Chang'e 3 landing and first lunar day of operations, Including landing site geology and localization Options

[Hungry4info]

The second image I saw on FB recently, but the third image is new to me. Thanks for that link.

[4th rock from th...]

Those pictures are in somewhat higher quality here:

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/photo/20...132968376_5.htm

[Phil Stooke]

Going from a LROC-WAC mosaic to a NAC frame to a descent camera mosaic (from 4th Rock... welcome back!) - a locator guide to the site.

Phil

[Phil Stooke]

And this is 4th Rock's mosaic with additions from one of the TV screenshots posted on NasaSpaceFlight. It is an overhead projection of the initial rover image mosaic, for planning purposes, superimposed with a lander model. This all took a bit of fudging, but it's a start at a site map.

Phil

[climber]

So, last picture is a square of about 100m x 100m?

[kenny]

This high res image seems to be from the Mast Camera on the lander. It shows the far side of the crater in front of the Rover, and the landscape to the north.
It was taken later than the one below, as the sun is higher and shadows are a little shorter. Its location is indicated by the box below.



This low res image below shows the area north of the Lander before the Rover was deployed. Yellow box inset is the location of the high res.

[Paolo]

A more complete descent video. But I think we still have not seen the complete sequence
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lA__4SnHqH8

[TheAnt]

Congratulations to those who work on the Chinese space program!

And thank you Hungry4info for identifying the landing site.

Now lets see what a lunar rabbit can achieve!

[dvandorn]

All right -- ship in port, Captain's gig launched. Way to go!

Congrats to the Chinese Space Agency for grabbing the brass ring on their first try.

-the other Doug

[kenny]

The rover is due to pass around the east (sunlit) side of the lander in a drive of 10 meters, stopping at 5 different locations for mutual photography.

CNTV says: “The 10 meter walk from the lander will take Yutu about two hours due to the bumpy and uneven surface of the Moon. The entire process of
capturing five images will take up to 20 hours to complete. Yutu will take two pictures of the front side of Chang’E 3. This is the side where the Chinese
national flag is painted. One of the pictures will be taken from ten meters away, while the other will be clicked from a distance of 18 meters. The moving
path designed for Yutu is a half circle. Pictures will be taken firstly from the back of the lander, and then the side and then the front."

CNTV story and video of Yutu photography

[craigmcg]

Live coverage now on - but you need a plugin (at least I did):

http://english.cntv.cn/special/lunarmissio...102945984341204

[dvandorn]

A couple of observations about the imaging thus far:

First, the images from Yutu's mast camera seem a little over-saturated. At least, the brightest elements in the images (the rock faces reflecting sunlight right back into the camera) look rather over-saturated to me.

Second, the color rendition from the lander's panoramic camera seems to be biased towards a very brown image, while the rover's color camera is registering more of the expected grayish coloration of the regolith, almost trending towards a slight greenish tinge. Interestingly, these are the same range of color biases that were achieved from the various color film stocks used during Apollo. It took until the later flights for the photo processors to achieve a consistent representation of the grayish lunar regolith; this shows how difficult it can be to get good, representative color from the lunar surface.

I wonder if the mission controllers will be adjusting the color balances and saturation in the released images as time goes on?

Also, looking forward to more of the full video feed from Yutu. That was pretty impressive from the quick flashes we saw during the rover deployment.

-the other Doug

[Phil Stooke]

If you look back to post 270 (page 18) in this thread (http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...3105&st=255) I posted a Clementine false colour map of the landing region, showing 'blue' and 'yellow' lava flows.

We landed in the blue unit, but only a few km from the boundary. That boundary shows up as an albedo boundary in my locator sequence as well. So if Yutu drives north they should be able to cross the contact between two flows, getting compositional data for both and using the radar to map the depth of the blue unit as they go.

There is also a mare ridge here, so its structure may be investigated. It could be a very scientifically productive site.

Phil

[Paolo]

this was posted on facebook a few minutes ago

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[Cosmic Penguin]

this was posted on facebook a few minutes ago

Note that it appears to be from the rover's NavCam, not the PanCam, so the B/W color should be right.