Category Archives: The Moon

Chinese space, The Moon

Chang’e 3 launch to the Moon [Update]

The Chinese Chang’e 3 mission to the Moon is about to launch. (See earlier posts here and here.)  Watch the lift-off of the Long March 5 on Chinese TV webcast.

[ Update: The launch was a success:

http://youtu.be/lgZslWEQZHY

The cameras on the stages gave dramatic views of the flight, including the burn of the third stage to send the spacecraft on a trajectory to the Moon. Even after separation of the spacecraft from the third stage, the camera showed the Chang’e 3 – Twitter / SpaceflightNow:

A view of China’s Chang’e 3 lunar lander firing thrusters just after deploying from the Long March upper stage. pic.twitter.com/liqsFN47ET

Embedded image permalink

Update 2: The Chang’e 3 will go into lunar orbit on December 6th and the landing is planned for December 14th.

Some reports on the launch:

]

Updates at

Articles and photos:

Chinese space, Space Systems, The Moon

Chinese Chang’e 3 lunar lander soon to launch

The Chinese are expected to launch the Chang’e 3 lunar lander this Sunday, December 1st. This would be the first spacecraft to make a soft landing on the Moon since the Soviet Union did it with the Luna 24 rover in 1976.

[]

Here’s a map of the Moon showing where the landing is expected to occur.

The Chinese space agency held a public contest to name the rover and Yutu or Jade Rabbit was the winner. Yutu was the “legendary companion of the goddess Chang’e”.

More about Yutu at

 

History, Multiple media, The Moon

Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter images of Apollo & spacecraft sites on the Moon

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) site now offers images taken from the LRO spacecraft  of the sites on the Moon where an Apollo visit took place or where an unmanned spacecraft touched the surface: LROC Featured Sites (link via Behind The Black).

See a map of the sites with the interactive LROC Image Browser – lander_locations.

See also

LRO image of Luna 17
Luna 17, the Soviet Union spacecraft that carried the Lunokhod 1 rover
to the surface. You can make out the rover tracks around the lander.
LROC NAC image M175502049RE
Image Credit:  NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University

 

Exoplanets, Space participation, The Moon

Citizen Science: Moonometer, Moon Zoo Live, Planet Hunters and Zooniverse job ad

2 Comments

Some citizen science news items:

The Moonometer at the Moon Zoo project gives the latest count in the number of  LRO images classified by participants: The Moonometer -Moon Zoo

 Check out also the Moon Zoo Live page to see a real-time updated display of where the latest feature to be classified is located on the Moon and the location on earth of the classifier.

MoonZooLive_capture

===

As noted here recently, the Planet Hunters Ccitizen science project has recently announced the discovery of 14 exoplanet candidates, including the seventh in the first 7-planet system, which has the romanatic name of KOI-351. Robert Simpson, a co-author of the paper on the findings, has used the Celestia astronomy simulator to depict the KOI-351 system. Here is a video of the planets in action: Exploring the Tiny Planetary System of KOI-351 – Planet Hunters.

Tour of the Seven-Planet System Around the Star KOI-351
 from Robert Simpson on Vimeo.

===

Zooniverse is an organization that runs a number of citizen science programs including Moon Zoo and Planet Hunters mentioned above. They are looking for programmers to work for them : Want to work with the Zooniverse?  Zooniverse.

Chinese space, The Moon

Video: Animation of the Chang’e 3 lunar mission

Here’s a very nicely made animation of the upcoming Chinese Chang’e 3 lander/rover mission to the Moon: Space fan produces animated trailer for Chang’e 3 mission – The Planetary Society

http://youtu.be/hUW0ippVNL4