Chang'e 5

[Obviousman]

0200 in the morning for me; I'll wait for the replay...

[ka9q]

Several amateur tracking stations are also following the flight. Scott Tilley (twitter @coastal8049) and Daniel Estévez (@ea4gpz) have made impressive strides in understanding the orbital maneuvers and telemetry format, respectively.

[Dalhousie]

Several amateur tracking stations are also following the flight. Scott Tilley (twitter @coastal8049) and Daniel Estévez (@ea4gpz) have made impressive strides in understanding the orbital maneuvers and telemetry format, respectively.

With considerable accuracy too.  Some have successfully downloaded engineering imagery being transmitted

[raven]

Makes a nice inadvertent Birthday Present for moi,  the landing* happening on my birthday.
*fingers, toes , and eyes crossed

[molesworth]

Makes a nice inadvertent Birthday Present for moi,  the landing* happening on my birthday.
*fingers, toes , and eyes crossed

Excellent.  Happy Birthday to you! Have a great day of it :-)

[Dalhousie]

Timeline here, spanish and english, countdowns should update to your local time zone

http://win98.altervista.org/space/exploration/change5countdown.html

[molesworth]

Excellent!  A successful landing - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-55148998

I was hoping there would be a live stream, but I guess they maybe decided against it in case of a failure.  I'm hoping they might show the sampling and lift-off though, as they should be less risky.

[JayUtah]

Timeline here, spanish and english, countdowns should update to your local time zone

http://win98.altervista.org/space/exploration/change5countdown.html

Italian, actually.  I speak Italian fairly fluently, and it surprising me there's no translation for things such as "phasing burn."

[bknight]

Seems to have landed today to begin the drilling/scooping operations.

[Dalhousie]

Seems to have landed today to begin the drilling/scooping operations.

Live broadcast of sample collection attempt begins in two hours

[Dalhousie]

edited highlights of scoop operation and sample deposition into container https://weibo.com/tv/v/4577649704763404

Stop motion footage of drill https://weibo.com/tv/v/4577643832737843

[Dalhousie]

BEIJING, Dec. 2 (Xinhua) -- China's Chang'e-5 probe has collected moon samples, the China National Space Administration (CNSA) announced Wednesday.

The lander-ascender combination of Chang'e-5 has finished the tasks of moon sample drilling and packaging at 4:53 a.m. Wednesday.

It is gathering samples from the surface as planned.

After successfully landing on the near side of the moon late Tuesday, the Chang'e-5 probe carried out preparation work including unfolding solar wings.

The probe adopts two methods of moon sampling, including using drills to collect samples and gathering samples from the surface with a mechanical arm.

http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2020-12/02/c_139557795.htm

[Peter B]

I'm curious to see how they store the drill samples - pointing out the difficulty of doing that robotically has long been part of my process of explaining how we know the Apollo samples were collected by people and not robots.

[Zakalwe]

I'm curious to see how they store the drill samples - pointing out the difficulty of doing that robotically has long been part of my process of explaining how we know the Apollo samples were collected by people and not robots.

I always considered it to be a question of scale. Robotically collected Lunar samples were returned to Earth by the Soviets in the 1970s.. However they collected something like 380 grams. The Apollo samples had a total mass of three orders of magnitude higher.

[Peter B]

I'm curious to see how they store the drill samples - pointing out the difficulty of doing that robotically has long been part of my process of explaining how we know the Apollo samples were collected by people and not robots.

I always considered it to be a question of scale. Robotically collected Lunar samples were returned to Earth by the Soviets in the 1970s.. However they collected something like 380 grams. The Apollo samples had a total mass of three orders of magnitude higher.

Sorry, I meant specifically the drill samples. They're talking about drilling down 2 metres. So does that mean they're planning to somehow shoehorn a 2 metre sample tube into their ascent vehicle, or drill out shorter segments, or something else? Apollo 15 drilled down a little further, and it's been easy to explain how it simply wasn't practical for the robot technology of the time to retrieve such a long sample and transport it back to Earth - hence the need for astronauts.

So how is Chang'e 5 going to do something which required people at the time of Apollo?