Chang'e 4

[Dalhousie]

Good forum discussing surface operations here https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=47004.200

[Dalhousie]

Yutu 2 enters standby mode during lunar noon https://spacenews.com/chinas-lunar-rover-enters-standby-mode-for-noon-nap-as-change-4-tests-continue/

[Dalhousie]

The usual claims about it being fake are starting to appear, "based" on the "lack of stars", shadows, and the brownish tint to the lunar surface in the images.  So far I have encountered these only on FB.

[onebigmonkey]

I managed to work out where it was looking:



and have also done a couple of 3D models of the area it's looking at in the distance, one using Japanese data:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/7je2v4ymzx1vhr5/von%20karman.zip?dl=0

and the other from China’s own data:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/b0m5vb93rgozqkk/von%20karman2.zip?dl=0

Once extracted the files need to be viewed in either Microsoft Edge of Firefox – Chrome doesn’t work. You just need to open the index.html and index2.html files respectively.

[bknight]

I managed to work out where it was looking:



and have also done a couple of 3D models of the area it's looking at in the distance, one using Japanese data:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/7je2v4ymzx1vhr5/von%20karman.zip?dl=0

and the other from China’s own data:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/b0m5vb93rgozqkk/von%20karman2.zip?dl=0

Once extracted the files need to be viewed in either Microsoft Edge of Firefox – Chrome doesn’t work. You just need to open the index.html and index2.html files respectively.

Looks very good, but could you leave the arrows and move he rover image toward the bottom of the image to view the landing site?  Or is it SW of the circular object in the SW corner of the image?

[Dalhousie]

Nice work.  It would be nice to see it in Chrome though.

[bobdude11]

I can already see the CT's hand-waving again because China won't find a Apollo landing site on the far side of the moon 

Of course not - they've gone there to photograph all the alien bases... 

or at least the Nazi one … https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Sky

[onebigmonkey]

Nice work.  It would be nice to see it in Chrome though.

The old version of the QGIS plugin did work fine in Chrome, and arguably rendered the images to a higher standard as you could specify what resolution you wanted for the output. The newer version is a little easier to handle but has lost a little in the process.

[ka9q]

I still think it's amazing that until I was a few years old, nobody had any idea what the far side of the moon looked like.  Now we have detailed, high resolution maps of the topography and gravity field, and now even a lander back there.

[Dalhousie]

I still think it's amazing that until I was a few years old, nobody had any idea what the far side of the moon looked like.  Now we have detailed, high resolution maps of the topography and gravity field, and now even a lander back there.

Now that the infrastructure is in place perhaps we can expect more farside missions from others.

"We will let Queqiao work as long as possible. It could also provide communication for probes from other countries if they intend to explore the moon's far side within the lifetime of the satellite"

http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-01/06/c_137723875.htm

[Dalhousie]

The rabbit is having a noon time snooze, should wake up today https://www.weibo.com/ttarticle/p/show?id=2309404326646026003185

[Dalhousie]

The rabbit is awake and capturing panoramas https://gbtimes.com/first-lunar-far-side-panoramas-returned-from-change-4-lander

[bknight]

Nice smooth video of the landing.

https://staging.space.com/42986-china-far-side-moon-landing-video.html

[Dalhousie]

At the bottom of this page from the Planetary Soc. is video of Yutu driving on the moon, showing both Ackerman and skid steering. It is, I think, the first video we have of a robotic rover off Earth.

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/jason-davis/change-4-update.html?fbclid=IwAR0dVFg8m5rA0jkJmAe6GnWahFRw8KsdvT-BjbId1f36EohrTJsJJGrfVBU

[onebigmonkey]

Wow.

Just wow!