Chinese spaceclaft rands on moon

[spaminator]

China sends astronauts to 'Celestial Palace' in historic space mission
Author of the article:Reuters
Reuters
Publishing date:Nov 29, 2022 • 1 day ago • 2 minute read

BEIJING — China sent a spacecraft carrying three astronauts to its space station for the first in-orbit crew rotation in Chinese space history, launching operation of the second inhabited outpost in low-earth orbit after the NASA-led International Space Station.


The spacecraft Shenzhou-15, or “Divine Vessel,” and its three passengers lifted off atop a Long March-2F rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre at 11:08 p.m. (1508 GMT) on Tuesday amid sub-freezing temperatures in the Gobi Desert in northwest China, according to state television.


Shenzhou-15 was the last of 11 missions, including three prior crewed missions, that began in April 2021 needed to assemble the “Celestial Palace,” as the multi-module station is known in Chinese.

The trio will take over from the Shenzhou-14 crew who arrived in early June. The previous crew members are expected to return to Earth in early December after a one-week handover that will also establish the station’s ability to temporarily sustain six astronauts, another record for China’s space program.


The space outpost took on its current “T” shape in November with the arrival of the last of three cylindrical modules.

The Long March-2F rocket, carrying the Shenzhou-15 spacecraft, is transferred to the launching area at Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center near Jiuquan, Gansu province, China Nov. 21, 2022.
The Long March-2F rocket, carrying the Shenzhou-15 spacecraft, is transferred to the launching area at Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center near Jiuquan, Gansu province, China Nov. 21, 2022. PHOTO BY CNSPHOTO /via REUTERS
The station has a designed lifespan of at least a decade, with resident astronauts expected to conduct over 1,000 scientific experiments – from studying how plants adapt in space to how fluids behave in microgravity.

The “Celestial Palace” was the culmination of nearly two decades of Chinese crewed missions to space. China’s manned space flights began in 2003 when a former fighter pilot, Yang Liwei, was sent into orbit in a small bronze-colored capsule, the Shenzhou-5, and became China’s first man in space and an instant hero cheered by millions at home.

The space station was also an emblem of China’s growing clout and confidence in its space endeavors and a challenger to the United States in the domain, after being isolated from the NASA-led ISS and banned by U.S. law from any collaboration, direct or indirect, with the U.S. space agency.

The Shenzhou-15 mission, during which its crew will live and work on the space station for six months, also offered the nation a rare moment to celebrate, at a time of widespread unhappiness over China’s stifling zero-COVID policies while its economy hits the brakes amid uncertainties at home and abroad.

“Long live the motherland!” many Chinese netizens wrote on social media.

China sends astronauts to 'Celestial Palace' in historic space mission

China sent a spacecraft carrying three astronauts to its space station for the first in-orbit crew rotation in Chinese space history.

torontosun.com

 

[spaminator]

Japanese company's lander rockets toward moon with UAE rover
Author of the article:Associated Press
Associated Press
Marcia Dunn
Publishing dateec 11, 2022 • 1 day ago • 3 minute read
Image from simulation video of the HAKUTO-R commercial lunar lander.
Image from simulation video of the HAKUTO-R commercial lunar lander. PHOTO BY ISPACE /supplied
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A Tokyo company aimed for the moon with its own private lander Sunday, blasting off atop a SpaceX rocket with the United Arab Emirates’ first lunar rover and a toylike robot from Japan that’s designed to roll around up there in the gray dust.

It will take nearly five months for the lander and its experiments to reach the moon.


The company ispace designed its craft to use minimal fuel to save money and leave more room for cargo. So it’s taking a slow, low-energy path to the moon, flying 1.6 million kilometres from Earth before looping back and intersecting with the moon by the end of April.

By contrast, NASA’s Orion crew capsule with test dummies took five days to reach the moon last month. The lunar flyby mission ended Sunday with a thrilling Pacific splashdown.

The ispace lander will aim for Atlas crater in the northeastern section of the moon’s near side, more than 87 kilometres across and just over 2 kilometres deep. With its four legs extended, the lander is more than 7 feet (2.3 metres) tall.

With a science satellite already around Mars, the UAE wants to explore the moon, too. Its rover, named Rashid after Dubai’s royal family, weighs just 22 pounds (10 kilograms) and will operate on the surface for about 10 days, like everything else on the mission.

Emirates project manager Hamad AlMarzooqi said landing on an unexplored part of the moon will yield “novel and highly valued” scientific data. In addition, the lunar surface is “an ideal platform” to test new tech that can be used for eventual human expeditions to Mars.

Plus there’s national pride — the rover represents “a pioneering national endeavor in the space sector and a historic moment that, if successful, will be the first Emirati and Arab mission to land on the surface of the moon,” he said in a statement following liftoff.

In addition, the lander is carrying an orange-sized sphere from the Japanese Space Agency that will transform into a wheeled robot on the moon. Also flying: a solid state battery from a Japanese-based spark plug company; an Ottawa, Ontario, company’s flight computer with artificial intelligence for identifying geologic features seen by the UAE rover; and 360-degree cameras from a Toronto-area company.

Hitching a ride on the rocket was a small NASA laser experiment that is now bound for the moon on its own to hunt for ice in the permanently shadowed craters of the lunar south pole.

The ispace mission is called Hakuto, Japanese for white rabbit. In Asian folklore, a white rabbit is said to live on the moon. A second lunar landing by the private company is planned for 2024 and a third in 2025.

Article content
Founded in 2010, ispace was among the finalists in the Google Lunar XPRIZE competition requiring a successful landing on the moon by 2018. The lunar rover built by ispace never launched.

Another finalist, an Israeli nonprofit called SpaceIL, managed to reach the moon in 2019. But instead of landing gently, the spacecraft Beresheet slammed into the moon and was destroyed.

With Sunday’s predawn launch from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, ispace is now on its way to becoming one of the first private entities to attempt a moon landing. Although not launching until early next year, lunar landers built by Pittsburgh’s Astrobotic Technology and Houston’s Intuitive Machines may beat ispace to the moon thanks to shorter cruise times.

Only Russia, the U.S. and China have achieved so-called “soft landings” on the moon, beginning with the former Soviet Union’s Luna 9 in 1966. And only the U.S. has put astronauts on the lunar surface: 12 men over six landings.

Sunday marked the 50th anniversary of astronauts’ last lunar landing, by Apollo 17’s Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt on Dec. 11, 1972.

NASA’s Apollo moonshots were all “about the excitement of the technology,” said ispace founder and CEO Takeshi Hakamada, who wasn’t alive then. Now, “it’s the excitement of the business.”

“This is the dawn of the lunar economy,” Hakamada noted in the SpaceX launch webcast. “Let’s go to the moon.”

Liftoff should have occurred two weeks ago, but was delayed by SpaceX for extra rocket checks.

Eight minutes after launch, the recycled first-stage booster landed back at Cape Canaveral under a near full moon, the double sonic booms echoing through the night.

— The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Japanese company's lander rockets toward moon with UAE rover

A Tokyo company aimed for the moon with its own private lander Sunday.

torontosun.com

 

[spaminator]

New source of water found in moon samples from China mission
Author of the article:Associated Press
Associated Press
Marcia Dunn
Published Mar 27, 2023 • 2 minute read

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Scientists have discovered a new and renewable source of water on the moon for future explorers in lunar samples from a Chinese mission.


Water was embedded in tiny glass beads in the lunar dirt where meteorite impacts occur. These shiny, multicolored glass beads were in samples returned from the moon by China in 2020.


The beads range in size from the width of one hair to several hairs; the water content was just a miniscule fraction of that, said Hejiu Hui of Nanjing University, who took part in the study.

Since there are billions if not trillions of these impact beads, that could amount to substantial amounts of water, but mining it would be tough, according to the team.

“Yes, it will require lots and lots of glass beads,” Hui said in an email. “On the other hand, there are lots and lots of beads on the moon.”

These beads could continually yield water thanks to the constant bombardment by hydrogen in the solar wind. The findings, published Monday in the journal Nature Geoscience, are based on 32 glass beads randomly selected from lunar dirt returned from the Chang’e 5 moon mission.


More samples will be studied, Hui said.

These impact beads are everywhere, the result of the cooling of melted material ejected by incoming space rocks. Water could be extracted by heating the beads, possibly by future robotic missions. More studies are needed to determine whether this would be feasible and, if so, whether the water would be safe to drink.

This shows “water can be recharged on the moon’s surface … a new water reservoir on the moon,” Hui said.

Previous studies found water in glass beads formed by lunar volcanic activity, based on samples returned by the Apollo moonwalkers more than a half-century ago. These, too, could provide water not only for use by future crews, but for rocket fuel.

NASA aims to put astronauts back on the lunar surface by the end of 2025. They’ll aim for the south pole where permanently shadowed craters are believed to be packed with frozen water.

New source of water found in moon samples from China mission

Scientists have discovered a new and renewable source of water on the moon for future explorers in lunar samples from a Chinese mission.

torontosun.com

 

[spaminator]

China wants to start using moon soil to build lunar bases as soon as this decade
Author of the article:Reuters
Reuters
Published Apr 12, 2023 • 1 minute read

BEIJING — China wants to start building a lunar base using soil from the moon in five years, Chinese media reported, with the ambitious plan kicking off as soon as this decade.


More than 100 Chinese scientists, researchers and space contractors recently met at a conference in the central Chinese city of Wuhan to discuss ways to build infrastructure on the moon, local media reported.


Ding Lieyun, an expert from the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said a team is designing a robot named “Chinese Super Masons” to make bricks out of lunar soil, according to Changjiang Daily.

“Building a habitat on the moon is needed for long-term lunar explorations, and will certainly be realized in the future,” Ding said, while acknowledging the difficulty of achieving it in the short term, according to the report.

The robot tasked with making the “lunar soil brick” will be launched during China’s Chang’e-8 mission around 2028, Ding said, adding that the country is aiming to retrieve the world’s first soil sample from the far side of the moon in a mission around 2025.

China previously retrieved soil samples from the near side of the moon with its Chang’e-5 mission in 2020, state media reported.

The country has stated that it wants its astronauts to stay on the moon for long periods once it establishes a lunar research station.

Ding and dozens of experts were attending the Extraterrestrial Construction Conference held at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan this past weekend.

China wants to start using moon soil to build lunar bases as soon as this decade

China wants to start building a lunar base using soil from the moon in five years, Chinese media reported, with the ambitious plan kicking off as soon as this decade.

torontosun.com

 

[spaminator]

China's Mars rover likely idled by sunlight-blocking dust: Designer
Zhurong was expected to have woken up in December

Author of the article:Reuters
Reuters
Published Apr 25, 2023 • 1 minute read
Chinese rover Zhurong of the Tianwen-1 mission drives down the ramp of the lander onto the surface of Mars, in this screenshot taken from a video released by China National Space Administration (CNSA) May 22, 2021.
Chinese rover Zhurong of the Tianwen-1 mission drives down the ramp of the lander onto the surface of Mars, in this screenshot taken from a video released by China National Space Administration (CNSA) May 22, 2021. PHOTO BY CNSA /REUTERS
BEIJING — China’s fully robotic rover on Mars, in longer-than-expected hibernation since May 2022, likely met with excessive accumulation of sand and dust, its mission designer said, breaking months of silence about the status of the vehicle.


The motorized rover Zhurong, named after a mythical Chinese god of fire, was expected to have woken up in December after entering a planned sleep mode in May 2022 as falling solar radiation with the advent of winter cut its power generation.


“We have not had any communication from the rover since it entered hibernation,” said Zhang Rongqiao, chief designer of China’s Mars exploration program. “We are monitoring it every day and believe it has not woken up because the sunlight has not yet reached the minimum level for power generation.”

An unforeseen pile-up of dust most likely affected power generation and Zhurong’s ability to wake up, Chinese state television reported on Tuesday, quoting Zhang.

A camera on board a NASA probe orbiting Mars showed the Chinese rover had not moved since at least September, according to official images.


The 240-kg (530-pound) Zhurong, which has six scientific instruments including a high-resolution topography camera, was tasked with studying the planet’s surface soil and atmosphere after landing with no mishap in May 2021.

Powered by solar energy, Zhurong also looked for signs of ancient life, including any subsurface water and ice, using a ground-penetrating radar.

The rover had explored the Martian surface for 358 days and traveled for 1,921 meters (2,100 yards), Zhang said, far exceeding its original mission time-span of three months.

Aside from Zhurong, two other robotic rovers have been operating on Mars – NASA’s Perseverance and Curiosity, with the former roaming the planet’s surface for more than two years and the latter for over a decade.

China's Mars rover likely idled by sunlight-blocking dust: Designer

The motorized rover Zhurong was expected to have woken up in December after entering a planned sleep mode in May 2022

torontosun.com

 

[spaminator]

'High probability' lander crashed on moon, says Japanese company
Author of the article:Associated Press
Associated Press
Marcia Dunn
Published Apr 25, 2023 • Last updated 1 day ago • 3 minute read
A model of the lander in HAKUTO-R lunar exploration program by "ispace" is pictured at a venue to monitor its landing on the Moon, in Tokyo, Japan, April 26, 2023.
A model of the lander in HAKUTO-R lunar exploration program by "ispace" is pictured at a venue to monitor its landing on the Moon, in Tokyo, Japan, April 26, 2023. PHOTO BY KIM KYUNG-HOON /REUTERS
A Japanese company’s spacecraft apparently crashed while attempting to land on the moon Wednesday, losing contact moments before touchdown and sending flight controllers scrambling to figure out what happened.


More than six hours after communication ceased, the Tokyo company ispace finally confirmed what everyone had suspected, saying there was “a high probability” that the lander had slammed into the moon.


It was a disappointing setback for ispace, which after a 4 1/2-month mission had been on the verge of doing what only three countries have done: successfully land a spacecraft on the moon.

Takeshi Hakamada, founder and CEO of ispace, held out hope even after contact was lost as the lander descended the final 33 feet (10 metres). Flight controllers peered at their screens in Tokyo as minutes went by with only silence from the moon.

A grim-faced team surrounded Hakamada as he announced that the landing likely failed.


Official word finally came in a statement: “It has been determined that there is a high probability that the lander eventually made a hard landing on the moon’s surface.”

If all had gone well, ispace would have been the first private business to pull off a lunar landing. Hakamada vowed to try again, saying a second moonshot is already in the works for next year.

Only three governments have successfully touched down on the moon: Russia, the United States and China. An Israeli nonprofit tried to land on the moon in 2019, but its spacecraft was destroyed on impact.

“If space is hard, landing is harder,” tweeted Laurie Leshin, director of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “I know from personal experience how awful this feels.”


Leshin worked on NASA’s Mars Polar lander that crashed on the red planet in 1999.

The 7-foot (2.3-metre) Japanese lander carried a mini lunar rover for the United Arab Emirates and a toylike robot from Japan designed to roll around in the moon dust for about 10 days. That was also the expected length of the full mission.

Named Hakuto, Japanese for white rabbit, the spacecraft had targeted the Atlas crater in the northeastern section of the moon’s near side, more than 50 miles (87 kilometres) across and just over 1 mile (2 kilometres) deep.

It took a roundabout route to the moon following its December liftoff, beaming back photos of Earth along the way. The lander entered lunar orbit on March 21.

Flight controllers ascertained that the lander was upright as it used its thrusters to slow during Wednesday’s final approach. Engineers monitoring the fuel gauge noticed that as the tank approached empty, the lander picked up speed as it descended and communication was then lost, according to ispace.


It’s possible the lander miscalculated its altitude and ran out of fuel before reaching the surface, company officials said at a news conference later in the day.

Founded in 2010, ispace hopes to start turning a profit as a one-way taxi service to the moon for other businesses and organizations. The company has already raised $300 million to cover the first three missions, according to Hakamada.

“We will keep going, never quit lunar quest,” he said.

For this test flight, the two main experiments were government-sponsored: the UAE’s 22-pound (10-kilogram) rover Rashid, named after Dubai’s royal family, and the Japanese Space Agency’s orange-sized sphere designed to transform into a wheeled robot on the moon. The UAE — already in orbit around Earth with an astronaut aboard the International Space Station and in orbit around Mars — was seeking to extend its presence to the moon.


The moon is suddenly hot again, with numerous countries and private companies clamoring to get on the lunar bandwagon. China has successfully landed three spacecraft on the moon since 2013, and U.S., China, India and South Korea have satellites currently circling the moon.

NASA’s first test flight in its new moonshot program, Artemis, made it to the moon and back late last year, paving the way for four astronauts to follow by the end of next year and two others to actually land on the moon a year after that. Pittsburgh’s Astrobotic Technology and Houston’s Intuitive Machines have lunar landers waiting in the wings, poised to launch later this year at NASA’s behest.

Hakuto and the Israeli spacecraft named Beresheet were finalists in the Google Lunar X Prize competition requiring a successful landing on the moon by 2018. The $20 million grand prize went unclaimed.

'High probability' lander crashed on moon, says Japanese company

A Japanese company's spacecraft apparently crashed while attempting to land on the moon Wednesday.

torontosun.com

 

[spaminator]

China's Mars rover finds signs of recent water in sand dunes
Author of the article:Associated Press
Associated Press
Marcia Dunn
Published Apr 28, 2023 • 2 minute read

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Water may be more widespread and recent on Mars than previously thought, based on observations of Martian sand dunes by China’s rover.


The finding highlights new, potentially fertile areas in the warmer regions of Mars where conditions might be suitable for life to exist, though more study is needed.


Friday’s news comes days after mission leaders acknowledged that the Zhurong rover has yet to wake up since going into hibernation for the Martian winter nearly a year ago.

Its solar panels are likely covered with dust, choking off its power source and possibly preventing the rover from operating again, said Zhang Rongqiao, the mission’s chief designer.

Before Zhurong fell silent, it observed salt-rich dunes with cracks and crusts, which researchers said likely were mixed with melting morning frost or snow as recently as a few hundred thousand years ago.


Their estimated date range for when the cracks and other dune features formed in Mars’ Utopia Planitia, a vast plain in the northern hemisphere: sometime after 1.4 million to 400,000 years ago or even younger.

Conditions during that period were similar to now on Mars, with rivers and lakes dried up and no longer flowing as they did billions of years earlier.

Studying the structure and chemical makeup of these dunes can provide insights into “the possibility of water activity” during this period, the Beijing-based team wrote in a study published in Science Advances.

“We think it could be a small amount … no more than a film of water on the surface,” co-author Xiaoguang Qin of the Institute of Geology and Geophysics said in an email.


The rover did not directly detect any water in the form of frost or ice. But Qin said computer simulations and observations by other spacecraft at Mars indicate that even nowadays at certain times of year, conditions could be suitable for water to appear.

What’s notable about the study is how young the dunes are, said planetary scientist Frederic Schmidt at the University of Paris-Saclay, who was not part of the study.

“This is clearly a new piece of science for this region,” he said in an email.

Small pockets of water from thawing frost or snow, mixed with salt, likely resulted in the small cracks, hard crusty surfaces, loose particles and other dune features like depressions and ridges, the Chinese scientists said. They ruled out wind as a cause, as well as frost made of carbon dioxide, which makes up the bulk of Mars’ atmosphere.


Martian frost has been observed since NASA’s 1970s Viking missions, but these light dustings of morning frost were thought to occur in certain locations under specific conditions.

The rover has now provided “evidence that there may be a wider distribution of this process on Mars than previously identified,” said Trinity College Dublin’s Mary Bourke, an expert in Mars geology.

However small this watery niche, it could be important for identifying habitable environments, she added.

Launched in 2020, the six-wheeled Zhurong — named after a fire god in Chinese mythology — arrived at Mars in 2021 and spent a year roaming around before going into hibernation last May. The rover operated longer than intended, traveling more than a mile (1,921 metres).

China's Mars rover finds signs of recent water in sand dunes

Water may be more widespread and recent on Mars than previously thought, based on observations of Martian sand dunes by China's rover.

torontosun.com

 

[55Mercury]

8?o

Dear God, no one tell torchy the uighur oppressors agree with moh that there's water on mars!

but to me, the educated guessers we revere as 'scientists' are using the same degree of conjecture as moh was

"might be suitable" "possibly preventing" "likely were mixed" "as recently as" "estimated date range" "possibility of" "could be a small amount" "could be suitable" "likely resulted" "thought to occur" "may be a wider distribution" "could be important"

guesswork ain't science, but merely a step in the process, cuz ya gotta start somewhere, I guess lol

rover named after mythological god, appropriately so cuz to thith point it'th all thtill a mythtery

meh, whatevs

 

[Taxslave2]

8?o

Dear God, no one tell torchy the uighur oppressors agree with moh that there's water on mars!

but to me, the educated guessers we revere as 'scientists' are using the same degree of conjecture as moh was

"might be suitable" "possibly preventing" "likely were mixed" "as recently as" "estimated date range" "possibility of" "could be a small amount" "could be suitable" "likely resulted" "thought to occur" "may be a wider distribution" "could be important"

guesswork ain't science, but merely a step in the process, cuz ya gotta start somewhere, I guess lol

rover named after mythological god, appropriately so cuz to thith point it'th all thtill a mythtery

meh, whatevs

You see the same type of writing from all the ecoterrorist organizations. Most of the claims are about as likely as gravity quitting.