Chinese Chang'e-3 Lunar Rover On Its Way After Successful Launch

savuporo writes "The Chang'e-3 lunar probe, which includes the Yutu or Jade Rabbit buggy, blasted off on board an enhanced Long March-3B carrier rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center at 1:30 a.m. (12.30 p.m. EDT). Landing is expected on December 14, at a landing site called Sinus Iridium (the Bay of Rainbows), a relic of a huge crater 258 km in diameter. Coverage of the launch was carried live on CCTV, with youtube copies available."

Comments

Asia is playing catch up

[Taco Cowboy]

While it is true that Asian countries (especially China and India) are playing catch up in the space race, they are catching up pretty quickly.

It is very very true that what India and China are doing the West (and Russia) had done some decades ago.

It is also true that what China is doing (and what India is doing also) is nothing new in the Western standard, one shouldn't stay put just because one's opponents are just beginning to do the "old stuff", or else, one day, the opponent may just have passed you by.

To India and China, congratulation of what you guys are doing !

To the West, please wake the fuck up !

Re:Asia is playing catch up

[Shakrai]

To the West, please wake the fuck up

That won't happen until the Chinese do something we haven't done before, preferably something with implications for national-defense. When that happens there will be a massive panic, followed by determined efforts to rectify the situation. What you're looking for is another Sputnik, and it will be a few decades before the Chinese are there.

For some reason this quote comes to mind: "Americans will always do the right thing, after they've exhausted all other possibilities."

Re:Asia is playing catch up

[CrimsonAvenger]

While it is true that Asian countries (especially China and India) are playing catch up in the space race, they are catching up pretty quickly.

Catching up pretty quickly???

Hmm, first satellite to first unmanned lunar lander (USA): 5 years.

Also USA, first satellite to first manned lunar lander: 12 years.

First satellite to first unmanned lunar lander (China): 43 years.

China is catching up, but it's not doing it quickly - it's doing it at a glacial pace....

Re:Asia is playing catch up

[savuporo]

are playing catch up in the space race, they are catching up pretty quickly.

Chang'e-3 is not playing catch up - its doing many things that "west" has never done. First, only two space agencies have sent probes to land on lunar surfacce before. US never sent a teleoperated rover. Russians did, but 40 years ago with much older set of instruments.

It also carries multiple scientific instruments that have never been used on the lunar surface before ( obviously, because it has been 37 years since anyone bothered to go there ) . Namely, it has a radar underneath it that is intended to scan deep under the surface - this has never been done before. Second, it carries a telescope, which will for the first ever telescope landed on another planetary body.

See here for details : http://www.spaceflight101.com/change-3.html

Re:Asia is playing catch up

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Anyone can pick arbitrary milestones to make a point, but that doesn't make it meaningful.

I think the more informative numbers would be the cost (in inflation adjusted dollars) for the various projects. I don't know what they are, but I suspect China and India are doing their missions for a fraction of what it cost the US to do it, which means they will probably be doing more in the near future.

Re:Asia is playing catch up

[Anonymous Coward]

A lot of China's ruling class have engineering degrees (vs law business backgrounds for US critters) as they are deemed "safe". They also don't worry about the next election as they play long term. So do expect they would be more interested in science, technology and anything that would make them money in the long run.
 

Re:Asia is playing catch up

[savuporo]

That won't happen until the Chinese do something we haven't done before,

"West" has never sent a teleoperated rover to the moon. Russians did, 40 years ago.

Re:Asia is playing catch up

[beltsbear]

It is much more challenging to do tele-operated rovers on Mars and manned missions to the moon. The west has done both. Nobody else has. I do think the Chinese could beat the US back to the moon, and I hope they go full throttle towards the goal of a manned base on the moon. We need a space race to get us off this rock.

There are plenty of firsts and (in my opinion) more interesting places to go in the solar system, like Europa and other potentially life and or liquid water containing moons. It would be great to see China or India attempt missions on that level.

Re:Asia is playing catch up

[ArbitraryName]

Catching up pretty quickly???

Considering the United States has no capability to put humans even in orbit, let alone other celestial bodies, one could say China has surpassed the US.

Re:Asia is playing catch up

[savuporo]

It is much more challenging to do tele-operated rovers on Mars

Nobody disputed that. A rover on the moon however is a different thing than a rover on the Mars. First, its on an entirely different celestial body - hey, there are scientific discoveries there, and potential for development. Second, teleoperated rover on the moon will have substantially different capabilities compared to martian ones - instead of 10 minute signal lag, you have 1-2 seconds, and can actually do things interactively.

A rover on mars and a rover on moon are different things and one is not "more or less" than another. US, or "west", have done one, but not the other.

And before you jump back with "but we had men there" - again, men on the moon are a different capability than having a long lasting rover there. Chang'e-3 mission is designed for 3 months, and it will carry out continuous observations with its instruments. Thats a tall order for any human crew for a long time to come.

Re:Asia is playing catch up

[joe_frisch]

That will be the critical point. If someone takes a serous shot at a manned mars mission for example, will the US space race revive, or will we just decide that we could but don't want to. For a while we've been letting the Russians launch our astronauts into space, something that would have been unthinkable when I was growing up.

Re:Asia is playing catch up

[simonbp]

Actually the Apollo missions did deploy a few UV telescopes on the lunar surface. They weren't much better than Earth-orbit telescopes, and so noone has bothered since. The radar is more interesting, but probably of limited utility given the power requirements to actually penetrate deep enough to see the layered mare deposits.

Where China is decades behind the US, Europe, and Japan is that they don't really release their science products. US missions legally must release all raw and processed data after a short proprietary period (typically a year). Europe and Japan take longer, but still do usually release all their raw data. China does not, and often waits until after the mission is over before releasing even highly processed versions of the data. The lack of raw data (and opacity of how it is processed) means that it is hard to compare to other sources, and belies any claim to actual scientific motivation.

Re:Asia is playing catch up

[savuporo]

Actually the Apollo missions did deploy a few UV telescopes on the lunar surface. They weren't much better than Earth-orbit telescopes, and so noone has bothered since.

See the link i posted.

The LUT instrument is the first long-term observatory to be deployed on the Moon. The Apollo 16 mission brought a far-UV telescope to the Moon for short-term observations, collecting nearly 200 images of quality that is considered very poor by today’s standards.

Telescopes are not really instruments for a short-term observation, or their utility and potential for discovery is severely limited.

The lack of raw data (and opacity of how it is processed) means that it is hard to compare to other sources, and belies any claim to actual scientific motivation.
Chinese space program has become progressively more open over the last years, the live coverage and the amount of detail released in conference papers about Chang'e is unprecedented. They have also extended an open invitation to every space scientist for collaboration ( which US will ignore due to politics ).

We'll see if and how much data they will provide in the open - but no , other players do not often release raw data from instruments either until the researchers have had time to publish their papers or even years later.

It's the DETERMINATION that counts

[Taco Cowboy]

Anyone can pick arbitrary milestones to make a point, but that doesn't make it meaningful.

I think the more informative numbers would be the cost (in inflation adjusted dollars) for the various projects. I don't know what they are, but I suspect China and India are doing their missions for a fraction of what it cost the US to do it, which means they will probably be doing more in the near future.

The biggest differentiating factor does not come with a number attached.

What India and China have, and what the West is sorely lacking, is the DETERMINATION to make their country more technologically advance.

England used to be one of the top country in the world in term of technology, and what happened ?

They taught their children how to use Microsoft Word in school, rather than how to program.

America is still (one of the) top country (countries) in the world in term of technology, but technology is far from being what the average American is interested in.

The Americans are wasting their time debating the never-ending pro and anti-abortion issue.

The Americans prefer to watch Netflix, to vote for their next American Idol, than to encourage and lead their children towards learning the how-tos in technology.

In other words, the Indians and the Chinese have much more curiosity than the people in the Western countries, and their curiosities are propelling onwards in strengthening themselves and their respective countries in Science and Technology, while the West, still sitting in their comfortable Lazy-Boy watching the latest flix from Hollywood.

Re:China & India

[joe_frisch]

The amount we spend on space is a tiny fraction of government spending.

Are you so sure that space colonization is impossible? No new science is required. We can easily imagine most of the engineering that is needed. It would be fantastically expensive - but even at say $10T, (something like 100X apollo) that is only 10 years wasted healthcare money in the US.

As an aside, I believe the goal of space IS space, not somehow enriching lives on earth. To ridiculous precision everything in the universe is not on earth - the goal is everything.

Maybe we will fail, but isn't it worth it to try?

Re:At least someone wants to go back to the Moon.

[Lotana]

How many more decades before this "Moon landing hoax" shit will finally die?! It was never even funny for fucks sake. It was always used as an insult to demonstrate how moronic and dumb some americans are!

Re:China & India

[lennier]

Are you so sure that space colonization is impossible?

Not impossible, but not nearly as practical and high-paying as colonisation of Alaska, the Australian desert, or the Pacific seabed. Ever wonder why we don't see a constant stream of high-tech utopian communes setting up greenhouses and submersible cities in out of the way places? Because if we wanted to do that, it's right there, you can use English and Anglosphere common law already, there's no launch-to-orbit fee, the land is cheap, and you get oxygen (and sometimes even water) for free. So where are all the techno-dissident libertarians living in plastic tents near Alice Springs bootstrapping themselves and their prototype 3D printers into godhood?

It's just going to be easier to do that wearing a rebreather on Olympos Mons because spaaaaace, is that the argument?