CE-2 flyby of Toutatis |
CE-2 flyby of Toutatis |
Aug 25 2012, 04:27 PM
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#1
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1729 Joined: 3-August 06 From: 43° 35' 53" N 1° 26' 35" E Member No.: 1004 |
I thought it was time to split the subject from the Moon forum.
Admins, can you move the relevant messages here? anyway, just out: an interesting blog article by Bill Gray explaining how he recovered the probe and how he computed the orbit yielding the 13 December flyby date Chang'e 2: The Full Story |
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Dec 16 2012, 09:53 AM
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#2
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1729 Joined: 3-August 06 From: 43° 35' 53" N 1° 26' 35" E Member No.: 1004 |
Chinese sources such as this http://www.stdaily.com/stdaily/content/201...tent_552959.htm acknowledge that the CMOS monitoring webcam has been used. the 200 g, 1024 x 1024 pixel camera apparently shot 5 pictures every second for more than 100 seconds around closest approach. The camera has a 7.2 degree fov.
I wonder whether any science camera picture was finally taken or not. from the timeline on the left of this picture http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/12/15/...269_634x422.jpg which yaohua2000 translated here http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...st&p=195772 I think it was not even powered on. Chinese sources also report that a domestic telescopic observation and orbit determination effort was carried out on Toutatis. This was not strictly needed for such a well known object, but was still an useful exercise for an encounter with a more obscure object. |
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Dec 16 2012, 11:30 AM
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#3
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Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 69 Joined: 15-June 12 From: Hong Kong Member No.: 6419 |
Apparently the main camera was not powered on (nor it seems the other instruments on the spacecraft either), due to these reasons:
1. The data transfer from the main CCD camera would be very bad at such a long distance from Earth 2. The double linear-phase CCD camera has such a small FOV that it would not be able to take photos at such a relative speed during the fly-by I might need to dig around the 1 hour special report on the Chinese news TV channel yesterday to look for other interesting facts on the fly-by..... Oh and forget about another mission by CE-2, it has less than 10 m/s of delta-v capacity left.... -------------------- UMSF - the place of Opportunity to satisfy your Spirit of Curiosity via Perseverance
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