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China’s Chang’e 4 Probe Takes Images of the Moon’s Far Side While Yutu 2 Begins Exploration

Catwell

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First ever image of the moon’s far side and South Pole-Aitken basin landing location of CNSA’s Chang’e 4 probe. (Image credit: CSNA)

 

The China National Space Administration’s made history on January 3rd when it successfully landed their Chang’e 4 autonomous lander at the South Pole-Aitken basin on the far side of the moon and sent back the first ever images captured from that location via their Queqiao (Magpie Bridge) satellite. Many details of the mission, including the exact time the probe was to make its landing, had been a closely guarded secret, which also means information on the lander and Yutu 2 rover it deployed, are in short supply as well.

 

 

What we do know is that both the Chang’e 4 and Yutu 2 are most likely modeled after previous versions, and most likely feature some of the same hardware as the current versions. On the Chang’e 4 side, it’s most likely outfitted with a Ritchey-Chretien ultraviolet telescope to observe everything from distant galaxies to quasars. It’s probably also packing an extreme ultraviolet camera to observe the earth’s plasmasphere, 3X panoramic cameras for grabbing moon images, and a soil probe for analyzing lunar soil.

 

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CNSA’s Yutu 2 rover embarks on its mission to explore the far side of the moon, not the only light source is probably the flash from an onboard camera. (Image credit: CNSA)

 

The Yutu 2 rover, which just began exploring the far-side surface, is a six-wheeled platform with a 44-pound payload capacity. While the rover is probably part autonomous, it does transmit information back to earth (including video), it’s probably also controlled by CNSA engineers back home.

 

There is a pair of solar panels that provide power during lunar days, and to charge it’s onboard batteries, however, it’s speculated that it powers down at night to conserve energy, and as a result, relies on plutonium-238 RHUs (Radioisotope Heating Units) to provide heat to the hardware during that downtime. Additional hardware speculation for the Yutu 2 includes ground-penetrating radar, alpha particle X-ray and IR spectrometers, and a pair of panoramic cameras.

 

CNSA’s lunar mission aims to study the moon’s geology, probe its interior composition, analyze solar winds, along with a host of other endeavors. The ultimate goal of China’s lunar program is to eventually put a manned crew on the far side of the moon, and possibly build a small outpost near the South Pole. 

 

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http://twitter.com/Cabe_Atwell

 

  • Great story - thanks for sharing.

    It's great that multiple nations are exploring space, but sad to see that the finer details of space exploration are not evenly shared by all countries.

     

    Space was a great uniting factor even between USA and USSR in spite of the cold war and the space race. Perhaps we can hope for some collaboration between western powers and China in the next decade.