Jade Signing Off

[LN400]

I must admit I was unaware that China has had a rover on the moon, going strong way past its expiration date. 31 months when the schedule was 3. Quite the feat! Rest well, rabbit.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-36972205

[magnemoe]

I knew they landed it but I thought they got problems and lost it not long after landing, typical news you know, they got problem this was reported but not that they fixed it. 

[Streetwind]

Huh? As far as I was aware, Yutu suffered a mechanical failure during its first lunar night in January 2014, and was rendered immobile as a result. It had traveled only 114 meters by that time. It did remain partially functional, and transmitted something here and there, but in March 2015 a Chinese researcher stated that "no more data will come" - and he made it sound as if useful transmissions had already ended a while prior to that. (Source)

So "going strong" is probably the wrong way to describe it

This "last goodbye" reported now is more along the lines of an official mission end - they will stop listening for signals or trying to contact the rover. It's been over a year of silence already, after all. No point in continuing to try.

[LN400]

5 minutes ago, Streetwind said:

Huh? As far as I was aware, Yutu suffered a mechanical failure during its first lunar night in January 2014, and was rendered immobile as a result. It had traveled only 114 meters by that time. It did remain partially functional, and transmitted something here and there, but in March 2015 a Chinese researcher stated that "no more data will come" - and he made it sound as if useful transmissions had already ended a while prior to that. (Source)

So "going strong" is probably the wrong way to describe it

This "last goodbye" reported now is more along the lines of an official mission end - they will stop listening for signals or trying to contact the rover. It's been over a year of silence already, after all. No point in continuing to try.

Well, it certainly isn't going strong any longer but still, those projected 3 months were well and truly exceeded in any case. That was really all I meant by it.

[Kryten]

A representative from SASTIND has clarified the situation; the last signals were detected on July 28th (this year), and the vehicle is currently in hibernation for the lunar night. The statement about 'no data' is because the last instrument had ceased to function, but the rover itself has still been functioning.

[wumpus]

Good night bunny.

Edited August 10, 2016 by wumpus
add coffee to editor.

[magnemoe]

9 hours ago, Kryten said:

A representative from SASTIND has clarified the situation; the last signals were detected on July 28th (this year), and the vehicle is currently in hibernation for the lunar night. The statement about 'no data' is because the last instrument had ceased to function, but the rover itself has still been functioning.

Makes sense, it was an official end of mission statement. Pretty common for interplanetary stuff, even an working rover will be left for dead is stuck after you can not get more data. If it has no instruments its dead as an definition. 
One US mars on moon probe was hard killed by having it run out of power as used the same frequency as the follow up, they don't do this anymore. 

[Kryten]

It wasn't an official end-of-mission statement, read the post I linked. This whole thing is from one semi-official Weibo post (effectively Chinese Twitter), which said the mission may be over. That's true, in that this night could kill the vehicle, but that was also true for the last 32 nights.