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March 2nd, 2020
Yutu-2 rover (Jade Rabbit-2).
Credit: CNAS/CLEP
China’s Chang’e-4 lander and rover have concluded their work for the 15th lunar day. Both have switched to “dormant” mode for the 14-day lunar night.
Making tracks. China’s Yutu-2 robot dispatched from farside lander.
Credit: CNSA/CLEP
The rover — Yutu-2 — has worked much longer than its three-month design life, becoming the longest-working lunar rover on the Moon, reports the Xinhua news agency. It has driven over 1,300 feet (399.788 meters) on the farside of the Moon.
Farside landing
China’s Chang’e-4 mission was launched on December 8, 2018, making the first-ever soft landing on the Von Kármán crater in the South Pole-Aitken Basin on the farside of the Moon on January 3, 2019.
Schematic representation of the subsurface geological structure at the CE-4 landing site inferred from LPR observations.
Credit: Chunlai Li, et al.
The Yutu-2 rover is equipped with Lunar Penetrating Radar (LPR), transmitting radio signals deep into the surface of the Moon, reaching a depth of over 130 feet (40 meters).
Recently released data indicates that the subsurface is essentially made by highly porous granular materials embedding boulders of different sizes.
Chang’e-4 mission landed in the eastern floor of Von Kármán crater as indicated by the white cross on a bright ejecta blanket. The yellow and green lines show the ejecta direction from Finsen and Von Kármán L, respectively.
Credit: Chunlai Li, et al.
Sample return
Chang’e 5 lunar sample return capsule has undergone thermal vacuum tests.
Credit: China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC).
Next up and out in terms of China’s lunar exploration projects is the launch of the Chang’e-5 lunar probe, weighing about 8.2 tons.
It is expected to be launched in 2020 to rocket lunar samples weighing 4.4 pounds (2 kilograms) back to Earth.
View this CCTV video on the Chang’e-4 mission at:
To read the paper – “The Moon’s farside shallow subsurface structure unveiled by Chang’E-4 Lunar Penetrating Radar” – in Science Advances February 26, 2020, go to:
Posted in Space News
