posted 01-27-2014 12:53 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by dom:
Some are speculating that the lid on the rover (does it have one like Lunokhod?) might not have closed properly.

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posted 02-12-2014 01:12 PM               

China's Jade Rabbit lunar rover has been declared dead on the surface of the Moon, state media have reported.

The robot suffered a serious mechanical problem last month; officials have said it "could not be restored to full function".

posted 02-12-2014 01:36 PM               

The little rabbit is getting better and shows some signs of awakening. Let's wait.

posted 02-12-2014 02:52 PM               

And, the signal we've all been waiting for, direct downlink from the Yutu rover!

Official news: Yutu is still alive. Mission control is busy working on it. Please give them more time.

posted 02-12-2014 08:34 PM               

China's moon rover Yutu has waken up from a troubled dormancy although experts are still trying to figure out the cause of its abnormality, a spokesman with the country's lunar probe program said on Thursday.

"Yutu has come back to life!" said Pei Zhaoyu, the spokesperson.

Pei said the moon rover, named after the pet of a lunar goddess in ancient Chinese mythology, has now been restored to its normal signal reception function. But experts are still working to verify the causes of its mechanical control abnormality.

posted 07-24-2014 10:44 AM               

Jokes about Asian drivers aside, the latest scapegoating for the malfunctioning Yutu's failure to budge on the lunar surface is now said to be some kind of bump or rock that somehow got in the way and collided with Yutu as the latter was wheeling around with glee. Seems as though someone should have seen the stationary obstacle in the images and prevented Yutu from smashing into or become high-centered from rolling over it. After all, the image quality was quite good and very sharp.

Its handlers are also trying to shift blame away from themselves and to mysterious "foreign researchers" they relied on and who had underestimated the density of surface rocks. It's not the driver's fault.

At least they're looking at the "cup half full" side, while glossing over the mission failure:

"It was designed to roam the moon for three months to survey its geological structure and surface substances and look for natural resources. But Yutu has managed to survive seven lunar nights so far."

posted 07-24-2014 11:06 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Glint:
It's not the driver's fault.

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In any case, I didn't read this update as scapegoating, but trying to understand what happened to the rover. It's unfortunate that Yutu lost its mobility, but that's not reason alone for derision.

quote:

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Originally posted by Glint:
How many months did it roam the moon, again?

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posted 07-24-2014 11:39 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Robert Pearlman:
I may be mistaken, but my impression from earlier news reports was that Yutu's movements were autonomous.

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The Mars rovers are largely autonomous due to the light travel time. But imagery (especially stereo) is used to plan the course in order to avoid hazards and target new sites.

Then there was the whole landing fiasco where it was targeted for one area but its landing was off by at least one Mare.

Another aspect to it is the question of whether or not the rock reason is more or less plausible than the lid not fitting right tighty in the nighty. Could we be seeing the blame being shifted from the hardware team (mechanical failure) to the operations team (ran into a rock)?

posted 09-04-2014 05:13 PM               

Is the lander functioning? Is it sending back any images or scientific data?

posted 01-01-2015 11:33 PM               

According to the informative Lunar Enterprise Daily, the Chinese lander made the first observation of a galaxy from its landing site: M101 Spiral.

The lander's Lunar Ultraviolet Telescope (LUT) made the observation on December 2.

posted 12-23-2015 09:08 AM               

The findings, published in the journal Nature Communications, focus on a geologically young region of the moon's surface – and shed fresh light on the evolution of our nearest neighbor.

"We recognize a new type of lunar basalt with a distinctive mineral assemblage compared with the samples from Apollo and Luna, and the lunar meteorites," the study authors wrote...

"Results indicate that this region's composition differs from other mare sample-return sites and is a new type of mare basalt not previously sampled, but consistent with remote sensing," the authors wrote.

And in the rock material examined in this spot – an area that's roughly 3 billion years old – the researchers discovered a surprising mix of chemical abundances, relatively rich in titanium dioxide and yet also in the mineral olivine (a magnesium iron silicate). In all likelihood, the basaltic rocks probably developed late in the history of the magma ocean that seeded them.

"The chemical and mineralogical information of the CE-3 landing site provides new ground truth for some of the youngest volcanism on the moon," the study authors wrote.

posted 02-03-2016 11:03 AM               

The website is a little bit difficult to use, but last week I managed to download all of the data from two of the cameras -- a total of 35 Gigabytes of data! -- and I've spent the subsequent week figuring out what's there and how to handle it.

So, space fans, without further ado, here, for the first time in a format easily accessible to the public, are hundreds and hundreds of science-quality images from the Chang'e 3 lander and Yutu rover.

• Chang'e 3 Yutu rover panoramic camera (PCAM) data released as of January 20, 2016
  
• Chang'e 3 lander terrain camera data (TCAM) released as of January 20, 2016

posted 08-10-2016 08:11 AM               

...it was not reported exactly when Yutu had 'died', what had happened and how it was ascertained during lunar nighttime - gbtimes called the SASTIND media centre. The answer was surprising:

"Yutu did not die but is in hibernation. It only stopped detecting work on July 28."

Elaborating, the source said that: "Being dead would mean losing contact with the ground and all its signals ceasing. Yutu still has signals."

"According to procedures, Yutu will wake up this month, but whether it can continue to work will be determined by the conditions then. Maybe it will give us a surprise."

It seems that Yutu is currently more retired than deceased, and could yet wake up, with its plutonium heaters apparently protecting its internal electronics during hibernation.