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China's Chang'e-4 probe soft-lands on moon's far side - Xinhua

NEWS RELEASE 24-SEP-2019
Reconstructing the first successful lunar farside landing
CHINESE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES HEADQUARTERS

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Three-dimensional landscape map of the CE-4 landing site. CREDIT: NAOC

In January of this year, China's Chang'E-4 - the fourth version of a lunar spacecraft named for the Chinese goddess of the Moon - landed on the far side of the Moon. Due to the location of the landing, Chang'E-4 had to navigate autonomously, without the guidance of scientists on Earth.

Now, a research team, headed by LI Chunlai, corresponding author of this results and a professor of the National Astronomical Observatories of Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC), has published a full reconstruction of the Chang'E-4's landing. The results appeared on September 24 in Nature Communications.

"This mission had the major challenge of landing on the lunar farside without traditional radio signal techniques due to the missing line-of-sight," said LIU Jianjun, paper author and professor at the Key Laboratory of Lunar and Deep Space Exploration of NAOC. "The landing was successful, and we have now reconstructed the landing trajectory and positioning techniques to better understand the process."

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CE-4 powered descent trajectory. CREDIT: NAOC

Chang'E-4, which has spent 2019 collecting information about the geology of the Moon's mantle, launched from Earth on December 8, 2018. Once it left Earth's orbit, it circled the Moon before orchestrating a powered descent to the lunar surface, where it navigated itself to the Von Kármán crater, which sits in the South-Pole-Aitken (SPA) basin. The SPA basin stretches about 2,500 kilometers, or about half the width of China. It's the largest known crater in the solar system.

The researchers planned for Chang'E-4 to land in the SPA basin because they're specifically interested in studying the geological composition of the Moon. This is easier to do in areas where impacts may have penetrated past the lunar crust.

The problem was that the SPA basin contains several craters and is surrounded by even more. Previous versions of Chang'E had scouted out the location to a certain extent, so the researchers knew their ultimate landing site goal. However, it was up to Chang'E-4 to navigate around the steeper craters to land in the correct location.

After Chang'E-4 landed, images from the craft's landing camera and navigation camera were transmitted to Earth via the Queqiao satellite. The satellite was launched in 2018 specifically to relay information from Chang'E-4 to Earth.

LI and his team used the images and terrain data from Chang'E-2 to identify the specific location of Chang'E-4, including the elevation down to the meter (-5,935 meters). They also fully reconstructed the path the lander took during its powered descent to the surface, during which it clearly navigated away from steeper craters to areas with flatter terrain.

"It's of great significance to accurately reconstruct the landing trajectory and determine the location of the landing site after a safe landing," LIU said. "We can use this information as landmarks and to service the study of lunar farside control points, high-precision lunar mapping, and future lunar missions."


Reconstructing the first successful lunar farside landing | EurekAlert! Science News

Jianjun Liu, Xin Ren, Wei Yan, Chunlai Li, He Zhang, Yang Jia, Xingguo Zeng, Wangli Chen, Xingye Gao, Dawei Liu, Xu Tan, Xiaoxia Zhang, Tao Ni, Hongbo Zhang, Wei Zuo, Yan Su & Weibin Wen. Descent trajectory reconstruction and landing site positioning of Chang'E-4 on the lunar farside. Nature Communications (2019). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-12278-3
 
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Vikram's Impact Crater, Ejecta And Wreckage

According to the ISRO's propaganda wording on 18th September 2019, the Vikram lander, in its ‘last moment’ of impacting the lunar surface on September 7 has helped expose subsurface material.

This sheer sophistry cannot conceal what was known from day one by ISRO, that the crash had caused an artificial crater big enough to be photographed by the orbiter.

Vikram could not play its intended role of achieving a soft-landing and enabling the robotic rover Pragyan to roll out, to conduct lunar surface exploration, its hard impact on the lunar surface has left a little crater, big enough for Chandrayaan-2’s powerful Imaging Infra-Red Spectrometer (IIRS)

Another ISRO scientist said Vikram, weighing 1,471 kg (245 kg on moon as its gravity is one-sixth that of earth’s), would have raised a considerable lunar dust plume on impacting the lunar surface near the south pole although the velocity with which it impacted was much less than that of the MIP, weighing 34 kg (5.6 kg on moon).


http://web.archive.org/web/20190929...look-for-water-on-moon-says-isro-2035311.html
http://archive.is/SLFB9


And indeed, its Chandrayaan-2 orbiter 0.3 meter ground resolution camera has imaged the wreckage, but refusing to make it public and waiting for the U.S. NASA LRO orbiter to take image of only 1 meter resolution only shows the desperation of ISRO to fool the world masses!

Below the ejecta left after the Israeli lander Beresheet crashed on the lunar surface on 11 April 2019, as imaged from the LRO orbiter. Extending over 100 meters, indeed large enough to be spotted.

565d5ca51dcfcd00ec0448b09a8393a7f4584d69.gif

https://archive.fo/NNyGQ/565d5ca51dcfcd00ec0448b09a8393a7f4584d69.gif ; http://web.archive.org/web/20190929...ctures/769/content_BeresheetImpact_1100px.gif ; http://web.archive.org/web/20190929142206/https://www.lroc.asu.edu/posts/1101 ; http://archive.fo/j732l
1. The Beresheet impact occurred on 11 April 2019 and LRO passed overhead 11 days later.

2019: A Chinese Space Odyssey

19 September 2019

China's lunar exploration program has released images that give us a glimpse of the mysterious artifact discovered on the far side of the moon.

Yutu-2, the lunar rover for China's Chang'e-4 mission, grabbed attention last month after its drive team spotted something unusual while roving close to a small crater. The Chinese-language science outreach publication Our Space, which announced the findings on Aug. 17, used the term "胶状物" (jiao zhuang wu), which can be translated as "gel-like." This notion sparked wide interest and speculation among lunar scientists.

Scientists have now gotten a look at that curious material, thanks to a post (Chinese) released over the weekend by Our Space via its WeChat social media account. Along with new images of the stuff on the moon, the post details how the Yutu-2 team carefully approached the crater in order to analyze the specimen, despite risks.

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https://archive.is/Qbl8b/00e5f24e86fcb240dcf1ed31c36f312bfd27f881.jpg ; https://archive.is/Qbl8b/78de481794a7f5b8c4cc4a524f2d268299b22cde/scr.png ; https://archive.is/3Bttz/919b5402474730e16a6f0ce6ad57df9f6d7d1be3 ; http://web.archive.org/web/20190927...x_fmt=jpeg&tp=webp&wxfrom=5&wx_lazy=1&wx_co=1 ; http://archive.is/3Bttz ; http://web.archive.org/web/20190927142824/https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/c7edQwOcN0gL9lQuylWRCA
1. China's Yutu-2 moon rover captured this image from the edge of the small crater where it found a mysterious artifact.


https://twitter.com/f99600406/status/1176434971965181952
1. 2019: A Chinese Space Odyssey.


http://web.archive.org/web/20190927142824/https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/c7edQwOcN0gL9lQuylWRCA
http://archive.is/3Bttz

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:cool::smokin:8-)
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If they deal with the cold problem the moon can be use to farm crops. Might have to farm underground unless they developed shield technology.
 
嫦娥四号着陆器和“玉兔二号”巡视器完成第十月昼工作,进入第十月夜
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中国探月工程 10-06 19:39
嫦娥四号着陆器完成第十月昼的科学探测工作,于10月5日19时30分进入第十月夜。第十月昼工作期间,着陆器工况正常,能量平衡,有效载荷月球中子及辐射剂量探测仪、低频射电谱仪按计划开展有效探测工作,地面接收科学探测数据正常。

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“玉兔二号”巡视器于10月5日15时43分完成月夜设置,进入休眠。第十月昼期间,巡视器根据整体规划进行移动,目前累计行走289.769米。巡视器移动过程中,按计划组织实施了巡视器红外光谱仪、全景相机、中性原子探测仪、测月雷达等有效载荷的开机探测工作,进一步获取月球背面科研数据,地面接收载荷数传数据正常。

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在国庆节前后,嫦娥四号着陆器和“玉兔二号”巡视器突破十个月球日工作期,远远超出设计寿命,以出色完成科学探测任务向祖国70华诞献礼。目前,地面科研团队正在对各科学载荷获取的第一手探测数据进行处理分析,在已取得的科研成果基础上深入开展研究。
图片经过了压缩处理。

Translation:

The No. 4 Lander and the Yutu-2 rover completed the tenth lunar day of work and entered the tenth lunar night.
CLEP
10-06 19:39

The No. 4 lander completed the scientific exploration work in the tenth lunar day and entered the tenth lunar night at 19:30 on October 5. During the tenth lunar day of work, the lander working conditions were normal, energy balance, payload work of lunar neutron and radiation dose detector, low-frequency radio spectrometer were carried out as planned, and the ground station process of receiving scientific detection data was normal.

The Yutu-2 rover work was completed at 15:43 on October 5 and entered the dormant state. During the tenth lunar day, the rover was moved according to the overall plan, and the current walking distance was 289.769 meters. During the tour of the rover, the payloads of the rover of infrared spectrometer, panoramic camera, neutral atomic detector, and moon-ground penetrating radar were organized and implemented as planned, and had further obtained the scientific data from the far side of the moon. Receiving of data at the ground station was normal.

Around China National Day, the No. 4 Lander and the Yutu-2 rover past the ten-lunar-day working period, far exceeding their design life, they would dedicated their scientific exploration mission to the 70th birthday of the motherland. At present, the ground research team is processing and analyzing the first-hand detection data acquired by each scientific load, and conducts in-depth research based on the scientific research results obtained.
 
China's lunar rover discovers mysterious substance on moon's far side
Source: Xinhua| 2019-09-24 14:37:24|Editor: mingmei

BEIJING, Sept. 24 (Xinhua) -- China's lunar rover Yutu-2, or Jade Rabbit-2, discovered an unidentified substance in an impact crater on the far side of the moon.

The discovery was made during Yutu-2's ninth lunar day of exploration on the moon, according to the Lunar Exploration and Space Program Center of the China National Space Administration.

The ground controllers designed a driving route for the rover to allow it to conduct scientific detection to the depth of the impact crater and the distribution of the ejecta, said the center.

"The Yutu-2 rover is expected to bring us more surprises and scientific discoveries," said the center.

The lander of the Chang'e-4 probe and the Yutu-2 rover have resumed work for the 10th lunar day on the far side of the moon after "sleeping" during the extremely cold lunar night.

The lander woke up at 8:26 p.m. Monday, and the rover awoke at 8:30 p.m. Sunday (Beijing Time). Both are in normal working condition, according to the center.

The rover has traveled about 285 meters on the moon to conduct scientific exploration on the virgin territory.

China's Chang'e-4 probe, launched on Dec. 8, 2018, made the first-ever soft landing on the Von Karman Crater in the South Pole-Aitken Basin on the far side of the moon on Jan. 3.

A lunar day equals 14 days on Earth, and a lunar night is the same length. The Chang'e-4 probe switched to a dormant mode during the lunar night due to the lack of solar power.

As a result of the tidal locking effect, the moon's revolution cycle is the same as its rotation cycle, and the same side always faces Earth.

The scientific tasks of the Chang'e-4 mission include low-frequency radio astronomical observation, surveying the terrain and landforms, detecting the mineral composition and shallow lunar surface structure and measuring neutron radiation and neutral atoms.

The Chang'e-4 mission embodies China's hope to combine human wisdom in space exploration with four payloads developed by the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden and Saudi Arabia.

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From Yutu-2 latest dairy for tenth lunar day

Yutu-2 decided to take the risk and enter the crater further to investigate the mysterious substance referred to by the news article quoted above.

This is a photo of the substance taken during the morning of the tenth lunar day.

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And after awaken from the noon nap, Yutu-2 was scheduled to go for further investigation of the substance. It encounter a minor hiccup when the failed-safe control system shutdown a turn midway because one of the front wheel have exceeded the maximum angle safety setting. It took a while for the team to figure out why and adjusted their control instruction accordingly, and that is probably why Yutu-2 moved only a few meters in the tenth lunar day.
 
嫦娥四号着陆器和“玉兔二号”巡视器顺利自主唤醒,进入第十一月昼
The No. 4 Lander and the Yutu-2 rover were successfully awakened and entered the eleventh lunar day

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中国探月工程 10-23 08:21
China lunar exploration project 10-23 08:21

嫦娥四号着陆器顺利通过第十个月夜极低温考验,于2019年10月23日5时11分自主唤醒,进入第十一月昼工作期。目前,平台工况正常,能量平衡,地面各测控站和中心数据接收及处理正常。搭载月表中子及辐射剂量探测仪、低频射电频谱仪等科学载荷将陆续开机,继续进行科学探测工作。
The No. 4 lander successfully passed the tenth lunar night extremely low temperature test and autonomously awakened at 5:11 on October 23, 2019, entering the eleventh lunar day of work. At present, the working conditions of the platform are normal, the energy is balanced, and the data receiving and processing to the ground monitoring and control canter and stations are normal. Scientific loads such as lunar neutrons and radiation dose detectors, low-frequency radio spectrum analyzers will be restarted, and scientific exploration will continue.

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“玉兔二号”巡视器已于2019年10月22日11时45分成功自主唤醒。经地面应用系统对传回数据分析,搭载全景相机、测月雷达、中性原子探测仪状态良好,红外成像光谱仪红外波段数据正常。在本月昼工作期,玉兔二号月球车将按规划路线开展定点探测,继续开展包括月表形貌、物质组成和浅表层结构探测等科学探测任务。“玉兔二号”巡视器在十个月昼工作期累计行走289.769米。
The Yutu-2 rover was successfully awakened at 11:45 on October 22, 2019. According to the ground-based application system analysis of the returned data, the panoramic camera, the moon-ground penetrating radar, and the neutral atomic detector are all in good condition, and the infrared imaging data of the infrared imaging spectrometer is normal. For the working period of this lunar day, the Yutu-2 lunar rover will carry out fixed-point detection according to the planned route, and continue to carry out scientific exploration tasks including moon surface morphology, material composition and lunar stratum exploration. The Yutu-2 rover has so far traversed a total of 289.769 meters during the tenth lunar day working period.

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后续,地面操作人员将继续严密规划,精心操作,确保“玉兔二号”走的更远,取得更多的科学探测数据,进一步揭开月球背面的奥秘,为推动月球科学的持续发展贡献中国智慧、中国方案和中国力量。
In the follow-up, the ground operators will continue to stringently plan and attentively operate to ensure that the Yutu-2 rover would goes further, obtain more scientific detection data, further reveal the mystery on the farside of the moon, and contribute Chinese wisdom, Chinese solution and Chinese effort to promote the sustainable development of lunar science.
 
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嫦娥四号着陆器“玉兔二号”巡视器完成第十一月昼工作进入第十一月夜
6c9bfa25jw1e8qgp5bmzyj2050050aa8.jpg
中国探月工程 11-04 10:28

2019年11月4日凌晨6时15分和5时16分,嫦娥四号着陆器和“玉兔二号”巡视器在顺利完成第十一月昼既定工作之后,分别进入第十一个月夜休眠期,两器将再一次经受14天月夜和零下190多度极低温考验。

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在本月昼工作期,着陆器、巡视器工况正常,搭载的科学载荷陆续完成开机和月面探测,获取大量科学探测数据,又一次出色完成了本次科学探测任务。目前确认,平台工况正常,能量平衡,地面各测控站和中心数据接收及处理正常。搭载中子及辐射剂量探测仪、低频射电频谱仪、全景相机、测月雷达、中性原子探测仪、红外成像光谱仪等各个设备状态良好,工作正常。在第十一月昼期间,“玉兔二号”月球车对多个探测点开展巡视探测,截止目前,巡视器在着陆器西北方向218.11米,累计行走里程成功突破300米,达到318.621米。

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在本月夜期,科学家除了要对第十一月昼获取的科学探测数据进行处理分析之外,还将根据已获取的巡视器周围的地形地貌环境数据,制定下个月昼的科学探测目标及规划后续巡视路线,多方位、多角度、多领域获取月球背面科学数据。

The No. 4 Lander Yutu-2 rover completes the eleventh lunar day of work and enters the eleventh night
China Lunar Exploration Project 11-04 10:28

At 6:15 am and 5:16 am on November 4, 2019, the No. 4 Lander and the Yutu-2 rover entered eleventh lunar night dormancy respectively after successfully completing the scheduled work in the eleventh lunar day. During the month-night dormancy period, the two devices will once again be subjected to test of 14 days of lunar night of -190 degree celsius ultra-low temperature.

During the working period of this lunar day, the lander and patrol were in normal working condition, and the scientific payloads was successively started for lunar exploration, and obtained a large amount of scientific detection data. It is confirmed that the working conditions of the platform are normal, the energy is balanced, and the data receiving and processing of the ground monitoring and control stations and the center are normal. Equipped with neutron and radiation dose detector, low-frequency radio spectrum analyzer, panoramic camera, moon-ground penetrating radar, neutral atomic detector, infrared imaging spectrometer and other equipment are in good condition and working normally. During the eleventh lunar day, the Yutu-2 lunar rover patrolled multiple detection points. Up to now, the rover has reached 218.11 meters in the northwest of the lander, and the accumulated mileage has successfully exceeded 300 meters, reaching 318.621 meters.

In this lunar night, in addition to processing and analyzing the scientific detection data obtained in the 11th lunar day, scientists will also formulate the scientific detection targets for next lunar day based on the topographical and environmental data surrounding the rover. Plan follow-up patrol routes, obtain scientific data on the farside of the moon from multiple directions, multiple angles, and multiple fields.
 
China's lunar rover discovers mysterious substance on moon's far side
Source: Xinhua| 2019-09-24 14:37:24|Editor: mingmei

BEIJING, Sept. 24 (Xinhua) -- China's lunar rover Yutu-2, or Jade Rabbit-2, discovered an unidentified substance in an impact crater on the far side of the moon.

The discovery was made during Yutu-2's ninth lunar day of exploration on the moon, according to the Lunar Exploration and Space Program Center of the China National Space Administration.

The ground controllers designed a driving route for the rover to allow it to conduct scientific detection to the depth of the impact crater and the distribution of the ejecta, said the center.

"The Yutu-2 rover is expected to bring us more surprises and scientific discoveries," said the center.

The lander of the Chang'e-4 probe and the Yutu-2 rover have resumed work for the 10th lunar day on the far side of the moon after "sleeping" during the extremely cold lunar night.

The lander woke up at 8:26 p.m. Monday, and the rover awoke at 8:30 p.m. Sunday (Beijing Time). Both are in normal working condition, according to the center.

The rover has traveled about 285 meters on the moon to conduct scientific exploration on the virgin territory.

China's Chang'e-4 probe, launched on Dec. 8, 2018, made the first-ever soft landing on the Von Karman Crater in the South Pole-Aitken Basin on the far side of the moon on Jan. 3.

A lunar day equals 14 days on Earth, and a lunar night is the same length. The Chang'e-4 probe switched to a dormant mode during the lunar night due to the lack of solar power.

As a result of the tidal locking effect, the moon's revolution cycle is the same as its rotation cycle, and the same side always faces Earth.

The scientific tasks of the Chang'e-4 mission include low-frequency radio astronomical observation, surveying the terrain and landforms, detecting the mineral composition and shallow lunar surface structure and measuring neutron radiation and neutral atoms.

The Chang'e-4 mission embodies China's hope to combine human wisdom in space exploration with four payloads developed by the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden and Saudi Arabia.

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Olivine-norite rock detected by the lunar rover Yutu-2 likely crystallized from the SPA impact melt pool | National Science Review | Oxford Academic
 

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