Author Topic: LIVE: Chang'e-3 lunar probe and rover Lunar Landing December 14, 2013  (Read 717771 times)

Offline Blackstar

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Offline Phillip Clark

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Tomorrow, December 14th, 2014, it will be a year since Chang'E 3 landed on the Moon and the Chinese are still in contact with it and Yutu - although Yutu has been stuck since early this year.

That means that this is the longest-lasting unmanned lunar surface mission.   Congratulations to China!
I've always been crazy but it's kept me from going insane - WJ.

Offline savuporo

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That means that this is the longest-lasting unmanned lunar surface mission.   Congratulations to China!
..are you saying that a manned mission has lasted longer ? Apollo retroreflectors!

:)
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Offline Phillip Clark

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That means that this is the longest-lasting unmanned lunar surface mission.   Congratulations to China!
..are you saying that a manned mission has lasted longer ? Apollo retroreflectors!
:)

I deliberately said "unmanned" because the ALSEP and EALSEP packages were part of the manned programme and deployed by humans.
I've always been crazy but it's kept me from going insane - WJ.

Offline savuporo

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yep, I figured. they get you every time

http://xkcd.com/1441/


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Offline Phil Stooke

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Do we really know they are still in contact?  There was no evidence of communication from this source:


7 December 2014:

UHF Satcom
‏@uhf_satcom   Once again, nothing from the Moon re: Yutu and Chang'e'3 - only thermal noise detected, and no signs of the 7GHz uplink via EME ;-(

(and previous tweets over the preceding month or more)


Phil

Offline Dalhousie

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If you are going to include retroreflectors then the Lunokhods are still active.
Apologies in advance for any lack of civility - it's unintended

Offline Phillip Clark

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If the Chinese were in contact with Chang'e 3 and/or Yutu after mid-October then they broke the Lunokhod 1 duration record.   I thought that we still had some low level contact with Chang'E.
I've always been crazy but it's kept me from going insane - WJ.

Offline plutogno

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and an update on the mission. seems to be still alive...
Chang’e-3 lander continues work after finishing scheduled tasks

Offline plutogno

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meanwhile, as linked on unmannedspaceflight.com, there has been a release of assorted lander and rover pics
http://moon.bao.ac.cn/multimedia/img2dce3.jsp

Offline savuporo

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Also, Chinese Chang'e data release system ( i.e. their PDS ) at http://moon.bao.ac.cn seemed to be down for a while, but now i noticed some Chang'e-3 specific pages are up

http://moon.bao.ac.cn/ceweb/datasrv/datalistce3.jsp
Seem to be published only over last few days. Not sure if you can actually access any without explicit access request/permission.
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Offline Bob Shaw

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Here's a panorama I've created using what looks to me like lander images showing the nearby crater. I've slightly enhanced the exposure, and marginally sharpened it. This panorama is a quick and dirty Autostitch version, and I will shortly post a full-resolution one made with Stitcher 2009.

The panorama displays the 'Surveyor 7' problem if you look closely (as do all the Chinese-generated panoramas issued to date, with exposure marginally lighter on one side of each image, resulting in a vertical stripe effect across the whole sequence). I will play with Photoshop to see if this can be corrected.

Interestingly, the original images at http://moon.bao.ac.cn/multimedia/img2dce3.jsp reveal a series of hot pixels in the images, all in the same places across the swathe of images. It'd be interesting to chart their progression as time elapsed - presumably, there were more and more damaged elements on the sensor.
« Last Edit: 12/22/2014 08:44 pm by Chris Bergin »

Offline Bob Shaw

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Wish You Were Here

Here's a first stab at a 3D anaglyph from the images; there are also several which look like they'd make happy little jerky animations.

« Last Edit: 12/22/2014 08:44 pm by Chris Bergin »

Offline Bob Shaw

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And here's a slightly de-fisheyed version of the HazCam (I presume) image:

Offline savuporo

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By the way:
http://www.lsgi.polyu.edu.hk/staff/Bo.Wu/publications/Wu_2014_CE-3%20Landing%20Site%20Mapping%20and%20Analysis.pdf

Found this from Bo Wu's website here : http://www.lsgi.polyu.edu.hk/staff/Bo.Wu/
According to the research history he got to practice a bit with ExoMars and LRO, before figuring out Chang'e-3

There is also this one that details post-integration of landing camera images into the local topographic map
http://www.int-arch-photogramm-remote-sens-spatial-inf-sci.net/XL-4/157/2014/isprsarchives-XL-4-157-2014.pdf
Quote
CE-3 began to descent from the lunar orbit at an altitude of around 15 km, and when it was about 2 km above the lunar surface, the descent camera fixed at the bottom of CE-3 started to take images. During the descending phase, hovering and obstacle avoidance and landing phase (see Figure 4), CE-3
descent camera acquired totally 4,672 images with a resolution  higher than 1 m within an area of 1*1 km and as high as 0.1 m within a range of 50 m from the landing point (Liu et al. 2014).

EDIT: and one more, attached. Talking about Chinese version of Delta-DOR tracking technique they are using ( Related Chang'e-3 abstract here )


« Last Edit: 12/23/2014 12:47 am by savuporo »
Orion - the first and only manned not-too-deep-space craft

Offline Bob Shaw

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Having looked long and hard at the anaglyph I created, I see little in the way of 3D, sad to say...

My first attempt at a *big* Stitcher 2009 panorama failed, as the program requires source images of the same dimensions. I found it impossible to directly download the images from the Chinese website, so had to grab the pictures from the screen, resulting in slight image size variations. I'll sort that out in the next day or so, and should post a *large* panorama thereafter.

The rocks around the crater rim are quite fascinating - tabular, veined and with striking glints. I wish we could see the full-res images!

Offline Lsquirrel

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Chang'e-3 have took a photo of M101 galaxy on december 2,2014
LUT on Lander  have been working well to the end of  design life(12months/1 year)

Offline plutogno

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CE-3 is pretty much alive and just went into hibernation for the 14th time
http://www.sastind.gov.cn/n112/n117/c467119/content.html


Offline Phillip Clark

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CE-3 is pretty much alive and just went into hibernation for the 14th time
http://www.sastind.gov.cn/n112/n117/c467119/content.html

This makes Chang'E 3 the longest-operating unmanned lunar spacecraft.
I've always been crazy but it's kept me from going insane - WJ.

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