Dark Side of the moon

[nonsequitur]

Cobnapint said:

audidoody said:

Dog Star said:

Pistonheads: cliquey one-upmanship matters.

It reminds me of the plane people - got to get as many acronyms and buzzwords in just to show you're one of the crowd - "yeah, I was flying out of LAX, tuned left and had status as a diamond PAX but then the VP got VD and I got a flame out blah blah"..

I don't know what you mean. It's perfectly ordinary banter, Squiffy. Bally Jerry, pranged his kite right in the how's-your-father; hairy blighter, dicky-birded, feathered back on his sammy, took a waspy, flipped over on his Betty Harpers and caught his can in the Bertie.

Precisely.

At a guess our canine/ astro fellow poster is suffering withdrawal symptoms. While seated in economy.

[Eric Mc]

Some nice video footage of the landing just released.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyjyf4ANGIo

[Eric Mc]

You can see it stopping the descent at intervals so it can assess the nature of the terrain below it.

[MartG]

Very nice video indeed !

More pics released

Rover from lander


Lander from rover


Panorama from lander


Polar projection from lander

[Eric Mc]

ash73 said:

That wonky solar panel upsets my OCD.

Hopefully, the Chinese space agency has equally OCD people in important places so they can fund a manned mission to go and straighten it out.

[Register1]

Absolutely fantastic video and pictures.

Well done/.

[Halmyre]

ash73 said:

That wonky solar panel upsets my OCD.

The technician responsible is now employed in a salt mine somewhere.

[kuro]

Great footage. I wonder if the conspiracy theory nutters will care to notice the similarities with the Apollo landings. Minimal dust thrown up on landing, no star's in the sky and the identical landscape

[Eric Mc]

kuro said:

Great footage. I wonder if the conspiracy theory nutters will care to notice the similarities with the Apollo landings. Minimal dust thrown up on landing, no star's in the sky and the identical landscape

There were quite a few similarities with the whole descent and landing of the craft compared to the Apollo Lunar Module. You could even see a little "shimmy" movement as it wobbled from side to side slightly - just like you see on Apollo landing footage.

[kuro]

Eric Mc said:

kuro said:

Great footage. I wonder if the conspiracy theory nutters will care to notice the similarities with the Apollo landings. Minimal dust thrown up on landing, no star's in the sky and the identical landscape

There were quite a few similarities with the whole descent and landing of the craft compared to the Apollo Lunar Module. You could even see a little "shimmy" movement as it wobbled from side to side slightly - just like you see on Apollo landing footage.

Yes, been watching a lot of Apollo footage recently and it all looked so familiar.

[Eric Mc]

The Chang'e lander does seem to have followed fairly closely some design features of the Grumman Lunar Module descent stage. For all we know, they could be using it as (say) a 1/3 scale model of a full size manned lunar lander that they are designing behind the scenes.

[Cobnapint]

ash73 said:

It cuts the engine and free falls the last 4m, hence the unsubtle touchdown.

That is some footage and the first time I can recall seeing the actual feet of a lander hitting the surface. I love the little pause to verify the LZ suitability too.

The engine must have been cut to idle for the last few metres, you can see some surface disturbance and image distortion from the heat a couple of seconds before touch down.

A great achievement no question. I still don't trust the fkers though.

[Halmyre]

ash73 said:

It cuts the engine and free falls the last 4m, hence the unsubtle touchdown.

The Apollo landers did the same as well to minimise dust being kicked up and causing various problems, although in its case it was only about 5 or 6 feet.

[Eric Mc]

By the simple expedient of having long wire probes dangling from three of the four legs. Once the probe hit the surface, the engine thrust was cut off allowing the LM to drop the last few feet. You can see the probes in this schematic.

[Cobnapint]

With all the high tech direction and ranging equipment on board this state of the art lander, why would you need to dangle things off the ends of the feet to tell you where the surface was..? Sounds ridiculous.

[Eric Mc]

I don't think anybody said modern landers did need such devices. It was obviously a worthwhile thing to do over 50 years ago when the Lunar Module was being designed.

However, it is simple technology and pretty reliable, so there is no reason to dismiss it even today.

[MartG]

On the LM it was a manual intervention to shut down the engine once the contact light illuminated, triggered by one of the three probes touching the surface.

[Eric Mc]

You actually here Buzz Aldrin call out "Contact light" in the audio of the Apollo 11 landing -

https://www.nasa.gov/62283main_landing.wav

[MartG]

Seed aboard the lander have sprouted

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-468735...

[The Dangerous Elk]

Great, we have now polluted Mars ffs !