ApolloHoax.net

Off Topic => General Discussion => Topic started by: Dalhousie on December 11, 2018, 02:34:44 AM

Title: Chang'e 4
Post by: Dalhousie on December 11, 2018, 02:34:44 AM
Mildly surprised that that nobody has mentioned the Chan'e 4 mission currently  on the way to the moon for the first landing attempt since the successful Chang'e 3 landing in 2013.

Chang'e 4 will attempt a lunar far side landing and deploy a rover.  There is also a relay satellite in EM-L2, Quegiao, already in place.  This nice little video shows the whole mission sequence https://pbs.twimg.com/ext_tw_video_thumb/1071741340134850560/pu/img/kXwG9c9d_iYtGVjd?format=jpg&name=small

The launch video can be viewed at
Title: Re: Chang'e 4
Post by: onebigmonkey on December 11, 2018, 02:22:25 PM
Very much looking forward to seeing how this turns out. China will have boots on the ground before long.
Title: Re: Chang'e 4
Post by: bknight on December 11, 2018, 04:04:02 PM
Very much looking forward to seeing how this turns out. China will have boots on the ground before long.

At least someone is forward looking.  :(
Title: Re: Chang'e 4
Post by: raven on December 12, 2018, 02:25:26 AM
Well, congrats to the scientists and engineers involved. I wish them all the best on this venture. I can't wait to see the results!
Title: Re: Chang'e 4
Post by: Peter B on December 12, 2018, 08:19:48 AM
And the great thing about sending spacecraft to the Moon: you don't have to wait months or years for them to get there.
Title: Re: Chang'e 4
Post by: QuietElite on December 12, 2018, 12:01:05 PM
I can already see the CT's hand-waving again because China won't find a Apollo landing site on the far side of the moon  ::)
Title: Re: Chang'e 4
Post by: Dalhousie on December 14, 2018, 11:48:07 PM
Now in lunar orbit http://www.planetary.org/blogs/guest-blogs/2018/change-4-lunar-orbit.html
Title: Re: Chang'e 4
Post by: molesworth on December 19, 2018, 01:10:17 PM
I can already see the CT's hand-waving again because China won't find a Apollo landing site on the far side of the moon  ::)
Of course not - they've gone there to photograph all the alien bases...  8)
Title: Re: Chang'e 4
Post by: Dalhousie on December 20, 2018, 05:20:18 AM
Link by the Queqiao relay satellite in L2 established.  Artcie also has a lovely photo of the Earth and the Moon from a Saudi camera onboard one of the accompanying cubesats

https://gbtimes.com/change-4-lander-makes-contact-with-queqiao-relay-satellite-from-lunar-orbit
Title: Re: Chang'e 4
Post by: Dalhousie on January 02, 2019, 02:23:09 AM
Landing attempt in the next few hours https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2019/01/chinas-change-4-spacecraft-will-land-on-dark-side-of-the-moon-in-the-next-60-hours.html
Title: Re: Chang'e 4
Post by: molesworth on January 02, 2019, 06:52:30 AM
Landing attempt in the next few hours https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2019/01/chinas-change-4-spacecraft-will-land-on-dark-side-of-the-moon-in-the-next-60-hours.html
Thanks for the update.  It's an exciting few days, between Chang'e 4 and New Horizons  :)
Title: Re: Chang'e 4
Post by: bknight on January 03, 2019, 07:23:38 AM
First image from the far side of the Moon after lander touched down.  Congratulations to the China Space Agency.

https://www.space.com/42883-china-first-landing-moon-far-side.html
Title: Re: Chang'e 4
Post by: onebigmonkey on January 03, 2019, 08:55:00 AM
I managed to match the area on the landing sequence they've released with the LRO imagery:

(http://i64.tinypic.com/2wedu3c.jpg)

The coordinates in the centre are -45.4564, 177.5963.
Title: Re: Chang'e 4
Post by: bknight on January 03, 2019, 12:15:51 PM
I managed to match the area on the landing sequence they've released with the LRO imagery:

(http://i64.tinypic.com/2wedu3c.jpg)

The coordinates in the centre are -45.4564, 177.5963.

Kinda in the SW corner area with one medium crater leading to three more in a NE direction?
Title: Re: Chang'e 4
Post by: Dalhousie on January 03, 2019, 04:31:32 PM
Good report here, note it uses Chang'e 3 images to illustrate surface operations, presumably because it was written before the rabbit escaped it's hutch.

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2019/01/china-returning-moon-change-4-mission/
Title: Re: Chang'e 4
Post by: Dalhousie on January 03, 2019, 04:32:41 PM
Good forum discussing surface operations here https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=47004.200
Title: Re: Chang'e 4
Post by: Dalhousie on January 08, 2019, 03:43:10 AM
Yutu 2 enters standby mode during lunar noon https://spacenews.com/chinas-lunar-rover-enters-standby-mode-for-noon-nap-as-change-4-tests-continue/
Title: Re: Chang'e 4
Post by: Dalhousie on January 08, 2019, 03:44:27 AM
The usual claims about it being fake are starting to appear, "based" on the "lack of stars", shadows, and the brownish tint to the lunar surface in the images.  So far I have encountered these only on FB.
Title: Re: Chang'e 4
Post by: onebigmonkey on January 08, 2019, 09:52:39 AM
I managed to work out where it was looking:

(http://i63.tinypic.com/34pdu8w.jpg)

and have also done a couple of 3D models of the area it's looking at in the distance, one using Japanese data:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/7je2v4ymzx1vhr5/von%20karman.zip?dl=0

and the other from China’s own data:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/b0m5vb93rgozqkk/von%20karman2.zip?dl=0

Once extracted the files need to be viewed in either Microsoft Edge of Firefox – Chrome doesn’t work. You just need to open the index.html and index2.html files respectively.
Title: Re: Chang'e 4
Post by: bknight on January 08, 2019, 11:47:09 AM
I managed to work out where it was looking:

(http://i63.tinypic.com/34pdu8w.jpg)

and have also done a couple of 3D models of the area it's looking at in the distance, one using Japanese data:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/7je2v4ymzx1vhr5/von%20karman.zip?dl=0

and the other from China’s own data:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/b0m5vb93rgozqkk/von%20karman2.zip?dl=0

Once extracted the files need to be viewed in either Microsoft Edge of Firefox – Chrome doesn’t work. You just need to open the index.html and index2.html files respectively.

Looks very good, but could you leave the arrows and move he rover image toward the bottom of the image to view the landing site?  Or is it SW of the circular object in the SW corner of the image?
Title: Re: Chang'e 4
Post by: Dalhousie on January 08, 2019, 04:22:34 PM
Nice work.  It would be nice to see it in Chrome though.
Title: Re: Chang'e 4
Post by: bobdude11 on January 09, 2019, 12:44:56 PM
I can already see the CT's hand-waving again because China won't find a Apollo landing site on the far side of the moon  ::)
Of course not - they've gone there to photograph all the alien bases...  8)
or at least the Nazi one … https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Sky
Title: Re: Chang'e 4
Post by: onebigmonkey on January 09, 2019, 01:30:15 PM
Nice work.  It would be nice to see it in Chrome though.

The old version of the QGIS plugin did work fine in Chrome, and arguably rendered the images to a higher standard as you could specify what resolution you wanted for the output. The newer version is a little easier to handle but has lost a little in the process.
Title: Re: Chang'e 4
Post by: ka9q on January 09, 2019, 07:36:02 PM
I still think it's amazing that until I was a few years old, nobody had any idea what the far side of the moon looked like.  Now we have detailed, high resolution maps of the topography and gravity field, and now even a lander back there.
Title: Re: Chang'e 4
Post by: Dalhousie on January 10, 2019, 02:21:13 AM
I still think it's amazing that until I was a few years old, nobody had any idea what the far side of the moon looked like.  Now we have detailed, high resolution maps of the topography and gravity field, and now even a lander back there.

Now that the infrastructure is in place perhaps we can expect more farside missions from others.

"We will let Queqiao work as long as possible. It could also provide communication for probes from other countries if they intend to explore the moon's far side within the lifetime of the satellite"

http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-01/06/c_137723875.htm
Title: Re: Chang'e 4
Post by: Dalhousie on January 10, 2019, 02:22:27 AM
The rabbit is having a noon time snooze, should wake up today https://www.weibo.com/ttarticle/p/show?id=2309404326646026003185
Title: Re: Chang'e 4
Post by: Dalhousie on January 11, 2019, 05:20:56 AM
The rabbit is awake and capturing panoramas https://gbtimes.com/first-lunar-far-side-panoramas-returned-from-change-4-lander
Title: Re: Chang'e 4
Post by: bknight on January 11, 2019, 03:26:17 PM
Nice smooth video of the landing.

https://staging.space.com/42986-china-far-side-moon-landing-video.html
Title: Re: Chang'e 4
Post by: Dalhousie on January 11, 2019, 08:43:14 PM
At the bottom of this page from the Planetary Soc. is video of Yutu driving on the moon, showing both Ackerman and skid steering. It is, I think, the first video we have of a robotic rover off Earth.

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/jason-davis/change-4-update.html?fbclid=IwAR0dVFg8m5rA0jkJmAe6GnWahFRw8KsdvT-BjbId1f36EohrTJsJJGrfVBU

Title: Re: Chang'e 4
Post by: onebigmonkey on January 12, 2019, 04:05:27 PM
Wow.

Just wow!
Title: Re: Chang'e 4
Post by: bknight on January 16, 2019, 10:16:22 PM
Wow.

Just wow!

Is the crater that the lander was heading toward just prior to pitch over have a name or is it too small?
Title: Re: Chang'e 4
Post by: Dalhousie on May 16, 2019, 04:54:35 AM
Wow.

Just wow!

Is the crater that the lander was heading toward just prior to pitch over have a name or is it too small?

Possibly Zhinyu
Title: Re: Chang'e 4
Post by: Dalhousie on May 16, 2019, 04:57:31 AM
The Chang'e 4 team published a paper in Nature today describing the discovery of olivine and low calcium pyroxene-rich rocks consistent with them being derived from the lunar mantle. Such rocks have been long predicted from Aiken Basin and were the prime reason for sending the mission there.  Mantle rocks are not represented in the Luna or Apollo samples, or in any lunar meteorites.
Title: Re: Chang'e 4
Post by: bknight on May 16, 2019, 09:00:17 AM
The Chang'e 4 team published a paper in Nature today describing the discovery of olivine and low calcium pyroxene-rich rocks consistent with them being derived from the lunar mantle. Such rocks have been long predicted from Aiken Basin and were the prime reason for sending the mission there.  Mantle rocks are not represented in the Luna or Apollo samples, or in any lunar meteorites.

Is there a geological/planetary reason that those rocks were not found on the near side of the Moon?
Title: Re: Chang'e 4
Post by: Dalhousie on May 17, 2019, 01:46:14 AM
The Chang'e 4 team published a paper in Nature today describing the discovery of olivine and low calcium pyroxene-rich rocks consistent with them being derived from the lunar mantle. Such rocks have been long predicted from Aiken Basin and were the prime reason for sending the mission there.  Mantle rocks are not represented in the Luna or Apollo samples, or in any lunar meteorites.

Is there a geological/planetary reason that those rocks were not found on the near side of the Moon?

The reason for the South Pole-Aiken Basin being associated with olivine and other mantle related minerals  is because it is the largest (2,500 km) and currently deepest (13 km) impact basin. Its transient depth may have been as much as 200 km. Thus it is thought to have excavated deep into the mantle. The SPAB has been infilled over the Aeons, so the best place to look for mantle rocks is along the walls, and of course in the ejecta.

Some smaller near side impacts may have done also, because of the lesser crustal thickness.  Kaguya mission data shows that Mare Crisium in particular has olivine rich, and thus possibly mantle derived, material along its rim.  But because of its depth of excavation the SPAB has always been the preferred site for investigations.A preference the Chang'e 4 team appear to have vindicated.

Title: Re: Chang'e 4
Post by: bknight on May 17, 2019, 09:27:32 AM
Ok on the big impact, but another question came to me yesterday, didn't the guys find an olivine rock during A15? The so called genesis rock?
Title: Re: Chang'e 4
Post by: raven on May 19, 2019, 04:15:38 AM
Ok on the big impact, but another question came to me yesterday, didn't the guys find an olivine rock during A15? The so called genesis rock?
According to this report (https://curator.jsc.nasa.gov/lunar/lsc/15415.pdf) at least, the Genesis Rock only contained trace amounts of olivine, if that, at least  from my reading.
Title: Re: Chang'e 4
Post by: Dalhousie on May 19, 2019, 11:56:10 PM
Ok on the big impact, but another question came to me yesterday, didn't the guys find an olivine rock during A15? The so called genesis rock?

That was anorthosite, which is from the primordial crust, not the mantle.