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Unmanned Spaceflight.com _ Chang'e program _ Yutu "has stopped operations"

Posted by: ollopa Aug 3 2016, 02:15 PM

Xinhua is reporting that Yutu "has stopped operations".

http://www.china.org.cn/china/2016-08/03/content_39017024.htm

Posted by: Hungry4info Aug 4 2016, 09:37 PM

SpaceflightNow article about it. There's an image showing Yutu with what appears to be its mast almost stowed. I don't believe we've seen it before.
http://spaceflightnow.com/2016/08/04/chinas-yutu-rover-dies-on-the-moon/

Posted by: Hungry4info Aug 11 2016, 02:52 AM

Or not! It appears the reports of Yutu's death have been the result of a translation error.
http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2016/08100543-yutu-is-not-dead-probably.html

Posted by: Phil Stooke Aug 11 2016, 04:54 PM

With all due respect to Emily, I am not sure about this. My interpretation of the story as we have it so far was that Yutu last communicated at the end of lunar day 31 (May 28th approximately) and did not respond to commands at the start of the next lunar day, so it was said to have died at the end of day 31. Sunrise on day 34 is just a day or two away, so we will see, I guess. But the lander is still working well and taking data, and that is the longest-lived of any landed hardware except the Apollo ALSEPs.

Phil

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