Mustard on the Moon! China launches far-side Lunar lander with biology onboard, 8th Dec 2018

[editor]

No one is stopping anyone talk science ... go for it! you're the only one with power to stop discussion.

The irony of "dont talk politics" on this thread is deep though...Xi Jinping thought in practice.

Yes. You've made your point again and again and it's a point that EVERYONE ALREADY FUCKING KNOWS so i can only assume you're repeating it in the hope of making sure that no one can discuss the science of the mission. In the science forum.

Like it or not, it's perfectly possible to abhor the Chinese government as much as you yet still be interested in the science being created on the Moon.

 

[editor]

I can't speak for anyone else, but to me it seems like you're just pointing out the obvious.

Yes. This.

 

[Yossarian]

How long are you going to continue to try and kill off any discussion about science in this thread about science in the science forum?

You'll probably find the thread taking a less political direction if you stop responding to every political post instead of the science ones.

 

[editor]

You'll probably find the thread taking a less political direction if you stop responding to every political post instead of the science ones.

Strange how you seem to have no interest in starting a thread in politics about this. Perhaps your attempts to moralise from the high ground won't be so effective there.

 

[alcopop]

Waking Up to China’s Space Dream

 

[Yossarian]

This all kind of reminds of what it was like in the days of yore when unwary outsiders wandered into the drugs forum.

 

[2hats]

…and the rabbit is off and away exploring…

 

[2hats]

Also, some images from the Chang'e-4 relay satellite, Queqiao, in it’s L2 halo orbit (from where it can see the far side of the Moon and thus relay data from the lander and rover back to Earth), including a shot of the Moon and Earth.

 

[editor]

Interesting piece on space.com:

And one mystery is why the near side and the far side of the moon differ so drastically.

For one, the crust is much thicker on the far side, relative to the near side. "We don't really know why at this point," Mark Robinson, principal investigator with the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC), wrote in an email to Space.com. LROC captures high-resolution black-and-white images and moderate resolution multispectral images of the lunar surface. "Samples from key locations on the nearside and farside would really help us tackle this question," Robinson said, and the Chang'e 4 mission could measure the mineralogical composition of these rocks.

The lunar far side also contains less potassium and phosphorus than the near side does, which puzzles scientists.

In addition, the far side's surface generally looks rougher, with the exception of Von Kármán crater, research scientist Heather Meyer, who works with the LROC science team, wrote in an email to Space.com.

"The nearside is dominated topographically by the presence of large basins that have been filled to the brim with basaltic lava flows (or mare deposits), making it relatively flat and smooth and erasing any small- to mid-sized craters that may have formed," Meyer said.

But the moon's other side looks very different.

"However, the farside contains fewer large impact basins, and the few that do exist on the farside are not completely filled with lava flows," Meyer said. "As such, the farside displays a broader range of elevations and a lot more small- to mid-sized craters, making the surface appear more rough."

The one neighborhood that doesn't fit this trend is the South Pole-Aitken basin, the region that contains Chang'e 4's new home, Von Kármán crater. The basin, like the near side of the moon, is covered in a smooth layer of lava deposits.

The South Pole-Aitken basin is over 1,367 miles (2,200 kilometers) wide, making it the largest observed impact structure on the moon, and according to the LROC team, it's possible that the collision penetrated through the entire crust.

The Far Side of the Moon: How China's Chang'e 4 Can Crack Lunar Mysteries

 

[Yossarian]

I have huge admiration for the climate science produced by NOAA, NASA and other US government agencies while I strongly repudiate the climate policies of the US government.

Amazingly some of us can have a slightly more complex view of the world than seeing a country as monolith entities. No, what it is is someone with zero previous interest in human rights in China or low key planetary missions has suddenly spotted an opportunity to strut around, virtue signalling over an issue they have only just discovered. Now they are trying to rationalise their sudden interest as if its some kind of new wave of thinking, while questions over the morality of space exploration and the governments funding them goes back to Sputnik.

Uyghurs, Tibetans and other minorities in China have been mistreated for decades without you giving the slight fig. Now its suddenly cool to be interested in it here you are when you and your mates had no opinion on other threads about Chinese space and science only a few months ago. Your posts are attention seeking narcissism not the result of a strongly held set of moral values.

I spent 14 years in Hong Kong, I've lived the majority of my adult life in east Asia, I've been reading about, hearing about, and witnessing the effects of Chinese Communist rule for decades so don't make assumptions about what I do or don't know, you stupid fucking sack of shit. I know people who have been personally affected by the atrocities of the Beijing regime - how do you think they, or the untold millions of others in Xinjiang, Tibet, and elsewhere feel when they see that cunt of a regime achieve a massive victory in space? But someone here dares to say "Fuck the Communist Party and their space program," and people act like they just shat on the carpet.

There's no need to reprimand me, editor, this is the last post I plan to make on this thread or the last time I'll say anything related to politics in the science forum - though I somehow suspect there would be less argument about the distinction between forums if something scientific bled over into a politics forum.

Ironically, politics is probably a much bigger impetus to space exploration than scientific curiosity ever will be - the only reason America ever got to the moon was because the USSR was threatening to get there first, maybe they'll even concentrate their resources enough to get to Mars if it looks like China might get there first.

 

[alcopop]

I spent 14 years in Hong Kong, I've lived the majority of my adult life in east Asia, I've been reading about, hearing about, and witnessing the effects of Chinese Communist rule for decades so don't make assumptions about what I do or don't know, you stupid fucking sack of shit. I know people who have been personally affected by the atrocities of the Beijing regime - how do you think they, or the untold millions of others in Xinjiang, Tibet, and elsewhere feel when they see that cunt of a regime achieve a massive victory in space? But someone here dares to say "Fuck the Communist Party and their space program," and people act like they just shat on the carpet.

There's no need to reprimand me, editor, this is the last post I plan to make on this thread or the last time I'll say anything related to politics in the science forum - though I somehow suspect there would be less argument about the distinction between forums if something scientific bled over into a politics forum.

Ironically, politics is probably a much bigger impetus to space exploration than scientific curiosity ever will be - the only reason America ever got to the moon was because the USSR was threatening to get there first, maybe they'll even concentrate their resources enough to get to Mars if it looks like China might get there first.

https://history.nasa.gov/moondec.html

 

[Steel Icarus]

https://history.nasa.gov/moondec.html

I've recently used that speech to teach literary techniques

 

[alcopop]

Science Has Always Been Inseparable from Politics

 

[ska invita]

I can't speak for anyone else, but to me it seems like you're just pointing out the obvious. Every entity with the manpower and resources to send stuff into space has also used that manpower and resources to do shitty things..

I might be wrong but I think the International Space Station is a positive sign of international collaborative working, with a universal scientific goal at the forefront.

I look forward to no politics being mentioned when the proposed Trumpian Space Force gets off the ground.

But, you might think, Space Force is clearly military, where as this is about the advancement of scientific knowledge? I disagree.

Here's the US Department of Defence (not my favourite source but still) latest report on the Chinese space programme, from a few months back, August 2018:
Pentagon report: China’s space program ‘continues to mature rapidly’ - SpaceNews.com
------------------------------------
China’s continued investments and efforts in space technology are a major concern for the Pentagon, the report says. Chinese strategists regard the ability to use space-based systems — and to deny them to adversaries — as “central to modern warfare.”

China is strengthening its military space capabilities despite its public stance against the militarization of space, DoD says. “Space operations are viewed as a key enabler of PLA campaigns aimed at countering third-party intervention.” One of its goals is to develop a “real-time surveillance, reconnaissance, and warning system and is increasing the number and capabilities of its space systems, including various communications and intelligence satellites and the Beidou navigation satellite system.”

The report raises concerns about China’s counterspace weapons, including kinetic-kill missiles, ground-based lasers and orbiting space robots. China also is expanding surveillance capabilities that can monitor objects across the globe and in space and “enable counterspace actions.”

The Chinese military in 2015 set up a “Strategic Support Force” to centralize the management of space, cyber and electronic warfare missions.

China’s space program continues to mature rapidly, the report says. It has built an expansive ground support infrastructure to support a growing on-orbit fleet. China in 2017 successfully launched 16 of 18 space launch vehicles, orbiting some 31 spacecraft, including communications, navigation, surveillance and test/engineering satellites.
......
Since DoD started producing this report in 2001, this is the first one where counterspace capabilities are mentioned in a more alarming tone. “In addition to the development of directed- energy weapons and satellite jammers, China is also developing direct-ascent and co-orbital kinetic kill capabilities and has probably made progress on the anti-satellite missile system it tested in July 2014.” The Pentagon believes China is “probably testing dual-use technologies in space that could be applied to counterspace missions.”

China has not publicly acknowledged the existence of any new programs since it confirmed it used an anti-satellite missile to destroy a weather satellite in 2007, but Chinese academics have offered some insight, the report says. “These scholars stress the necessity of destroying, damaging, and interfering with the enemy’s reconnaissance . . . and communications satellites, suggesting that such systems, as well as navigation and early warning satellites, could be among the targets of attacks designed to blind and deafen the enemy.”
----------------------------------------------

But hey, theyre going to plant the first flower on the moon....

This mission is above all about technological prowess and extension of power. Its portrayed as a (dual-use) fig leaf to China's military intentions, hence the need in this thread to mention it's a fig leaf.

China shooting down that weather satellite with a missile from the earth and creating all that dangerous space debris should be a clear sign what the Party's prioirites are.

We're entering a new militarised space race, with black hole sized arseholes on both/several sides. Its worrying and depressing.

My last post on this too. Ive got a busy day of "virtue signaling" and "complaining" ahead of me.

Though I think editor makes a fair point, a slow burning dedicated thread about the new space race in World politics would be useful. Will start one.... Though I think seperating the politics out from this is a dangerous mental step.

 

[editor]

Though I think editor makes a fair point, a slow burning dedicated thread about the new space race in World politics would be useful. Will start one.... Though I think seperating the politics out from this is a dangerous mental step.

Although I'm confident that almost everyone who reads these boards will be fully aware of China's many shortcomings, there is nothing wrong with perhaps briefly mentioning it once in a thread about science in the science forum if China is involved. And then maybe point to a dedicated thread in the politics forum.

But the point has been repeated again and again and again to the point where it appears that some posters are actively trying to stop any science discussion taking place and pushing through the patronising assumption that anyone who wants to talk about the science somehow doesn't care about China's appalling record in other areas or is oblivious to it.

 

[ferrelhadley]

Chinas future plans for the Moon.

Spoiler

Chinese Lunar Exploration Program - Wikipedia

Phase II: Soft landers/rovers
The second phase is ongoing, and incorporates spacecraft capable of soft-landing on the Moon and deploying lunar rovers.

Chang'e 3, launched on 2 December 2013 aboard a Long March 3B rocket, landed on the Moon on 14 December 2013. It carried with it a 140 kg (310 lb) lunar rover named Yutu, which was designed to explore an area of 3 square kilometres (1.2 sq mi) during a 3-month mission. It was also supposed to conduct ultra-violet observations of galaxies, active galactic nuclei, variable stars, binaries, novae, quasars, and blazars, as well as the structure and dynamics of the Earth's plasmasphere.
Chang'e 4 was launched on 7 December 2018. Originally scheduled for 2015, was a back-up for Chang'e 3. However, as a result of the success of that mission, the configuration of Chang'e 4 was adjusted for the next mission.[9] It landed on 3 January 2019 on the South Pole-Aitken Basin, on the far side of the Moon, and deployed the Yutu-2 rover.[10]
The program also includes two south pole landers: Chang'e P1 (2023) and Chang'e P2 (2026).[11]
Phase III: Sample return
The final phase will entail a lunar sample return mission.

Chang'e 5-T1 was launched on 23 October 2014. It was designed to test the lunar return spacecraft.
Chang'e 5, expected to launch in December 2019 aboard a Long March 5 rocket,[12][13] will build on the success of the previous missions, with a lander capable of collecting up to 2 kilograms (4.4 lb) of lunar samples and returning them to the Earth.
Chang'e 6, expected to launch in 2020[11] aboard a Long March 5 rocket, will build on the success of the Chang'e 5 mission.
Crewed mission
As of 2018, China was making preliminary studies for a crewed lunar landing mission in the 2030s,[14][15][16] and possibly build an outpost near the lunar south pole.[14]

It is based on quite dated Long March 3 technology. It has a throw weight of about 1.5 tonnes to GTO and uses hypergolics for its first stage.
The super new plan to "dominate" space or whatever that someone has posted a US DOD funded research publication into on is basically the same kind of technnological blue print that every other country brings out about every other technology all the time. Whether it was AI and neural nets in the 80s, microchip manufacture in the 90s, graphene in the 2000s its all "we need to spend money on this or will get left behind" to which competators also have splashy big projects about "we need to spend money on this or will get left behind". In many ways NASA was exactly that kind of project in a reaction to Sputnik. But most of these tend to end in over hyped and under delivered.
AI winter - Wikipedia
The Chinese seem to be aiming to build a new generation of rockets (Long March 6 and 7 are now is flying) to compete with the likes of Ariane 5, Atlas and Delta families in 10 to 20 years roughly at the same time those families are being knocked out the market by hugely more technically advanced competitors. Longer term, like everyone they now claim to be working on a partially reusable model, Long March 8. But this was announced in July 2018 so like Arianespace's "Ariane 6 could maybe be reusable" and the cutting edge plan by ULA to parachute the rockets engines back to Earth, it really looks like a classic case of a legacy provider caught out completely flat by a market disruption.
China had the highest launch cadence of any nation on 2018, mostly domestic GPS, Earth resource and communications payloads. But I think their mass to orbit was dwarfed by the US (even minus a certain motor car).

Their Lunar program looks to me to be the sort of missions you would expect from someone trying to get into the space science world and the kind of missions you would expect from the worlds second largest economy looking to catch up with NASA and ESA. They do have a growing fleet of military comms, reconnaissance and GPS satellites you would expect from a developed economy of that size and their new launch fleet will be partially aimed at supporting this. But I really cannot see much of a link in their science missions to military applications.
They have long long since past the point where ICMB and satellite launch technologies are broadly the same. One is solid fulled with a small through weight to LEO the others go liquid fueled and eventually interplanatery.
Also they are ditching hypergolics for RP-1 at the time everyone else seems to be ditching RP-1 for methox. Shotwell is telling any audience she can find her methox is going to be renewably generated. I can see Bezos doing the same thing when they make a pronouncement at some point. ULA have signed up for a methox engine but will likely get a couple of billion dollars from the DOD or DARPA or someone to "explore technologies to ensure the future security of US launch systems by using non fossil fueled sources of rocket fuel". AKA their usually fat lazy bung to do off the shelf tech.

Spoiler

For the record I fully expect the "China threat" to be dialled up to 11 over the coming years to whip up some cash from Congress to allow the legacy providers to compete in the new reusable rocket markets oh that and SDI mark II with bids very carefully written so the correct companies win this time

TL;DNR
Jade Rabbit and its follow on look 100% nailed on legit science to me.

 

[Crispy]

Also they are ditching hypergolics for RP-1 at the time everyone else seems to be ditching RP-1 for methox. Shotwell is telling any audience she can find her methox is going to be renewably generated. I can see Bezos doing the same thing when they make a pronouncement at some point. ULA have signed up for a methox engine

That engine *is* a Blue Origin (ie Bezos) engine, The BE-4

 

[a_chap]

Where are the Chinese space stations? do they also circumnavigate the globe? do they pass over Europe and are they visible to the naked eye?

You'll need to enter your location, but here's how to determine whether, when & where you can see Tiangong-2

Tiangong 2 - Visible Passes

 

[a_chap]

Three pages in and I can't believe no-one's posted this yet:

Come on people, wakey wakey.

 

[2hats]

You'll need to enter your location, but here's how to determine whether, when & where you can see Tiangong-2

Tiangong 2 - Visible Passes

It is always going to appear low towards the southern horizon from the UK (even the south coast) as the orbital inclination (and altitude) conspire to constrain it so (inclination is much lower than any UK latitude).

 

[editor]

This is such a cool headline:

"There Are Plants and Animals on the Moon Now"

A small "tin" in the lander contains seeds of potatoes and rockcress (Arabidopsis thaliana, a flowering plant related to cabbage and mustard, as well as a model organism for plant biology), as well as silkworm eggs. The idea, according to a report in The Telegraph earlier this year, is that the plants will support the silkworms with oxygen, and the silkworms will in turn provide the plants with necessary carbon dioxide and nutrients through their waste. The researchers will watch the plants carefully to see whether the plants successfully perform photosynthesis, and grow and bloom in the lunar environment.

The "biosphere" experiment was the product of a collaboration between 28 Chinese universities, led by southwest China's Chongqing University, according to Xinhua. The experiment, which is tucked inside a 1.4-pint (0.8 liters) aluminum alloy cylinder, weighs about 7 lbs. (3 kilograms) and includes dirt, nutrients and water. Sunlight will filter into the container through a "tube," and small cameras will watch the little environment. That data will beam back to Earth by means of the complicated relay system China has set up to communicate with an experiment that has no direct line of sight to Earth.

"Why potato and Arabidopsis? Because the growth period of Arabidopsisis short and convenient to observe. And potato could become a major source of food for future space travelers," said Liu Hanlong, chief director of the experiment and vice president of Chongqing University, as reported by Xinhua. "Our experiment might help accumulate knowledge for building a lunar base and long-term residence on the moon."

For now, though, this means that there's life in at least one other place in the solar system (even if it's only because we put it there).

There Are Plants and Animals on the Moon Now (Because of China)

 

[Wookey]

I only just learned there is water on the moon! You turn your back for two minutes...

 

[twentythreedom]

Introducing plants, seeds, eggs, worms etc into the moon's (lack of?) ecosystem is surely only ever going to end badly

 

[NoXion]

Introducing plants, seeds, eggs, worms etc into the moon's (lack of?) ecosystem is surely only ever going to end badly

How so? The Moon is a radiation-blasted vacuum of a world, and the only water available on the surface is restricted to deep in the shadows of certain polar craters. The "soil" on the Moon is basically rocks with dust made up of what are effectively tiny razor blades. If any of the organisms within the lander's experiment were to escape, then they are good as dead. Even water bears (not included in this experiment btw), those paragons of multi-cellular extremophiles, would at best be forced into some kind of inactive state, if not killed outright when exposed to lunar conditions.

 

[editor]

Update:

China’s Chang’e-4 lander and Yutu-2 rover have tested out payloads and systems on the far side of the moon, with the rover now taking a ‘noon nap’ as a precaution against high temperatures.

The Chang’e-4 lander made its historic landing at 177.6 degrees east longitude and 45.5 degrees south within Von Kármán crater within the South Pole-Aitken basin at 9:26 p.m. Eastern Jan. 2, following two weeks in lunar orbit.

The rover was deployed from the lander just under 12 hours later, at 9:22 a.m. Eastern Jan. 3. The rover also officially received the name Yutu-2 (‘Jade Rabbit-2’), following on from China’s first lunar rover for the 2013 Chang’e-3 mission.

Monitoring cameras on the lander imaged the rover wheels during deployment and the craft on the surface, with the images returned to Earth via the Queqiao relay satellite stationed in a halo orbit around the second Earth-moon Lagrange point.

After reaching a predetermined point, the Yutu-2 rover has entered a standby mode to protect itself from temperatures reaching toward 200 degrees Celsius the China Lunar Exploration Program under the China National Space Administration (CNSA) announced.

The 140-kilogram rover, which has six drivable wheels with four, at the front and back, steerable to allow for pivoting, will resume activities Jan. 10 Beijing time.

Zhang Yuhua, deputy chief commander and designer of the mission, told Chinese state media that next up for the rover will be to travel to the front side of the lander and image the craft.

“After that, the rover will go to its planned area and start a series of scientific exploration projects in the Von Kármán crater as planned by scientists,” Zhang said.

China’s lunar rover enters standby mode for ‘noon nap’ as Chang'e-4 tests continue - SpaceNews.com

 

[NoXion]

200 degrees. Toasty. I wonder how they're protecting the biological experiment from such temperatures? Some kind of sunshade on the lander?

 

[Wookey]

200 degrees. Toasty. I wonder how they're protecting the biological experiment from such temperatures? Some kind of sunshade on the lander?

Factor 9000 innit

 

[2hats]

Landing site panorama released (click for large original).

 

[Steel Icarus]

Is there any milk up there?

 

[fishfinger]

Is there any milk up there?

All turned to cheese.