China's Space Program News Thread

[escobar]

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

[video=youtube;fdH47GoU238]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdH47GoU238[/video]

The Chang'e-3 lunar probe has started its long-term scientific missions and will have its durability tested when it continues lunar surface surveys, sources with the Beijing Aerospace Control Center said on Thursday. The center transferred operations of the probe to a smaller management team on Wednesday night, said Cui Yan, who leads the team at the center.

"We have made all the hardware and software ready for the long-term control tasks and have developed new management methods," Cui said, noting this is the first time China would operate a lunar probe for as long as one year.

Liu Junqi, one of the chief engineers on Cui's team, said that during the yearlong task the team will coordinate deep-space control stations around the nation to closely monitor the Chang'e-3 lander and the Yutu rover, and to arrange scientific missions on the lunar surface. One of the major responsibilities for the team is to put the lander and rover into sleep mode when the lunar night falls and "awaken them" once the night ends, he said.

One night on the moon lasts about 14 Earth days, during which the temperature falls below minus 180 C and there is no sunlight to provide power for the instruments' solar panels. "The transfer of control marks the successful completion of the probe's first stage of exploration and scientific missions," said a publicity officer at Beijing Aerospace Control Center who refused to be named.

He said under the long-term management mode, the lander and rover do not need a lot of people to take care of them, therefore Cui's team, which has less than 20 people, is able to take over from the current large control group.

"Next, the team will control the probe to perform scientific operations that can last several months. Engineers will test whether the lander and rover can function well over a long period and whether they can live up to their designed life span," the officer added. "During the yearlong period, the team's controllers and engineers will work about 15 consecutive night shifts each month, so this is really a tough job."

The lunar rover Yutu has a designed life span of three months, and the lander is expected to work for one year.

"Accuracy control of the mechanical arm at a distance of 380,000 kilometers has been realized in the probe, marking China's breakthrough in controlling a mechanical arm with high precision on the lunar surface," said Wu Fenglei from the center.

 

[Equation]

The lander's near-ultraviolet telescope has been observing lights from many celestial objects at near ultraviolet wavelengths, and has detected 23 stars. After data analysis and processing, scientists have drafted an atlas of stars around the constellation Draco.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

The radar on the rover has surveyed the moon's surface and collected two sets of data about the structure of lunar soil beneath the surface within 140 meters and 10 meters

That pic sort of makes me think what an Electric-Optical Targeting System (EOTS) on a stealth fighter might looks like.

 

[Jeff Head]

taken the 17/18 December

GREAT pictures.

I especially like this one of the rover taken from the lander. But all of them are excellent.

​

 

[no_name]

I am not sure what these are, looks like containers for something.

 

[usaf0314]

I am not sure what these are, looks like containers for something.

View attachment 9093View attachment 9094

according to the picture, its part of the service tower(rocket umbilical tower)

 

[Quickie]

The lander's near-ultraviolet telescope has been observing lights from many celestial objects at near ultraviolet wavelengths, and has detected 23 stars. After data analysis and processing, scientists have drafted an atlas of stars around the constellation Draco.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

The radar on the rover has surveyed the moon's surface and collected two sets of data about the structure of lunar soil beneath the surface within 140 meters and 10 meters

Shouldn't it be "... detected 23 new stars"? So it should be "...drafted a revised atlas of stars around the constellation Draco."

 

[danielchin]

Shouldn't it be "... detected 23 new stars"? So it should be "...drafted a revised atlas of stars around the constellation Draco."

a photo of new stars only? shouldn't be I think...

 

[Quickie]

Or maybe the 23 stars include newly detected ones. The way it's written, like using the word "detected", sounds like the stars or some of it are newly discovered. It's very possible all the stars are known previously.

 

[TerraN_EmpirE]

NASA, China Meet On Possible Cooperation
By Frank Morring, Jr. [email protected]
Source: AWIN First

January 16, 2014
Credit: CMSA
Top NASA officials took advantage of the recent gathering of space agency chiefs in Washington to look for ways to broaden cooperation with China, including rare direct talks with Chinese space leaders.

More than 30 agency heads met under the auspices of the U.S. State Department and the International Academy of Astronautics Jan. 9-10 to discuss deep-space exploration. The multilateral setting allowed representatives of the U.S. space agency to speak to their Chinese counterparts without violating the U.S. law that forbids cooperation in space between the two countries.

The law was drafted by Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) on national security and human rights grounds. But NASA has cooperated with China on space projects in the past, and Administrator Charles Bolden visited China’s human-spaceflight launch site on an official tour that he was unable to reciprocate after Wolf’s law was enacted as a provision of a NASA appropriations measure.

“We are looking for ways in time to find different ways we can be a partner to them,” Bolden said at the end of the heads-of-agency meeting. “Human spaceflight is not something that’s going to happen with U.S. [and] China in the foreseeable future, because we are forbidden from doing that by law, so let’s just get that out there … That’s not going to change; not today, anyway.”

Wolf, who chairs the House appropriations subcommittee that oversees NASA funding, has said he will not seek re-election this year.

Bolden noted that China is already among the 80-plus nations that “participate” in International Space Station activities, including the cutting-edge science program represented by the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer. Launched on the final space shuttle mission, the AMS uses Chinese superconducting magnets as part of its search for evidence of dark matter from its perch atop the ISS starboard truss. However, it is unlikely that China — which is working toward assembly of its own Mir-class space station in 2018-22 — will be invited to join the ISS partnership of NASA and the space agencies of Russia, Canada, Japan and Europe. Nor will India or other spacefaring nations not already in the partnership become ISS partners.

None of the existing station partners wants to reopen the treaties that set up the partnership to allow new members in, according to Bolden. Drafting them was “painful,” the NASA administrator said, and “nobody wants to do that again.” However, “each member organization is encouraged to reach out and involve other nations as participants,” he told reporters.

Two Chinese space agencies attended the Washington summit – the China National Space Administration (CNSA), a civilian organization that deals primarily with robotic missions, and the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA), a branch of the People’s Liberation Army that controls the Shenzhou crew vehicles and the Tiangong space station development. Bolden met with Xu Dazhe, the newly named CNSA administrator, but not Wang Zhaoyao, director general of the CMSA.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

 

[AssassinsMace]

Beijing should learn the obvious. The only reason this is being discussed is because China is in space and doing it on its own. Going to Mars may be too expensive for China to do it alone but it's not anyone else is going there because of economics and/or politics. What's the point of wanting to be a part of the ISS when it's only going to be operational for another tens years? It's going to be like Galileo and China is there just to soften the costs for everyone else.