relatively small farside mare basalt deposit that is extensively mixed with highland ejecta from the nearby and relatively young Finsen crater (73 kilometer diameter, 45 miles). Scientists have long wanted to know the composition of farside basalts; are they significantly different from the nearside basalts? According to CNSA, Chang'e 4 instrumentation includes the visible near infrared spectrometer (VNIS) which takes measurements that can be used to address this question. This new information from the surface will provide important ground truth, while the combination of on-surface and orbital measurements provides synergy that will advance knowledge of the farside.
Chang'e 3 (left, M147290066LR) and Chang'e 4 (right, M1303619844LR) are very similar in size and instrumentation. The Chang'e 3 image looks a bit fuzzier because the landing site is at 44° north latitude where the LRO orbit is about twice as far from the Moon relative to the Chang'e 4 site at 45° south latitude (1.6 meter pixels enlarged to 0.85 meter pixels; 5.2 feet vs. 2.8 feet). Each panel is 463 meters (1520 feet) wide, large arrows indicate landers and small arrows indicate rovers [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University].
Posted by Mark Robinson on February 15, 2019 17:53 UTC.
NASA's lunar orbiter has its third, overhead look on China's Chang'e-4 probe
Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-16 08:06:12|Editor: WX
WASHINGTON, Feb. 15 (Xinhua) -- The United States space agency NASA said Friday that its lunar orbiter has observed the landing site of China's Chang'e-4 lunar probe for the third time, capturing a much sharper view.
NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) passed nearly overhead the Chang'e-4 landing site on Feb. 1, giving a 0.85-meter per pixel picture of the lander and Yutu-2 rover or Jade Rabbit-2 from an attitude of 82 kilometers, according to NASA.
This view had close to the smallest pixel size possible in the current LRO orbit.
NASA said the rover was 29 meters northwest of the lander, but the rover had likely moved since the image was acquired.
According to NASA, the LRO will continue to image the site as the lighting changes and the rover roves.
On Jan. 30 and Jan. 31, the LRO snapped the landing site for the first and second time respectively, but both in a slant angle, according to NASA.
Chang'e-4 set down on a relatively small farside mare basalt deposit. NASA hoped that China's probe could find out the composition of farside basalts with its visible near infrared spectrometer.
China's Chang'e-4 probe, launched on Dec. 8 in 2018, landed on the Von Karman Crater in the South Pole-Aitken Basin on the far side of the moon on Jan. 3.
NASA announced its plan last month to cooperate with Chinese space authorities to observe a signature of the landing plume of Chang'e-4's lunar lander.
Hurry-up Mr. Xi Jinping, for H.E. Kim Jong Un is not going to remain a passive onlooker, but will clean sweep all the lunar rare earth mineral ore reserve for the DPRK!
2007: Chang'e-1 Orbiter
2010: Chang'e-2 Orbiter
2013: Chang'e-3 Softlanding, Rover
2018: Chang'e-4 Lander and Rover, Exploration of Far side of the Moon
2019: Chang'e-5 Return sample (in Oceanus Procellarum and collect 2 kilograms of regolith)
2024: Chang'e-6 Return sample (Exploration of South Pole of the Moon?)
Although China's development is catching up very fast with the U.S. in the fields of economy, infrastructures, telecommunications, land and air transportations, green technologies, biosciences, societal development, counter insurgency A.I., conventional and unconventional military, fundamental research, applied research, sci-fi movies, etc, there is still a need to achieve genuine strings of world's first and not isolated ones, before China could officially supersede the 20th century's Pax Americana.
With each passing days, we are more and more likely to witness within our lifetime the dawn of this new China Century or Pax Sinica.
With its current first world reserve of rare earth mineral, China could definitely put and end to the U.S. hegemony by securing the access to the North Korean rare earth that even surpass the Chinese's by fivefold. Having exhausted their rare earth mineral ore reserve during the Cold War, both the U.S.S.R. and the U.S. can no longer sustain the same pace in the hightech race with China, in the field of supercomputers, semiconductor microchips, lasers, smartphones, radars, missiles, particle accelerators, satellites, etc..
▲ First world's reserve of Rare Earth Elements in the DPRK.
The establishment of the world's first deep space quantum communications network might give China a true cutting edge over the ailing U.S., as a new Space Silk Road.
The economic benefits even dwarfing those of the ancient Silk Road.
2. China's First Lunar Quantum Communications Relay Satellite
By sending a Quantum Communications Satellite (量子通讯卫星) at the Earth-Moon L2 lagrange point halo orbit to replace the Queqiao radio communication relay satellite (鹊桥), would be a true scientific first for both China and the world.
By performing supraluminal speed transmissions between China Mission Control on Earth, and the Quantum Communications Relay Satellite, then relaying radio data link to the Yutu-2 rover, would allow to shorten the U.S.' 1.7 seconds Earth-Moon radio communications delay.
(total Yutu to Quantumsat to Earth distance) = (L2 to Moon distance) x 2 + (Moon to Earth average distance)
65,000 kilometres x 2 + 384,400 km = 514,400 km
(total Yutu to Quantumsat to Earth distance)/c = time delay
514,400 km / 299,792 Kmps = 1.7 second delay
While the delay for direct Earth-Moon communications is about 1.25 second
2.1. Behind The Quantum Communications: Quantum Entanglement
Scientists found that when two entangled particles are separated, one particle can somehow affect the action of the far-off twin instantly, which is what Albert Einstein described as a "spooky action at a distance."
This simply means there might be a still to discover unknown particle responsible for the entanglement, like the mesotron aka pi meson as the carrier of the nuclear strong force that holds atomic nuclei together, or the photon in the electromagnetic force. And with a supraluminal speed!
For more clarity, I called it the Mallima Particle (만리마자, 萬里马子: 10 thousands li horse, a mythical Korean winged horse able to gallop ten thousand li (approximately 5'000 km) in a single day).
▲ The hypothetical Mallima Particle, responsible of the entanglement interaction.
3. China's First Martian Quantum Communications Relay Satellite
The next incremental step would be to expand this near-earth short-range communications system to our next planet, on the occasion of China's 2020 first Mars lander and rover mission.
The new challenges encountered in this phase are certainly amongst the most critical technological hurdles, that only a few world superpower could overcome.
Repeating the Lunar mission by simply sending a Quantum Communications Relay Satellite around Mars would not suffice. Single entangled photons would be too difficult to detect from Earth mainly for two reasons.
The distance from Mars to Earth being the first factor, thus requiring the use of the world largest ever orbital Quantum Communications optical system to be used. This would in addition allow to avoid atmospheric distortion, scattering and absorption from the earth's atmosphere.
After detecting the incoming single entangled photons sent from Mars orbit, the earth's orbital Quantum Communications optical system would relay the data to ground MC, with another separate stream of entangled photons, or simply radiowaves as emergency slower backup system.
A CZ-5 Heavy space launcher will be mandatory for such a payload, with its 4.03 meters primary mirror made of silicon carbide designed by Changchun Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics.
▲ The high-precision silicon carbide aspheric mirror with a diameter of 4.03 meters developed by the Changchun Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences is the largest single-crystal silicon carbide mirror in the world. 2018-08-21
Detecting the incoming single entangled photons sent from Mars orbit, is made difficult, as earth stations, could not be able to distinguish them from the background photons from the luminous Martian disk.
Therefore the distance of the Quantum Communications Relay Satellite to the Martian surface should be far enought to have a darker background.
This could be done by sending the said Quantum Communications Relay Satellite to a far enought Mars L1 Lagrangian Point halo orbit at some 1'082'311 km.
As the line of sight might be lost due to the diurnal rotation of Mars, an array of Quantum Communications Relay Satellites might be necessary, with at least a second one at the Mars L2 Lagrangian Point halo orbit.
Martian Quantum Communications satellites inserted in stable orbits around the Lagrangian points could be extended to include the L4 and L5 points to allow communication even when Mars is in conjunction, thus completing a long-term nodes of communication between Earth and Mars.
▲ The gravitationally stable points for the Mars-Sun system. The Lagrange points L1 to L5 are listed.
4. China's New Space Silk Road
For completing a Quantum Communications satellites nework that covers all the Solar System, needed to support China's deep space exploration and development, as well as its expending extraterrestrial rare earth exploitation, that will include asteroids, and the worlds of the gas giant planets, the above-described combination of space platforms would need to be multiplied.
The "Made in China" real time communication throughout our solar system.