On the 15th, the Chang'e-4 probe has entered the lunar night dormancy, and the systems are in good condition. On January 3, 2019, the Chang'e-4 probe landed in the Von Kármán impact crater in the Aitken Basin on the far side of the moon, starting a lunar exploration journey. Today, the Chang'e-4 probe has worked more than 3 years on the back of the moon, of which the Yutu-2 lunar rover has also traveled thousands of meters on the back of the moon, which can be said to be overdue. So, what tasks will be undertaken in the future?
On January 3, 2019, the Chang'e-4 probe successfully soft-landed at Von Kármán Crater in the Aitken Basin on the far side of the moon, conducting the first lunar back exploration in human history. It carries six payloads, such as panoramic cameras and infrared imaging spectrometers, and has made detailed detections of the topography of the lunar back and the composition of the lunar soil, and has obtained more than 3800G of scientific data.
Wen Weibin, deputy chief designer of the ground application system of the Chang'e-4 mission: According to our mission cycle, we have worked for 38 months, and we are currently analyzing it through various data and detection data, and its state is very good. There are two payloads on the lander that have been working for a long time, which should be the longest working time of all the payloads in our entire Chang'e-4 probe, and its data is also the most obtained.
At present, the Yutu-2 lunar rover has traveled more than 1,000 meters, traveling an average of about 40 meters per day every month, and it is also the spacecraft that has worked the longest on the far side of the moon. In the future, Yutu-2 will continue to travel northwest of the landing site.
Ren Xin, deputy chief designer of the ground application system of the Chang'e-4 mission: Now the general direction is a basalt area without sputtering in the northwest direction, which is about a kilometer away from us at present, and it may take a long time to reach.
Several designs extend life
Achieve overdue service
Before the Launch of the Chang'e-4 probe, the designers gave Yutu-2 a design lifespan of 3 months, but since its successful landing on the far side of the moon in 2019, the rabbit has been working for 3 years, far beyond the design lifespan. What is the reason why it has been able to work well for such a long time?
The components and products used on China's spacecraft are the best of the best, and the performance of the products should be set to the highest standards.
Fu Qiang, chief designer of the ground application system of the Chang'e-4 mission: At the beginning of the design, the selection of each component has a requirement of high reliability, and there is a guarantee of high life and reliability.
Since the temperature on the lunar surface is between 160 degrees Celsius and minus 180 degrees Celsius, the temperature difference between day and night reaches more than 300 degrees. To this end, the staff designed two rest modes for the spacecraft, lunch break and moon night sleep, so that the Chang'e-4 probe can better adapt to the temperature of the moon.
Fu Qiang, chief designer of the ground application system of the Chang'e-4 mission: After 38 months of testing, the design of our set of work procedures and processes is very reasonable.
In addition, since the moon has no protective layer, many space particles can have an impact on spacecraft on the lunar surface. In order to ensure that the work of the Chang'e-4 and Yutu-2 lunar rovers is not affected, at the beginning of the design, it enhanced the radiation resistance. Thanks to these protections, not only can the service life of the spacecraft be extended, but also the accuracy of the collected data is guaranteed.
Lunar "Mystery Lodge"
What exactly?
Some time ago, a "mysterious cabin" was found on the moon, which once became a hot spot on the Internet. So what exactly is this "mystery hut"?
This is the picture of the lunar "mysterious hut", which was taken by the Yutu-2 lunar rover on the 36th day of the month. As you can see in the picture, at the location of the horizon of the lunar surface, there is an object similar to the shape of a house.
The chief designer of the ground application system of the Chang'e-4 mission Happy Ye: The reason why it looked like a small house before was because of the distance and angle of the shooting, the stone was located at the top of a slope, and our Chang'e-4 lunar rover was at the bottom of the slope, so it was from the bottom up, just when we saw that the stone was on the horizon, at that time the angle (like) was a rectangular, looking like a small house.
In fact, the production of the "mysterious hut" is similar to the principle that we usually see things with our eyes, near and far. Under the influence of multiple factors such as light and background, visual illusions will occur. On the 38th day of the month, the Yutu-2 lunar rover traveled to a position of about 10 meters away from the "small house" and photographed the true appearance of the hut.
Chief Designer of the Ground Application System of the Chang'e-4 Mission Happy Ye: On the day of 38 Months, we looked closer, this is not a small house, it is actually a stone. We found that the width of the stone was about 20 centimeters, the height was about 10 centimeters, and there was a relatively large impact crater behind it, and the diameter of this impact crater was about 22 meters.
In fact, the "Mysterious Cabin" image comes from part of the daily ring shooting image of the Yutu-2 lunar rover. In order to ensure the safety and smooth progress of the Yutu-2 detection mission, it will carry out two 360-degree ring shots during the day of each month to plan a good travel route.
More than 1,000 images were taken
Document the landscape along the way
As the only human spacecraft on the far side of the moon, the Yutu-2 lunar rover has taken more than 1,000 images in the three years of driving on the back of the moon, recording the topography and landforms along the way in detail, providing valuable data for further study of the moon.
Since the Moon has no protective layer, it is hit by meteors, which forms large and small impact craters. During the walking process of the Yutu-2 lunar rover, it also photographed the impact crater landforms formed at different times, which also provided us with more clues to further understand the moon.
Ren Xin, deputy chief designer of the ground application system of the Chang'e-4 mission: From the high-resolution photos taken by Yutu-2, we can see a lot of typical landforms, such as some new impact craters, (diameter) can be tens of meters or even tens of centimeters. There are also many large and small stones.
The most obvious feature of the impact craters that are shorter than our age is that there are many rocks around them. To learn more about the newer impact crater, the Yutu-2 lunar rover will take a long time to further explore it.
Ren Xin, deputy chief designer of the ground application system of the Chang'e-4 mission: This pit was discovered during the 8th month of daylight, and a very detailed exploration has been carried out around it for nearly three months. This detail is taken more clearly, and the dark matter in the middle is much clearer than the picture just now. Among them, the stone was selected to detect the object at that time, and it was photographed by a spectrometer, and its material composition was also analyzed in detail.
Now Yutu-2 has completed the work of the 38th lunar day and is in the moon-night dormant mode. The follow-up Yutu-2 lunar rover will continue to travel northwest of the landing site to obtain more effective exploration data.
What are moon days and moon nights?
Starting today (15th), the Chang'e-4 probe ended its daytime work in the 38th month and began to enter the lunar night dormancy. What are moon days and moon nights?
In fact, the moon is similar to the earth, and it is constantly rotating, which forms the day and night on the moon, called the moon day and moon night. However, compared with Earth, the rotation time of the Moon is much slower. One day on the Moon is equivalent to twenty-eight days on Earth. That is to say, a month's day is about equal to fourteen days on Earth, and a moon's night is equal to fourteen days on Earth. Starting today, for the next fourteen days, the Chang'e-4 probe will be in a lunar night dormant state. After that, the hard work of its 39th day began again.
Source: CCTV News