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A Chinese lander and rover are still operational more than 1,000 Earth days after making a historic first landing on the far side of the moon.
The Chang’e 4 The lander carrying the Yutu 2 rover landed in the Von Kármán crater on January 2, 2019, and the robotic mission has since explored the unique area of our heavenly neighbor.
The two spacecraft reached the 1,000-day mark on the moon on September 28. the Yutu 2 The rover covered a total of 2,754 feet (839.37 meters) of lunar soil and acquired 3,632.01 gigabytes of data while driving, Chinese officials said.
Related: The latest news from the Chinese space program
Together the two spaceships returned breathtaking images and panoramas on the other side of the moon, secrets revealed from below the surface, measured how much radiation the astronauts would face and were Point by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Yutu 2 has defined a new longevity record for a rover working on the surface of the moon, breaking the previous 321-day record set by Soviet Union robotics Lunokhod 1 vagabond. Youtube 2 is now heading to a distant basaltic zone, but it can take years to access the new site.
Despite the alternation of deep cold and scorching heat of lunar nights and days, intense solar radiation and abrasive lunar regolith, Chang’e 4, named after the Chinese moon goddess , and Yutu 2 (“Jade Rabbit 2”), Chang’e’s legendary pet rabbit, still work well, as do their scientific instruments, according to the Chinese lunar exploration program.
The solar-powered spacecraft has regularly stopped during lunar night, each of which lasts about 14.5 Earth days. The couple entered their 35th lunar day on September 29.
The satellite that allows the Chang’e 4 mission to communicate with Earth is also healthy. The Queqiao relay satellite (“Magpie Bridge”) launched in 2018 to orbit a point beyond the moon, from where he can see at any time the far side of the Moon and the Earth.
Queqiao is needed to bounce data and commands between the spacecraft on the moon and mission control, as the far side of the moon never faces the earth.
Some of the results published from Chang’e 4 data are still under discussion. A recent ‘Questions raised ‘ Nature Astronomy article authored by Elena Pettinelli and others questions the interpretations of low frequency ground penetrating radar data made by J. Zhang et al. Last year, claiming that some signals presented as layers of rock are rather artifacts generated by the design of the radar system and the antenna configuration, in a manner similar to that which occurred with the same instrument on Chang ‘ e 3.
Zhang et al. responded, confirming that there was electromagnetic disturbance, but the team had taken action to identify and remove this noise from the data, providing a better understanding of the stratification under the Von Kármán crater.
Chang’e 4 was originally designed as a backup of Chang’e 3 and would have provided a second shot to a moon landing and rover mission had the first failed. Chang’e 4 was reassigned to a more ambitious mission after the successful landing of Chang’e 3.
The first Yutu rover lost its ability to drive after just two lunar days due to a short circuit. Yutu 2 has been redesigned to prevent rocks from damaging its circuits and has proven to be much more durable.
China launched its first lunar sample return mission at the end of 2020. Chang’e 5 mission successfully book 3,816 pounds (1,731 kilograms) of fresh lunar samples on Earth in December. The country will follow by sending Chang’e 6 to collect samples from the far side of the moon in 2024.
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