Jump to content

Moon landing 2013 (Chang'e 3)

czokletmuss

By czokletmuss
in Science & Spaceflight

 Share

Recommended Posts

Faark

Faark

Posted
Posted

Nice visual coverage. Imo a much better than most other launches, including SpaceX's latest. It could be a little better quality (not sure if thats the stream or also the actual content) and they should replace those guy who obviously never before commented a rocket launch.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
czokletmuss

czokletmuss

Posted
  • Author
Posted
The commentators don't know the difference between apogee and perigee...

Exactly my thoughts! "Apogee or the closest point to the Earth" - lol :)

BTW cool idea to install reaction wheels (?) in the 3rd stage so it can turn around and show Earth while it's leaving our planet vicinity.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Lohan2008

Lohan2008

Posted
Posted

The Chang'e-3 rocket carrying the Jade Rabbit rover blasted off around 1.30 am, the CCTV official broadcaster showed in live footage from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in the country's southwest.

As it shot into the dark sky, mission observers could be heard reporting at regular intervals that things were proceeding "normally".

Within an hour the director of the launch centre Zhang Zhenzhong appeared before staff and declared the mission a "success", CCTV showed.

The probe is due to land on the moon in mid-December to explore its surface and look for natural resources. It is the world's third lunar rover mission following the United States and former Soviet Union decades earlier.

Chief probe designer Sun Zezhou hailed the mission as having "great scientific and economic significance", according to the Xinhua state news agency.

"The mission has contributed to the development of a number of space technologies and some of them can be applied in the civilian sector," it paraphrased Sun as saying.

China sees its space program as a symbol of its growing international status and technological advancement, as well as of the Communist Party's success in reversing the fortunes of the once impoverished nation.

It aims to establish a permanent space station by 2020 and eventually send someone to the moon.

Since 2003 it has sent 10 astronauts into space and launched an orbiting space module, Tiangong-1. It also sent probes to orbit the moon in 2007 and 2010.

The first of those intentionally crashed into the moon's surface at the end of its mission.

Data it collected was used to create in 2008 what Xinhua called "the most complete lunar hologram to date".

The second probe was sent to "verify key technology", orbit the moon and take pictures of the landing site in preparation for Chang'e-3, Xinhua said.

After completing that task it was sent into deep space to monitor an asteroid.

The latest mission would bolster scientific knowledge as well as national pride, said Morris Jones, an independent space analyst based in Australia.

"The Chinese are making rapid advances in spaceflight," he said. "They're going to get a lot of prestige out of this mission."

The moon remains "largely unexplored", Jones added, so "I expect that the Chinese rover will probably throw a few surprises our way scientifically".

The rover's name Jade Rabbit, or "Yutu", was chosen in an online poll of 3.4 million voters.

It comes from an ancient Chinese myth about a rabbit living on the moon as the pet of Chang'e, a lunar goddess who swallowed an immortality pill.

The vehicle can climb slopes of up to 30 degrees and travel at 200m per hour, according to its designer, the Shanghai Aerospace Systems Engineering Research Institute.

Unlike earlier American and Soviet versions, the Chang'e-3 could "accurately survey landforms at the landing site and identify the safest spots on which to land", Xinhua has said.

China was able to improve on earlier rovers by incorporating technology developed in recent decades, said Jones.

These included optical navigation systems which could provide pictures to warn of unsafe landing spots, whereas American and Soviet rovers could only rely on radar to gauge their distance from the ground, he said.

The mission had generated anticipation in recent days, with users of Sina Weibo, China's version of Twitter, vowing to stay up to watch the live coverage.

"The news on TV about Chang'e 3 has made me incredibly proud," one commenter said ahead of the launch.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Cesrate

Cesrate

Posted
Posted

In fact it won't be very surprising if the landing were failed, as there's too many new techs. As for races, China won't be interested in pointless space races, at least for now. And moon landing will also not change the distribution of major forces to the space(US, Russian, China and SpaceX), and their aims.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
This thread is quite old. Please consider starting a new thread rather than reviving this one.

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
 Share
Go to topic listing
×
×
  • Create New...