Chinese Moon launch start count down

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Chang'e I set to power up equipment
Last Updated(Beijing Time):2007-11-19 09:04

China's first lunar orbiter Chang'e I will change its posture to get positioned on the moon late Sunday, and activate probing facilities aboard afterwards to get ready for scientific exploration, the China National Space Administration (CNSA) said Sunday.

The satellite has gone through a number of tests since it entered the 127-minute polar circular orbit about 200 km away from the moon's surface on November 7, according to Pei Zhaoyu, the spokesman for CNSA.

"All the tests indicate Chang'e I is working properly," said Pei, "and the satellite is in a very good state."

"The power supply is stable; its posture and temperature is under normal control; and its communication with the earth is smooth," Pei said.

After Monday's maneuvers, the satellite will officially kick off scientific exploration of the moon.

During the process, it will also position its solar panel toward the sun for power generating and the directional antenna towards the Earth to allow data to be transmitted back to the Earth.

The 2,350-kg satellite carried eight probing facilities, including a stereo camera and interferometer, an imager and gamma/X-ray spectrometer, a laser altimeter, a microwave detector, a high energy solar particle detector and a low energy ion detector.

The satellite is expected to relay back its first picture of the moon in late November.

The satellite aims to fulfil four scientific objectives, including a three-dimensional survey of the moon's surface, analysis of the abundance and distribution of elements on lunar surface, an investigation of the characteristics of lunar regolith and the powdery soil layer on the surface, and an exploration of the circumstance between the earth and the moon.

Chang'e I is designed to stay on its final working orbit for one year.

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more details on the lunar orbiter:

Chang'e I begins its exploration work
By Xin Dingding (China Daily)
2007-11-20 07:47

Chang'e I, China's first lunar orbiter, officially began exploring the moon Monday evening, the China National Space Administration (CNSA) said.
Its sensing equipment was due to become operational after the orbiter oriented its solar panel toward the sun so it can generate its own power and swung its directional antenna toward the Earth to transmit data.
The satellite is equipped with a stereo camera and interferometer, an imager and gamma/X-ray spectrometer, a laser altimeter, a microwave detector, a high-energy solar particle detector and a low-energy ion detector.
The satellite is expected to relay back its first pictures of the moon before the end of this month.
Chang'e I will not be able to relay back pictures immediately because scientists will have to take some time tweaking the equipment, Pang Zhihao, a researcher with the China Academy of Space Technology, was quoted by the Shanghai-based Oriental Morning News as saying.
By way of example, he said the aperture of the orbiter's camera will have to be adjusted to light available in space.
Factors such as the distance between the orbiter and the lunar surface will also have to be factored into the process, he said.
Pang said the images taken by Chang'e I will be wider than those snapped by Japan's lunar probe.
Those pictures were released on November 7.
The best of the images captured by Chang'e I will be released to the public before the end of this month, he said.
The satellite entered the 127-minute polar circular orbit about 200 km above the moon's surface on November 7.
It had circled the moon 135 times as of 2 pm on Sunday, CNSA spokesman Pei Zhaoyu said on Sunday.
The orbiter is under direct control for at least 15 hours a day, monitored by tracking stations in Qingdao, Shandong Province, and Kashgar, the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, as well as a station operated by the European Space Agency.
Since Chang'e I entered its present orbit, it has undergone a number of tests to determine whether it is working properly.
The satellite appears to be functioning smoothly.

Xinhua contributed to the story

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from gordonblade@CDF

:china:
Photograph of the moon's surface taken by Chang'e I lunar orbiter:



Source: People's Daily Online

The fuel saved can be used in another way. Move the probe closer to the moon to within, maybe, 100 km and then continue with the experiments and data collections for as long as possible.

Here is an article that says china's first moon photo taken by its lunar probe has a retouching mistake. Let's see what the chinese space officials have to say about this.




MOON PHOTO MYSTERY SOLVED
Posted: Tuesday, December 04, 2007 5:30 PM by Alan Boyle


Some dogged sleuthing by a fellow space blogger has tracked down the truth behind the controversial first photo from China's moon orbiter.

In the week since the picture was released amid much fanfare in Beijing, there have been widespread rumors that the photo was a fake, copied from an old picture collected by a U.S. space probe.

The good news for the Chinese is that Planetary Society blogger Emily Lakdawalla's clears them of outright fakery. The bad news is, she found evidence that the photo was badly retouched for public release.

Lakdawalla's explanation would be embarrassing for Beijing, but it makes the most sense as the solution to this week's moon photo mystery.

Lakdawalla began her investigation by plowing through databases of lunar imagery and dredging up a U.S.-produced picture for comparison. It's not a NASA picture, as reported by the rumor mill. Instead, it's one of the tens of thousands of pictures taken by the Pentagon's Clementine lunar mapping orbiter back in 1994.

The photo from China's Chang'e 1 orbiter is clearly a higher-resolution view, with sunlight streaming from the northwest rather than the north.

"So the notion that China faked their lunar photo can be put to rest. (What is it about the moon and conspiracy theories, anyway?)," Lakdawalla wrote. "At least it certainly isn't a copy of the Clementine image; and it's certainly not a Lunar Orbiter image, either."

Case closed? Not quite.

Lakdawalla found that a mistake was apparently made in stitching together the 19 strips of imagery to produce the finished picture - and that Chinese officials unknowingly pointed out that mistake as they defended the photo's veracity.

The mission's chief scientist, Ouyang Ziyuan, told the Beijing News that a new crater had been spotted on the Chang'e imagery - a crater that didn't appear on the U.S. imagery. Lakdawalla determined that crater in question it wasn't exactly new - instead, it appeared to be a crater that had been moved from one spot on the picture to another spot slightly south.

Lakdawalla, who knows her way around spacecraft photo databases as well as photo-retouching tools, hit upon the likeliest explanation for the gaffe. Often, surface features that show up on two strips of data have to be manually corrected to produce the finished image, due to subtle changes in perspective.

"You know that there should have been seams in that image, and I just did not look for them carefully at the time," Lakdawalla told me today.

She said the Chinese must have blended together the seams between the strips - misplacing the crater. The picture may be pretty, but it's pretty much useless as a scientific product, Lakdawalla said.

The detective work came in for kudos from other space mythbusters. "Go check out her really amazing sleuthing," said Bad Astronomy blogger Phil Plait. "This is how it's done, folks. Case closed!"

NBC News space analyst James Oberg, who has had his own experience with moon-hoax controversies, also saluted Lakdawalla's efforts. Even though the Chinese insist that the first picture from Chang'e is scientifically accurate, Oberg said he expected the Chinese to "be forced to backtrack a bit" once they see the full evidence.

"This isn't the first time that photo problems have created illusory 'moon features,'" Oberg wrote in an e-mail. "The very first Soviet moon photo probe, Luna 3 in 1959, sent back images of the back side that included a view of what Moscow grandiosely called 'the Soviet Mountains,' stretching for hundreds of miles. It turned out to be an emulsion smear on the negative."

"For a 'dead world,' the moon sure continues to offer surprises to explorers," Oberg said, "even if many of the 'surprises' are self-induced flaws in the exploration process!"

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Comments
You know if sapce agencys are stupid enough not to learn from other mistacks they should stay on the ground. all it takes is one stupid blunder like this to throw all the respect for the program into the garbage, if you make a mistack fix it and dont try to hide it
Chris, vernon , B.C. (Sent Tuesday, December 04, 2007 6:28 PM)

It is really lead paint !
Julie Mayfield (Sent Tuesday, December 04, 2007 8:08 PM)

Just another anomoly among the thousands involving our nearest neighbor. NOW will some one please explain to me how the ISLAMIC crescent moon symbol has a star in the dark portion of the moon? Gee, one would naturally think either this bright star imminated from the surface of the Moon or was in SPACE between EARTH and MOON. So just how exactly does the ISLAMIC world explain this curious symbol? Is this religion based on alien artifical intelligence? Whew!
Timothy Bryant (Sent Tuesday, December 04, 2007 8:50 PM)

Hey mistakes are made stitching photos together, especially if you live in a country where poisonous lead is ingested because you have no concern for safety of the population.
Ralph Baum (Sent Tuesday, December 04, 2007 9:17 PM)

I heard they are going to digitally map the entire moon surface so they can do a manned mission. That will be interesting.

The news is no plans yet for a manned moon mission. As for now, they have to prove that they got their moon map right the first time around. The mistake, if it's proven so, can easily be corrected, but you know how things can be turned around according to whomever's agenda, especially those of the media. But, all said, it's not confirm yet.

A 3d picture of the moon surface, generated from Chang'e transmited data. This one is clearer and has more details than the earlier one - a result from having more data to play with?. The 3d pic seems to confirm the mistake of the composite picture. - a trivial mistake that is understandable in the circumtances where few other information or data is available in the beginning. These mistakes can quite easily be spotted and corrected when you have finished collecting and processing the required information /data. Any future mission would of course rely on these more accurate 3d pictures and other technical data rather than just a composite picture.

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False-colored images of moon taken by Chang'e lunar orbiter:



Source: Xinhua

Some updates.

Also click on this main page link to hear a moon song by Faye Wong.




Chang'e I mission may not end with a bang
By Xin Dingding (China Daily)
2007-12-15 08:30


China's first lunar orbiter, Chang'e I, is not likely to crash into the moon at the end of its year-long voyage, as some observers have suggested it might.

An official said on Friday that scientists had come up with several proposals on how to dispose of the lunar satellite at the end of its mission, and two of them are under consideration.

"One is to gradually lower the satellite's orbit from the current 200 km to 100 km, and then 50 km, so we can observe the moon more closely," Hao Xifan, deputy director of the Lunar Exploration Center of the Commission of Science Technology and Industry for National Defense, said at a lecture in Beijing.

The other is to expand the orbit to a level that would enable Chang'e I to observe the whole solar system, he said.

It would be impossible for Chang'e I to fly back to Earth because it does not have enough fuel, he said.

Whatever option scientists choose will depend on the condition of the satellite, he said.

Earlier reports said scientists hoped precise maneuvering might have saved 200 kg of fuel during the satellite's 380,000-km journey to its current orbit, possibly prolonging its lifespan.