Chang'e-6 lunar mission

[Galactic Penguin SST]

First images from the landing as shown at the scientific instruments control room at the National Astronomical Observatories of China (NAOC):

[Phil Stooke]

Ending with a great landing video.  Four attempts, four successes (five if you count Mars, and that's just the landers).  Well done everybody involved.

[Galactic Penguin SST]

Ending with a great landing video.  Four attempts, four successes (five if you count Mars, and that's just the landers).  Well done everybody involved.

https://twitter.com/Cosmic_Penguin/status/1797102131838947509
https://twitter.com/Cosmic_Penguin/status/1797102290459050065

[FutureSpaceTourist]

[Liss]

From the video, I'd say that 154.4W may be close to real, but the latitude was somewhat like 41.65N.

[starbase]

Exact landing coordinates have been found to be 153.98545° W, 41.63839° S.

https://twitter.com/Cosmic_Penguin/status/1797162892036583903

[Blackstar]

Ending with a great landing video.  Four attempts, four successes (five if you count Mars, and that's just the landers).  Well done everybody involved.

It is clearly a well-resourced program. Funding and testing. I really like their methodical approach of building on each mission and adding something new.

[tolis]

Hopefully, there will be some surface images too.
From the video, it appeared CE6 landed next to a field of ejecta blocks from a nearby crater.
The lack of scale makes it difficult to judge absolute sizes though, the crater (and blocks) could be quite small.

[Targeteer]

I have this memory that when they did CE-3 they broadcast in real time. Is that true? Now they don't want to do anything live?

A cynic might say they didn't want to broadcast a failure live.

[Spiceman]

Ending with a great landing video.  Four attempts, four successes (five if you count Mars, and that's just the landers).  Well done everybody involved.

It is clearly a well-resourced program. Funding and testing. I really like their methodical approach of building on each mission and adding something new.

As was the Soviet planetary program... a long time ago (40 years ? 50 years ?). When there was a) a strong political will b) to provide funding aplenty and c) an authoritarian streak to level any opposition...
(nota bene: I'm not advocating authoritarian regimes as more effective than democracy to achieve space goals).

[Svetoslav]

Still, we can't compare the old Soviet practice and the modern Chinese one. The Soviets didn't have live broadcasts, yes, but they also didn't announce the launches in advance, the purpose and schemes of their spacecraft, the missions, the scientific goals. Images were published rarely, if they served the Soviet propaganda.

With the exception of lack of live broadcasts, none of this is true for China. We have much more information available, including videos and imagery. Not enough to satisfy me, of course, but enough to keep me engaged.

[otisbow]

If you understand Chinese (I don't), you can Google CCTV-13 and watch Chinese programming live.

[JSz]

Still, we can't compare the old Soviet practice and the modern Chinese one. The Soviets didn't have live broadcasts, yes, but they also didn't announce the launches in advance, the purpose and schemes of their spacecraft, the missions, the scientific goals. Images were published rarely, if they served the Soviet propaganda.

With the exception of lack of live broadcasts, none of this is true for China. We have much more information available, including videos and imagery. Not enough to satisfy me, of course, but enough to keep me engaged.

Above all, failed missions were never admitted in Soviet programmes - this is a crucial difference from the Chinese programmes. There were indeed many, if not most, such failed missions, generally due to the failure of the booster rocket or the inability to leave LEO. Their hiding was made possible by the fact that the missions were never announced and were only disclosed when the probe was already on its way to its destination.

These unsuccessful missions were later camouflaged under the names Cosmos or Sputnik (if they entered Earth orbit, because then it was no longer possible to hide them, at most to disguise their original destination).

[Dalhousie]

I have this memory that when they did CE-3 they broadcast in real time. Is that true? Now they don't want to do anything live?

A cynic might say they didn't want to broadcast a failure live.

Maybe, but Chang'e 3 landing was broadcast live.

[zubenelgenubi]

Moderator to Dalhousie:
Character assassination of Anatoly Zak deleted.

Ad hominem posts regarding fellow members deleted, including the crack about sinophobia.

You really are a broken record.  Stop.

Or post elsewhere.

[Blackstar]

Andrew Jones has been following this on Twitter. If you have access to Twitter, then following him is a good way to get updates:

https://twitter.com/AJ_FI/status/1797140700816986609

[Galactic Penguin SST]

I saw rumors that the ascent stage should launch from the lunar surface into orbit late today UTC, in line with previous reports that the surface operations is planned for ~48 hours, just like Chang'e 5.

No status updates for today so far except for an official Weibo account for Chang'e 6 being released today, quoted by state media.

[Blackstar]

https://www.leonarddavid.com/chinas-moon-lander-preparing-to-haul-back-the-goods/

[Galactic Penguin SST]

This just in: CNSA reported that the ascent stage has launched from the lunar surface at 23:38 UTC and successfully entered a 15 x 180 km lunar orbit after its 3000N main engine fired for 6 minutes.

As with Chang'e 5 the lander did have a national flag deployed on its side.

[Phil Stooke]

https://m.weibo.cn/search?containerid=231522type%3D1%26t%3D10%26q%3D%23%E5%AB%A6%E5%A8%A5%E5%85%AD%E5%8F%B7%E6%9C%88%E8%83%8C%E6%8C%96%E5%AE%9D%E5%AE%9E%E5%86%B5%E7%BA%AA%E5%BD%95%23&extparam=%23%E5%AB%A6%E5%A8%A5%E5%85%AD%E5%8F%B7%E6%9C%88%E8%83%8C%E6%8C%96%E5%AE%9D%E5%AE%9E%E5%86%B5%E7%BA%AA%E5%BD%95%23&luicode=20000061&lfid=5041449899393061

That horrible search result leads to a downloadable video of sampling operations.