China is About To Try a High-Stakes Landing on Mars (nationalgeographic.com) 70
China is all set to attempt its first landing on another planet. After months in orbit around Mars, the Tianwen-1 spacecraft will deposit a rover called Zhurong on the surface of Mars. If successful, China will become the second country in history to explore the Martian surface with a rover. From a report: Tianwen-1 arrived at Mars on February 10, marking the arrival of China's first independent interplanetary mission. Since then, Tianwen-1 has been making close approaches to Mars every 49 hours as it flies in an elliptical orbit around the planet, each time taking high-resolution images of the landing site in Utopia Planitia, a vast plain that may once have been covered by an ancient Martian ocean. Chinese officials have said the landing attempt would take place in mid-to-late May, and a report on Twitter quoted Ye Peijian of the China Association for Science and Technology saying the landing will take place on May 14 at 7:11 p.m. ET. This aligns with estimates from amateur radio astronomers tracking the spacecraft.
Mission scientists have been analyzing the topography and geology of Utopia Planitia to guide the spacecraft's landing attempt, and if they decide not to attempt a landing on May 14, they will have additional opportunities on May 16 and May 18. Named for an ancient Chinese fire god, the 529-pound Zhurong rover is similar in size to NASA's Spirit and Opportunity rovers, which landed on the red planet in 2004 and sent back exciting images and data about the planet's surface conditions. China's rover could make additional important discoveries concerning water and past habitability on the planet, paving the way for future human missions to Mars.
Mission scientists have been analyzing the topography and geology of Utopia Planitia to guide the spacecraft's landing attempt, and if they decide not to attempt a landing on May 14, they will have additional opportunities on May 16 and May 18. Named for an ancient Chinese fire god, the 529-pound Zhurong rover is similar in size to NASA's Spirit and Opportunity rovers, which landed on the red planet in 2004 and sent back exciting images and data about the planet's surface conditions. China's rover could make additional important discoveries concerning water and past habitability on the planet, paving the way for future human missions to Mars.
Holding power. (Score:2)
Well I would hope so. Those little-stakes don't hold very well.
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zhurong.
name given to identify the god of fire.
a noble name to give to a man made machine.
but after the landing.
there may need to be a new name for this man made machine.
what is the name given to identify the god of paper weights
Non-Paywalled Version (Score:5, Informative)
Article that doesn't require your personal information to read it. [nature.com]
Cool! [Re:Non-Paywalled Version (Score:2)
Cool! I wish them luck!
...another source:
https://www.cnet.com/news/chin... [cnet.com]
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Apparently people aren't familiar with those services that give virtual addresses. [temp-mail.org]
Also technically it's not "pay-walled" since no money is involved.
Re: Non-Paywalled Version (Score:4, Insightful)
Iâ(TM)m not jumping through hoops to read an article. We didnâ(TM)t build open Internet protocols so corporations could restrict our access to data. Iâ(TM)ll just go somewhere else.
As far as not technically being a paywall. It depends on how you view your personal information. Some of us see it as being worth something.
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We didn't build open Internet protocols so corporations could restrict our access to data.
"We"? Didn't know you worked for ARPA, in the 80s ... :-)
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Considering most of you get your email service for free that's rather a humorous complaint. And it's not YOUR data to begin with so if you want it you'll have to work for it.
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We didnâ(TM)t build open Internet protocols so corporations could restrict our access to data.
Oh, shut the fuck up.
The US DoD didn't fund the invention of Internet protocols so that you could enforce your viewpoints on everyone who uses it, and claim ownership over their data.
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Not confident. . . (Score:3, Interesting)
. . . .given the long-standing Chinese quality issues. . . .
Example 1 [bbc.com]
Example 2 [hoax-slayer.net]
And a more generalized discussion of endemic Chinese quality issues [qualityinspection.org]
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I missed out. Was it too launched with an unstable booster?
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Was pretty cool to watch.
I read news reports of them finding pretty big pieces of that thing on peoples property.
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I think there's a difference between boosters designed to deorbit correctly, and fail, vs those that are simply shot up with the knowledge that, "Well, it will come down somewhere..."
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The discussion seemed to be based around "QC" though. I'm unaware whether or not the Chinese rocket was simply designed to come down as it will, or if it was intended to be boosted into a safe reentry.
Re:Not confident. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
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You seem to indicate someone would need to use random unrelated quality issues to make a case that NASA has quality issues. They do.
Re:Not confident. . . (Score:4, Informative)
The designers knew of the problem and had a minimum launch temperature, which was ignored with the expected result.
Re:Not confident. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
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Yes. They try it on the cheap. But if it works, can be fixed or can be tried again and work then, they will have a working, cheap solution, quite unlike everything excessive gold-plated NASA or ESA does.
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The problem with this theory is that an appropriate window only opens every 26 months. So fail now and wait 2 years to try again or add some of that "gold plating" and be successful.
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It is thought that China has about 2,300 glass bridges and a number of glass walkways and slides. ... They are designed to attract thrill-seeking tourists
Apparently the thrill-seeking feature worked!
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It is thought that China has about 2,300 glass bridges and a number of glass walkways and slides. ... They are designed to attract thrill-seeking tourists
Apparently the thrill-seeking feature worked!
These exist in the US also. There is one on the rim of the Grand Canyon.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
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"I'm no apologist, but..."
And from an AC, at that.
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I hope they are successful, but the way they are shrouding a science mission in secrecy is weirdly Chinese:
"The China National Space Administration (CNSA) is remaining tight-lipped about exactly when its rover, named Zhurong — after a Chinese mythological god of fire — will touch down."
Feels a lot like CYA, expecting a mishap.
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The US is also a bit of a mess when it comes to quality issues in engineering and adherence to their own (weak) regulation.
* 1950's environmental disaster at Love Canal, New York [wikipedia.org]
* 1970's Ford Pinto [wikipedia.org]
* 1979 Nuclear generating station accident at Three Mile Island [wikipedia.org]
* 1981 Hyatt Regency walkway collapse [wikipedia.org]
* 1986 Challenger shuttle disaster [wikipedia.org] and 2003 Columbia shuttle disaster [wikipedia.org]
* 2005 failure of New Orleans' levees [wikipedia.org]
Obviously these sorts of things shouldn't occur in any country, especially ones that carry a nuclear arsenals
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Exactly. How does cherry picked examples lead to any kind of conclusion?
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The landing just succeeded.
I feel there's little value in landing on Mars (Score:4, Interesting)
it's been done for 45 years. What is really interesting about Mars are its two moons.
Why not land on those, or try to take much closer views of them?
They have odd characteristics and that's where I'd look if I wanted to do some science that's useful, rather than just confirming what we already know; ie Mars is a dead rock.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Phobos's density is too low to be solid rock, and it is known to have significant porosity
etc..
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do some science that's useful, rather than just confirming what we already know; ie Mars is a dead rock.
The thing is Luckyo, we don't know that yet.
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Nope. Nobody has landed in the moon for a long time and what the US did way back was an almost worthless stunt.
The value of the moon is this: Low gravity. If anybody can get reasonable manufacturing going on the moon, they own the system.
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China landed a lunar sample mission on Dec 1 2020.
I would not count that as a "long time" and stuff like that is laying the bedrock for regolith mining.
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Nobody has landed in the moon for a long time and what the US did way back was an almost worthless stunt.
A stunt- absolutely.
Nowhere near worthless though.
Those stunts have inspired more interest in space (important if you want something to be "important" in a democratic country) than anything else mankind has done.
Hubble takes cool pictures. But kids are building lego Saturn V's, and LEMs. Not hubbles.
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Phobos and Deimos are captured asteroids.
There is no advantage to exploring them instead of other asteroids.
There are several disadvantages:
1. They are deep inside Mars's gravity well, making them more energy-intensive to reach. Phobos is closer to its mother planet than any other moon in the solar system.
2. They are much further from Earth than NEO asteroids [wikipedia.org].
A mission to a metallic NEO asteroid like (6178)_1986_DA [wikipedia.org] would make more sense.
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we already know; ie Mars is a dead rock.
"We", as in the majority of us, do not know any such thing. "Most", as in a great deal of us but not all, suspect that this is true. What "we" know is that one time conditions probably existed on Mars that where favorable for life. What "some" of us suspect is there may still be life deep inside Mars in the form of microbes, or there may be fossilized evidence of such life in the past. "We" will not know unless we explore.
What will such a discovery confirm? Basically, it will change everything we k
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Who cares bout rovers on mars? These are pretty worthless for the next few decades.
Re: China couldn't even tell us what was happening (Score:2)
How do you know?
Because its easy as fuck (Score:1)
Good luck (Score:1)
Where's my fucking flag? (Score:4, Funny)
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I still hear black people moaning and bitching over the Apollo program. No shit. These are very well educated black people. They think it should have been spent on them. Certain "leaders" doing their best to hold the whole entire human race back.
What's funny is when I bring up that there are stupid white people as well. There are a lot of stupid white people in the country. They don't whine and bitch though.
Coming soon: the NEXT generation of ... (Score:2)
Find something negative to say about the landing ; (Score:1)
Successfully landed (Score:3)
The landing maneuvers started around 1:00am 15 May Beijing time, and the landing succeeded after about 7-8 hours.
It was reported in Chinese media about 30mins ago, I cannot find any report in English yet, but here is a link https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?... [baidu.com]
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AvE reference, love it!
Anyone can do that (Score:1)
Congrats to china on doing the hard part (Score:2)
Not surprising (Score:1)
I'm sure Honeywell sent over all the plans and manuals to our space stuff as well. They admitted to sending over the F35 and other highly classified plans, manuals, etc. They don't care.
That name rings a bell (Score:1)
Really? (Score:1)