Cosmic Penguin
Geek Penguin in GTO
"Hi Artemis, it's been a long time!": China's Chang'e 3 lunar landing mission
Most members here will probably be familiar of the very long time lunar landing gap since Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt stepped on the Moon in December 1972, one that is still being lengthened and mourned by spaceflight fans worldwide. Yet there is another "lunar gap" that has an even more significance, only slightly shorter and not so well known.
Many of you guys may have tried to land something on the Moon in Orbiter, but do you know that no man made object has made a non-destructive landing (or has been working on the surface) on our nearest cosmic neighbor since the Luna 24 sample return unit fired towards Siberia in August 1976, 36.5 years ago?
h: Despite a renaissance of lunar science missions in the past decade, no probe has made the journey through the last dozens of kilometers to the Moon surface.
Until now.
As destiny has fallen, the burden to end the 37 year long drought of lunar surface in-situ research fell to the Chinese. And they certainly make this a pretty big affair - they are bringing a large lander and a medium sized rover to the lunar surface!
In late 2013 (probably October, although this definitely isn't concrete yet) the pair of robots will head for Brighton Beach, errr actually a few dozen kilometers east of where it should be, on a lava-filled old crater basin that has the rather intriguing name of Sinus Iridum (the Bay of Rainbows). The lander will use the conventional method of thrusting and hovering to gently lower its altitude until it touches down on the lunar surface about three days after departing the hills of south-western China. After it touches down, the rover will roll down the lander ramp and explore around the landing site for what will hopefully be a fruitful year on the Moon.
Both the lander and the rover carries interesting equipment: other than the standard ones (cameras on both, plus a soil probe on the lander, infrared and x-ray spectrometers on the rover), some of them will try out unprecedented observation from the lunar surface. On the lander there is a telescope operating in the near ultraviolet range that will attempt the first astronomical observation of celestial objects from the lunar surface on a prolonged basis, as well as another ultraviolet spectrometer that will observe the Earth's ionosphere and magnetic field variations from a lunar perspective. On the rover there is also a ground penetration radar that will probe the lunar surface and soil structure down to several hundred meters deep.
Both of them have almost completed all preliminary testing, and final integration has already begun. Let's hope that this is only just the beginning of continuous lunar surface exploration for a long, long time!
(although those teams trying to shoot for the Google Lunar X-prize may be unhappy about that, because if CE-3 successfully lands on the Moon their awards will be cut by half! None of the teams are ready for the lunar shot until late next year)
As this is an updates thread, I'll provide these links for some early reading:
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=26848.0
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chang%27e_3
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=3105
Good luck!
Most members here will probably be familiar of the very long time lunar landing gap since Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt stepped on the Moon in December 1972, one that is still being lengthened and mourned by spaceflight fans worldwide. Yet there is another "lunar gap" that has an even more significance, only slightly shorter and not so well known.
Many of you guys may have tried to land something on the Moon in Orbiter, but do you know that no man made object has made a non-destructive landing (or has been working on the surface) on our nearest cosmic neighbor since the Luna 24 sample return unit fired towards Siberia in August 1976, 36.5 years ago?
h: Despite a renaissance of lunar science missions in the past decade, no probe has made the journey through the last dozens of kilometers to the Moon surface.Until now.
As destiny has fallen, the burden to end the 37 year long drought of lunar surface in-situ research fell to the Chinese. And they certainly make this a pretty big affair - they are bringing a large lander and a medium sized rover to the lunar surface!
In late 2013 (probably October, although this definitely isn't concrete yet) the pair of robots will head for Brighton Beach, errr actually a few dozen kilometers east of where it should be, on a lava-filled old crater basin that has the rather intriguing name of Sinus Iridum (the Bay of Rainbows). The lander will use the conventional method of thrusting and hovering to gently lower its altitude until it touches down on the lunar surface about three days after departing the hills of south-western China. After it touches down, the rover will roll down the lander ramp and explore around the landing site for what will hopefully be a fruitful year on the Moon.
Both the lander and the rover carries interesting equipment: other than the standard ones (cameras on both, plus a soil probe on the lander, infrared and x-ray spectrometers on the rover), some of them will try out unprecedented observation from the lunar surface. On the lander there is a telescope operating in the near ultraviolet range that will attempt the first astronomical observation of celestial objects from the lunar surface on a prolonged basis, as well as another ultraviolet spectrometer that will observe the Earth's ionosphere and magnetic field variations from a lunar perspective. On the rover there is also a ground penetration radar that will probe the lunar surface and soil structure down to several hundred meters deep.
Both of them have almost completed all preliminary testing, and final integration has already begun. Let's hope that this is only just the beginning of continuous lunar surface exploration for a long, long time!
(although those teams trying to shoot for the Google Lunar X-prize may be unhappy about that, because if CE-3 successfully lands on the Moon their awards will be cut by half! None of the teams are ready for the lunar shot until late next year)
As this is an updates thread, I'll provide these links for some early reading:
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=26848.0
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chang%27e_3
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=3105
Good luck!
