Chandrayaan-II, All Chandrayaan-II related articles Options

[Pradeep]

RussianSpaceWeb has reported that the possible landing sites for Chandrayaan-II called Luna-Resurs by the Russians have been selected. The selection is not final and seems to have been made (or covers only the Russian angle of the story) by Russian space organizations.

There is a detailed account of the selected landing sites for Chandrayaan-II here: http://www.russianspaceweb.com/luna_resurs_landing.html

Pradeep

[nprev]

Thanks, Pradeep!

South polar region, huh? Interesting! There's some pretty rough terrain down there, though the planners seem well aware of it based on the article.

[Phil Stooke]

Much more info on site selection here. Chandrayaan 2 is called Luna-Resurs (Moon Resource) in Russia, and it's one of a pair of missions, the other called Luna-Glob. Luna-Resurs was supposed to fly in 2013 but may be delayed into 2014 by Indian issues, mainly with the launch vehicle, I believe. Luna-Glob will launch a year later. LR goes to the south, LG to the north. Now that they have found hydrogen in illuminated areas as well as permanent shadows the whole question of studying it is much easier, so the sites are no longer very close to the poles.

This link goes to an intro page from which you can link to numerous presentations, most of them in English. Thanks to our Russian colleagues for making them available.

Phil

http://www.iki.rssi.ru/eng/conf/2011-lg/index.html

[Phil Stooke]

I am resurrecting this ancient thread because, after a long wait, Chandrayaan 2 will soon be launched to the Moon.

The links above give some information on very early thoughts about this mission, which was to be a joint India-Russia flight. The Russians called the mission Luna-Resurs (resources), and they would provide a lander and in some versions of it, a rover as well. India provided an orbiter and a mini-rover as well as a launch. Later the Russians pulled out and India took over all aspects of the mission.

The site selection work described above went through multiple phases in Russia. When India took over they did some of their own work on site selection. See this report from LPSC in 2015:

https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2015/pdf/1351.pdf

Some work has been done since by two groups that I am aware of, but I am waiting for a paper release before I can say more. Don't pay too much attention to press reports which are almost always out of date.

The rover mission is only intended to survive one lunar day, and its activities will be recorded here.

Phil

[Phil Stooke]

Some landing site news:

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/01/ind...on-s-south-pole

This article says that the site will be on a "plain between two craters, Manzinus C and Simpelius N, at a latitude of about 70° south", in other words here:



The coordinates are approximately 70.8 south, 22.9 east.

The article has a horrible representation of the zone of previous landings with red dots apparently purporting to be old landing sites, but they are just random. Really, how hard would it have been to do that right? However, we may have a site at last. I hope there will be something about it at LPSC - whose abstracts will be released on Friday!

Phil

[John Moore]

Thanks, Phil...have added a Wiki Chandrayaan-2 page for such.

John Moore

[Phil Stooke]

I can confirm there will be new details at LPSC... plus a whole lot on Chinese sites.

Phil

[John Moore]

Cheers. Phil...the LPSC abstracts are never short of wonderful disclosures - particularly, concerning research about the Moon. So much appreciation to YOU for the updates and links.

A possible alternative Chandrayaan-2 site (PDF file) - east of Klaproth A (68.2S, 21.84W), that may be another area for the upcoming mission - if announced in the 49th LPSC Conference

John Moore

[Phil Stooke]

Yes - here is the location of that site - in the white box.

Phil

[Sean]

Here is the location on LRO Quickmap 3D

[John Moore]

Phil, Seán...very nice, different perspectives.

Looking forward to the mission.

John Moore

[Phil Stooke]

The Chandrayaan 2 launch is postponed until October. That may mean that it and Chang'E 4 will be driving around on the Moon at the same time, keeping any lunar cartographers out there pretty busy.

Phil

[Phil Stooke]

https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/i...UL4SDa17GJ.html

Launch will now be no earlier than 3 January 2019, and the lander has been named Vikram after V. A. Sarabhai, regarded as the initiator of the Indian space program. No word I am aware of concerning a name for the rover.

Phil

[Phil Stooke]

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/c...ow/65945202.cms

description of changes to Chandrayaan 2, which leaves me concerned that more testing might be needed and could lead to further delays. I hope everything will be OK. I would not want to see a premature launch just to meet a schedule.

Phil

[Explorer1]

Now, the extension of the solar panel (an additional 350 meters)

That's got to be a typo!

Based on the image, wouldn't a go landing attitude allow sunlight to reach the rover? Or it is a matter of not being able to guarantee the panels face the right way during landing?

[Thorsten Denk]

Chandrayaan-2 launch now NET May.

https://www.asianage.com/science/010419/isr...ay-k-sivan.html

Thorsten

[Phil Stooke]

Another month, another date: mid-July.

https://twitter.com/isro/status/1123612384336027650

And that tweet has a name for the rover, Pragyan, meaning Wisdom according to Wikipedia, or Knowledge according to New Delhi TV.

Phil

[John Moore]

India's Chandrayaan 2 lunar mission to the Moon has successfully launched today, 22 July 2019 (at 0913 GMT) from its space centre in Sriharikota, near the Bay of Bengal.

Already having separated from its launcher's second stage and now in Earth orbit, Chandrayaan 2 is expected to touchdown on the lunar South Pole some time in early September 2019.

The mission includes both a lander and rover (also with an orbiter overhead); where all three include various research instruments (13 of Indian, 1 of NASA) used in areas, for example:
looking for water and minerals signatures, and the study of moonquakes and possible future landing sites...amongst other activities. The orbiter has eight instruments, the lander with
four (including the NASA instrument), while the rover has the remaining two.

On touchdown, the solar-powered rover will off-load from the lander after some four hours, where it will then mainly rove around the surface during lunar day-long (14 earth days) stints.

[Thorsten Denk]

Finally they're on their way.

Lunar Landing is expected Sept 7 at 2:50 AM Indian Standard Time or Sept 6 at 21:20 UT.
Friday evening for Europe, afternoon for America.

... Chandrayaan 2 is expected to touchdown on the lunar South Pole some time in early September 2019.

I wonder why all the time they say "on the South Pole".
The landing Site is at 70°S, this is still 600km from the pole.
It's the nearest lunar soft landing to a pole ever, but not yet "on" the pole...

Thorsten

[Phil Stooke]

Here is a set of 'finder' maps for the primary landing site and the alternative site.

Phil

[John Moore]

Just querying: while during the long, lunar day (14 earth days) stints that the Chandrayaan 2 rover (Pragyan) is expected to undergo near/below the 70.0s degree South Pole environment, will
the different, southerly periodic lighting conditions, let alone the temperatures changes, affect the amount of days that the rover can rove (I'm thinking that the various powering down/up
periods might be shorter: simply due to less illumination time on the solar panels at such latitudes, but then, do the lower temperature differences, lighting conditions counteract such - allow longer exploration times).

John

[MahFL]

Gratz to ISRO on a successful launch.

[Explorer1]

Perhaps the 'noon naps' that Yutu has been commanded to do to avoid overheating might not be necessary, if the sun never gets too high above the horizon?

I'm certainly looking forward to surface images, both in terms of long shadows and Earth near the horizon....

[JRehling]

The amount of solar radiation that the panels receive will depend upon the angle between the panels and the Sun. The angle of the ground to the Sun is irrelevant. The imagery I see online indicates that the solar panels are not horizontal, so I presume that they will be oriented for better energy production.

[Thorsten Denk]

Hi all!

Some thoughts:

"Noon naps" (here in Spain: siesta) are probably not necesary, because the sun never rises more than 20deg above the horizon. This keeps the surface temperature rather low.
Thermodynamic equilibrium:
- Max. solar irradiation on horizontal surface: 1367W/m² x cos(70°) = 470W/m²
- Thermal reradiation: 470 = 5.67e-8 x T^4
=> Noon-Temperature T = 301K = 28°C (like here last night )
This is approximately, no reflection of sunlight or emittance of IR <1 was included.
But in any case, not as hot as on other places.

At the time of landing, the terminator is at 0deg longitude. The landing site is at 23°E, this means that at this site, the sun is already 1.5 Earth-days up. This has to be taken into account when somebody speaks about "14-Earth days operation time". It will be not more than 12.5 Earth days. If they achieve night survival, then it will be more of course. (This does not take into account possible "seasonal effects". As the Moon's axis is tilt only 1.5° vs the ecliptic, this is normally negligible, but not when coming close to a pole. 70°S is not yet close enough to be important, but I wouldn't be surprised if they could win (or loose) another half a Earth-day or so. And, of course!, terrain also matters! If there's a small hill in the west, the sunset might be significantly earlier.)
If somebody wants to do detailed calculations, this great page helps: https://trek.nasa.gov/moon/index.html

The solar panels of the lander and the rover are mostly vertical. As far as I can see on the photos, neither panel is steerable.
The lander has one side (I suppose this will face south) with the rover and without solar panels, another two sides (I suppose facing east and west) with solar panels, and one side (I suppose facing north) that's never visible in the photos, so I don't know what's there. Hopefully another solar panel. If not, they will have a hard time around local noon.
The lander has one solar panel that can be flipped to vertical, but doesn't seem to be steerable! This means that the lander should always move or at least park in a sun facing direction! Remember, over the lunar day, the sun will move in the sky from east (at the horizon) to north (elevation <20°) to west (again at the horizon).

I wonder how they will manage the landing on a safe spot. The sun is very low during landing, and the shadows will be very long. A system like the one used by Cháng'é-3 and 4 (imaging, terrain recognition) will probably have a hard time to work.

Shadows, yes, it will be interesting to see how they will hamper (or not?) the navigation of the rover.

Somebody knows what capabilities they have to detect water?
I don't expect it directly on the surface, but not too many cm below, there might be traces.

Now let's cross fingers that they are successful with the flight and the landing. This place will give a first small hint about how the conditions on the real pole might be.

Regards
Thorsten

[John Moore]

While fully admitting to not understanding the temperature/power complexities of sunlight falling on the lander and rover solar panels at such extreme latitudes, your description, Thorsten, is wonderful. Thanks

John

[elakdawalla]

Note that the lander and rover are not expected to survive the lunar night. Their mission will last one lunar daytime, 14 Earth days, according to mission materials. I'm a little confused by this number because I can't imagine a successful landing during the very twilit high-southern-latitude dawn; it seems to me they'll have to land under relatively high sun conditions. But that's speculation on my part.

[Phil Stooke]

The statement is ambiguously worded, but I think they are saying 'the lander and rover will last for one lunar day' and 'one lunar day is 14 Earth days'. I saw it said somewhere that the landing is about 36 hours after sunrise, so you are quite right that the actual surface missions must be shorter. We can probably expect a maximum of 12 days operation. We had better hope a noon siesta is not required!

Phil

[elakdawalla]

Thanks, I had missed that detail. I'm still impressed by a landing 36 hours after sunrise at that latitude!

[nogal]

The Chadrayaan-2 mission seems to be proceeding according to plan, the probe having successfully completed all the Earth orbit raising manoeuvres on August 6. The next orbital change is the trans-lunar injection, scheduled for August 14.
Here is a comparison table for the attained and planed orbits.


The information is taken from the Updates web site and the mission plan
Fernando

[Roby72]

Success for Lunar Tranfer Trajectory:

https://www.isro.gov.in/update/14-aug-2019/...sfer-trajectory

[nogal]

Here is an updated table with the latest information.

Fernando

[Phil Stooke]

https://www.isro.gov.in/update/20-aug-2019/...orbit-insertion

Lunar orbit!

Phil

[Phil Stooke]

https://www.isro.gov.in/sites/default/files...moon_photo1.png

First image of the Moon, with the Orientale basin at the top and north at upper left.

Phil

[Steve G]

https://www.isro.gov.in/sites/default/files...moon_photo1.png

First image of the Moon, with the Orientale basin at the top and north at upper left.

Phil

That's an amazing picture. Our moon is so wonderfully diverse and interesting. I can never get bored gazing at its majesty.

[John Moore]

Well, looks like all went well on the fifth manoeuvre, 1 Sept, 2019, and also an update, 2 Sept, 2019, on the successful separation of the Vikram Lander (with the Pragyan rover onboard) from the orbiter.

Below image (Credit: ISRO): a tentative plan over the next few days up to the 7 Sept, 2019...when India's engineers' nerves will undoubtedly be fraying towards a successful landing.

John

[charborob]

The Vikram lander has reached its final orbit (35 x 101 km) before its descent to the Lunar surface (scheduled for Sept. 7).
https://www.isro.gov.in/chandrayaan2-latest-updates

[Phil Stooke]

The sun is about to rise on the landing site, and the high resolution camera on the orbiter is supposed to image the site for final site planning. The resolution will be about 30 cm/pixel, better than a standard 50 cm/pixel LROC NAC image and almost as good as the low altitude images (25 cm/pixel) NAC obtained over several of the Apollo sites. It will be great to see the site before and after landing with this camera, and really nice to see images of other sites with the same camera if they are taken. For instance, LRO images of the Chang'e 4 site are about 1 m/pixel, so this camera might give us 3x better resolution. I hope the camera team plan images of other sites at that resolution.

Phil

[John Moore]

Below, an approximate render of the lighting conditions of the 6 Sept, 2019 (round 6.00 pm UTC )…for successful landing of Vikram. Simpelius N and Manzinus C, lie roughly at the centre of the ellipse.

John

[SpaceListener]

At this moment, Vikram will start the descending trajectory shortly.

[Seryddwr]

Live feeds not looking good; it seems the lander deviated from its trajectory in the final moments of the descent a few minutes ago. No downlink

[SpaceListener]

A steeper inclination than the planned trajectory indicates some failure propulsion along without a downlink signal. I am afraid that Vikram has not landed as planned, softly. The last info from the panel was that its altitude was 1 km above the surface at 59 m/s (an acceptable landing speed must not be greater than 15 m/s). The people from the operation center are uneasy trying to figure out this incident.

[Seryddwr]

Rough luck, that. Space is hard! Hope ISRO can swiftly recover from this failure.

[Seryddwr]

India Today's live feed reporting that all was well up to an altitude of 2.1 kilometres. Communication was lost after that. Sounds like the issue was to do with the 'fine braking' phase - a misfiring or failed engine, perhaps?

[nprev]

Aaaaaaah....damn.

My most sincere sympathies to the Chandrayaan II team. There is absolutely nothing easy nor routine about landing on another world. This was a truly brilliant & ambitious effort, and though lessons learned are always painful they are always invaluable as the only real way forward to new futures.

[SpaceListener]

What problem coincidence of Vikram with the ones of Israeli Moon lander Beresheet.

[kenny]

Many congratulations to the Chandrayaan team for an excellent first attempt -- surely not the last from India.
Meanwhile the orbiter continues its scientific mission...

[Phil Stooke]

Very sad outcome but a great effort, and a lot will be learned from it. Meanwhile, as already said, a good orbiter mission to come. I look forward to seeing the site from orbit, but meanwhile here is an updated landing sites map.

Phil

[Steve G]

The last two failed landing attempts really puts into context the genius of the Surveyor and Luna landing teams half a century ago using computer rooms and slide rulers. A real shame and just illustrates how unforgiving space can be.

[Phil Stooke]

Well said, Steve.

The live coverage included glimpses of this image:




It shows a specific landing area within the target ellipse. It should be easy to find in LRO images but so far I'm not able to identify it. The early morning illumination suggests to me it may be from the orbiter. It doesn't obviously resemble any LRO image I have seen yet. Scale is not clear, but another report in the Times of India said two specific sites 500 m by 500 m and 1.6 km apart had been picked in the landing ellipse.

Phil

[marsbug]

If this is accurate... https://mobile.twitter.com/ANI/status/1170610654232731648
... then the lander may be more-or-less intact, depending on the image resolution. A bad landing, as opposed to a crash, perhaps. That might be of some comfort to the ISRO team ifso.

[Thorsten Denk]

https://www.indiatoday.in/science/story/isr...6857-2019-09-08

The Indian Space Research Organisation has been able to identify the lander Vikram, but the condition of the lander is yet to be ascertained.

Thorsten

[marsbug]

The word from The Times of India is that Vikram is on the Lunar soil in one piece, but tilted on its side and possibly (probably imho) damaged after a hard landing. Even if it's functional there's a good chance the angle it's at will prevent communication, but the ISRO team will keep trying for the rest of the lunar day. Still, it looks like this was a hard but controlled landing, not a crash, and I think it's safe to say that Vikram fought right to the end. The ISRO team can be proud of their work, and the design is clearly up to the job - once whatever bug caused the hard landing is located and ironed out

https://m.timesofindia.com/india/isro-not-l...ow/71045854.cms

Edit:: India Today's report is that the lander is not confirmed as 'intact', although I wonder if some ambiguity of translation isn't creeping in here: "In one piece" could mean one pile of bits all in one spot, or one very oblate piece. It'd be tempting to translate that as 'intact' but optimistic... Still, my statements on the ISRO team stands, even if it turn s out to be one big metal pancake.

https://www.indiatoday.in/science/story/cha...7265-2019-09-09

[Steve G]

It might have had a similar fate as Luna 23 in 1974 which had a hard landing and tipped over. Intact, but loss of mission.

[Phil Stooke]

Yes... we could be in for a long period of argument as to whether it should count as a landing or an impact.

Meanwhile, this tweet is interesting:

---------------------------------
Ryan Watkins @Ryan_N_Watkins

official word is that @LRO_NASA will take an image of the Vikram landing site on September 17th. The incidence angle is pretty high, so it may be hard to see (could be in shadow).
#VikramLander #Chandrayaan2 @isro
---------------------------------

(Ryan is a researcher at the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson)

LRO is orbiting close to the terminator at the moment. As it crosses the landing site each month over the next few months the Sun will be higher and the view better.

Phil

[marsophile]

According to Wikipedia, the Chandrayaan II orbiter camera has a spatial resolution of 0.3 m from 100 km polar orbit, while the LRO camera is said to have a maximum resolution of 50 cm/pixel. If these figures are correct, is there any reason to hope the LRO images will be any better than the ones from the Chandrayaan II orbiter?

[marsbug]

There is the possibility that we may get to see the LRO images before we do the Chandrayaan 2 ones! ISRO, love you, but I've been spoiled by the relative hosepipe of data and images NASA prefers, as opposed to the more cautious approach.

[Phil Stooke]

The 50 cm pixel resolution for LRO's Narrow Angle Camera is based on its altitude, nominally 50 km for its main mission period. They have dropped to 25 km for high resolution imaging of Apollo sites (25 cm per pixel), but now they are in a low-maintenance orbit to extend operational life, and they are higher up: approx. 50 km at the south pole, 200 km at the north pole. Most images of the Chandrayaan 2 site now available are about 100 cm/pixel.

Chandrayaan 2's high resolution camera has 30 cm/pixel resolution from 100 km altitude. I would expect that C2 images could be 3 times better than any LRO images we are likely to see.

Phil

[John Moore]

Below, an overhead, animated attempt of the impact/hard-landing site (approximately at centre of Manzinus D), if indeed that is the actual site: showing the lighting/shadow conditions from 17 Sept., 12:00 noon UTC to 18 Sept., 12:00 noon UTC (note, libration effects have been removed simply for visualization).

John

[mcaplinger]

Chandrayaan 2's high resolution camera has 30 cm/pixel resolution from 100 km altitude.

I haven't been able to find very much technical information about this camera beyond this phone image of an old viewgraph about it which I've enhanced a little. I'll be very curious to see how well this performs; the high resolution coupled with a large number of TDI stages (oddly high, actually, I've no idea why they need so many) presents a lot of challenges. LROC NAC was a much more conservative design in most respects.

[kenny]

Gulf News - India


A senior Isro official associated with the mission said: “The images from the orbiter camera showed that Vikram is in single piece lying on the lunar surface; not broken into pieces. It is in a tilted position. It’s not in its four legs, as usual.”

This official added on condition of anonymity: “It’s not upside down. It’s lying on its side”.

Isro officially did not comment on the condition of the lander.

Chandrayaan-2 comprises an orbiter, lander (Vikram) and rover (Pragyan).

The mission life of the lander and rover is one lunar day, which is equal to 14 earth days.

[kenny]

Additional location information from the above ref. ...

"An Isro official said Vikram hit the lunar surface at a place about 500 metres away from where it was originally planned to touchdown. "

[Roby72]

I haven't been able to find very much technical information about this camera beyond this phone image of an old viewgraph about it which I've enhanced a little. I'll be very curious to see how well this performs; the high resolution coupled with a large number of TDI stages (oddly high, actually, I've no idea why they need so many) presents a lot of challenges. LROC NAC was a much more conservative design in most respects.

As I see on Dsn Now page the data rate of Chandrayaan II orbiter is now quite low in a range of only 1 kbit/sec.
LRO has more than 100 times more typically.
We will see if they have higher data rates to send big images - anyone knows about this more ?

[mcaplinger]

We will see if they have higher data rates to send big images - anyone knows about this more ?

ISRO has their own network, I don't even know if DSN will be used operationally. https://directory.eoportal.org/web/eoportal...s/chandrayaan-2 I couldn't find anything about specific data rates.

On Ka-band, LRO can send data at 100-300 Mbps.

[Ohsin]

Well said, Steve.

The live coverage included glimpses of this image:




It shows a specific landing area within the target ellipse. It should be easy to find in LRO images but so far I'm not able to identify it. The early morning illumination suggests to me it may be from the orbiter. It doesn't obviously resemble any LRO image I have seen yet. Scale is not clear, but another report in the Times of India said two specific sites 500 m by 500 m and 1.6 km apart had been picked in the landing ellipse.

Phil

I was able to match the perspective corrected OHRC image shown on screens of Mission Operations Complex with LROC images of the intended primary landing site, sun angle was making the scene look slightly different.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJJov3tXfOU

OHRC image labelled as taken on 6 September 2019 on 2030 IST (Indian Std. Time) can be seen in broadcast at 14 min. mark onwards
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iqNTeZAq-c&t=831

Marked "Landing Site Area" in yellow box appears to be roughly 50×65 meters in dimension. Placed a 2×2 m 'lander sized' red dot for comparison within it in attached image. Mapped the 15×8 km landing ellipse along intended landing box and primary and alternate landing sites given in LPSC 2018 paper and during broadcast on LRO QuickMap for ease of viewing
In broadcast the launch commentator mentioned that the command for descent was sent 84 minutes prior to it and chosen coords were (-70.899920, 22.78110) and alternate site coords at (-68.749153, -18.46947)

I haven't been able to find very much technical information about this camera beyond this phone image of an old viewgraph about it which I've enhanced a little. I'll be very curious to see how well this performs; the high resolution coupled with a large number of TDI stages (oddly high, actually, I've no idea why they need so many) presents a lot of challenges. LROC NAC was a much more conservative design in most respects.

That slide on OHRC is snapshot I took during a livestreamed presentation of User Interaction Meet of 2016 held by ISRO's National Remote Sensing Centre. That webcast is no longer available and was mainly about Cartosat series of Earth Observation satellites.

Meanwhile we might have to wait for LROC imagery a bit longer.
https://aviationweek.com/awinspace/nasa-s-l...rayaan-2-lander

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[John Moore]

So, the site is roughly between Manzinus C and Simpelius N.



John

[Phil Stooke]

Here's a locator map for the target area.

Phil

[Ohsin]

Images from most recent LRO pass have been released.

https://www.lroc.asu.edu/posts/1128

[mcaplinger]

This thread is getting out of control with Chandrayaan-1 MIP discussion. IMHO most of the recent posts should be moved to http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=2686

[Phil Stooke]

Mike is right. It's my fault, as I looked at the other thread and it had not been updated for 7 years, but I only expected 2 or 3 posts on the subject. Now I think there is a lot more to say on the subject and this is the wrong place for it.

A new thread might be good, but moving to the old thread would be fine too.

Phil

[nprev]

C-1 MIP impact site posts moved here per request. Good call.

[John Moore]

As this 'U-type' feature showed up (during a blink-comparison technique) not far from the possible/proposed Vikram site (rectangle), I'll throw it out there (some small craters visible in the hig-rez below, may be responsible for the effect).

But, these are shadowed times, and as everyone knows, such can change the look of a smooth, slightly-undulated terrain in to one unrecognisable, so take it with a pinch of salt. The second image is an extreme close-up of the feature mentioned.

John

[Steve G]

In the LROC pictures I browsed through, found some interesting braided terrain in the Chandrayaan 2 lander search area.

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[Phil Stooke]

That is formed by a spray of ejecta falling on the surface, lots of small bits together rather than one big chunk forming a secondary crater. It is a common feature, but the low relief hardly shows up in higher sun angle images.

Phil

[Ohsin]

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...st&p=245700

Made a cross-view of planned primary landing site based on above.

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[atomoid]

Thanks, i always enjoy these. I rotated each 180 to reduce headache. If you dont already use StereoPhotoMaker youll find it very useful

[Ohsin]

Few images from OHRC at last but not of impact site unfortunately.

https://www.isro.gov.in/update/04-oct-2019/...solution-camera

[mcaplinger]

Few images from OHRC at last but not of impact site unfortunately.

It would be an interesting exercise to find LROC coverage of this area and do a quality comparison. I tried looking but but wasn't able to find overlapping images in the few minutes I had to spend.

[Ohsin]

It would be an interesting exercise to find LROC coverage of this area and do a quality comparison. I tried looking but but wasn't able to find overlapping images in the few minutes I had to spend.

My guess is this is our broad area of interest but I am yet to find exact spots for good one to one comparison.

https://ode.rsl.wustl.edu/moon/indexproduct...d=M1251626568RC
https://ode.rsl.wustl.edu/moon/indexproduct...d=M1282199397RC
https://ode.rsl.wustl.edu/moon/indexproduct...d=M1282199397LC

Quickmap link to relevant area.

First attached image is of OHRC overview rotated 40° to match LROC mosaic.

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[Phil Stooke]

Thanks for finding the images.

Here is some news about the SAR on Chandrayaan 2:

https://www.isro.gov.in/update/22-oct-2019/...thetic-aperture

Phil

[Phil Stooke]

Latest on the LRO search for Vikram is that the new imaging this month also failed to spot the lander.

https://www.indiatoday.in/science/story/cha...2124-2019-10-23

Shadows are invoked again, but my feeling is that the lander crashed further from the target than expected and is not in the imaged area, which appears to be looking at the landing target. I have not yet seen a detailed analysis of the expected impact location, but if Vikram was tumbling and thrusting after loss of contact, as seems to be suggested in some reports, it could be off top the side of the groundtrack a bit more than expected.

Phil

[Ohsin]

It appears there is no coordination on search for impact location.

https://www.space.com/india-moon-lander-not...nd-by-nasa.html

May be they are being coy on location information to get some science done first and fast.

http://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/201...ro-2035311.html

[SpaceListener]

As it is very hard to find the lander Vikram after one month, I am supposing that Vikram didn't impact so hard and its impact footprint will not show any burned pieces due to the combustion which facilities the probability to spot it due to the change of the color of the surface. The other possibility is that the lander is laid on the side and reduce its shadow.

[John Moore]

Top: An aerial view of the lighting conditions for when LRO passed over the 'Vikram' site today, 11 Nov, 2019 at 1:21:04 UTC (note, these are approximate calculations, so apologies, if incorrect).

Bottom: An 24-hour (11/11/2019 to 11/12/2019) graphic view of LRO's increasing altitude (note, sometimes American versus European date descriptions are published differently, however, in this
case, the format is Month/Day/Year).

LRO's orbital track is moving westwards, the site is becoming evermore brighter (terminator movement), as the Sun steadily climbs overhead.

John Moore

[Ohsin]

Updates related to CHACE-2 and TMC-2 on orbiter

https://www.isro.gov.in/update/31-oct-2019/...lunar-exosphere
https://www.isro.gov.in/update/13-nov-2019/...initial-results

Apparently they are working out another attempt at landing before November 2020 with a lander/rover configuration and a detachable propulsion module.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/c...ow/72047390.cms

[Ohsin]

They found it!

http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/posts/1131

Here it is on Quickmap

Edit: The person credited in press release for helpful inputs is https://twitter.com/Ramanean

[marsophile]

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/i...ow/72357057.cms

Reaction in India to the finding.

[marsbug]

I feel like I ought to say: In a time when scientific research and the value of scientific thinking are under attack ISRO have behaved very irresponsibly with how they've shared information, giving the impression that they've put the truth as a lower priority than saving face. I'll not comment on the matter again here, and it is definitely my opinion only.

[Huguet]

Recently we had 4 attempts, CNSA chang e'3 on 14/dec/13 succesfull, CNSA chang e'4 on 3/jan/19, SpaceIL beresheet on 11/apr/19, Chandrayaan on 06/set/2019.

The last two atempts were unsuccesfull on the same stage, at the landing aproach, they are extremelly important to the learn process and improvement of the next ones. But its information need to be shared, otherwise it will have much less relevance.

Nasa LROC images will contribute a lot to fill this gap.

[marsbug]

WRT the crash, the LROC images show some debris scattered back along the ground track at quite a distance. Given the (very likely) angle and velocity of the impact this doesn't seem very strange to me - my layman's knowledge and reading is that hypervelocity impacts will produce a more or less even debris field around the impact unless the angle of impact is very, very low. But on other forums this seems to be a topic under discussion - how anything could be scattered the opposite way to the direction of the ground track. Given the concentration of expertise here I was wondering if anyone here found it unusual?

[Ohsin]

There is stored energy in form of propellant and pressurant on lander which could eject debris in random direction. Could it be that anomaly occurring ~2 km above surface was severe enough to generate some debris before impact? For example lander during reconfiguration was attached with an extra solar panel that jutted out towards front.

[marsbug]

Thanks. That seems possible, but I'm not sure I understand why that's needed as an explanation - from the publicly available data I've seen the impact velocity was at least 50m/sec, the impact angle was at least 45 degrees... none of that seems inconsistent with the idea that debris could be scattered back along the ground track to me, I'm just wondering if I'm missing something wrt why it's even coming up as a topic of discussion in the wider internet.

[Ohsin]

Few official papers detailing CY-2 payloads.

Current Science, Volume 118 - Issue 1 (10 January 2020)
https://www.currentscience.ac.in/php/toc.ph...18&issue=01

Solar X-ray Monitor onboard Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter
https://www.currentscience.ac.in/Volumes/118/01/0045.pdf

Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer onboard Chandrayaan-2 Rover
https://www.currentscience.ac.in/Volumes/118/01/0053.pdf

and

Current Science, Volume 118 - Issue 2 (25 January 2020)
https://www.currentscience.ac.in/php/toc.ph...18&issue=02

CHandra’s Atmospheric Composition Explorer-2 onboard Chandrayaan-2 to study the lunar neutral exosphere
https://www.currentscience.ac.in/Volumes/118/02/0202.pdf

Dual Frequency Radio Science experiment onboard Chandrayaan-2: a radio occultation technique to study temporal and spatial variations in the surface-bound ionosphere of the Moon
https://www.currentscience.ac.in/Volumes/118/02/0210.pdf

Chandrayaan-2 Large Area Soft X-ray Spectrometer
https://www.currentscience.ac.in/Volumes/118/02/0219.pdf

L and S-band Polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar on Chandrayaan-2 mission
https://www.currentscience.ac.in/Volumes/118/02/0226.pdf

In other news Chandayaan-3 has been approved aiming for 2021 and they finally have heart to accept reality of lander crash.

https://www.newindianexpress.com/nation/202...es-2083739.html

[Ohsin]

More payload write-ups.

Current Science, Volume 118 - Issue 4 (25 February 2020)
https://www.currentscience.ac.in/php/toc.ph...18&issue=04

Current Science, Volume 118 - Issue 3 (10 February 2020)
https://www.currentscience.ac.in/php/toc.ph...18&issue=03


Terrain Mapping Camera-2 onboard Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter. (TMC-2)
https://www.currentscience.ac.in/Volumes/118/04/0566.pdf

Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscope on Chandrayaan-2 Rover: a miniaturized mid-UV to visible active spectrometer for lunar surface chemistry studies. (LIBS)
https://www.currentscience.ac.in/Volumes/118/04/0573.pdf

Orbiter High Resolution Camera onboard Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter. (OHRC)
https://www.currentscience.ac.in/Volumes/118/04/0560.pdf

Imaging Infrared Spectrometer onboard Chandrayaan-2 Orbiter. (IIRS)
https://www.currentscience.ac.in/Volumes/118/03/0368.pdf

Instrument for Lunar Seismic Activity Studies on Chandrayaan-2 Lander. (ILSA)
https://www.currentscience.ac.in/Volumes/118/03/0376.pdf

Lunar near surface plasma environment from Chandrayaan-2 Lander platform: RAMBHA-LP payload
https://www.currentscience.ac.in/Volumes/118/03/0383.pdf

[Ohsin]

Public release of Science data from Chandrayaan-2 for global use will begin in October 2020, wherein details for accessing the data will be provided.

OHRC has acquired 22 orbits images of lunar surface consisting of nearly 1056 sq. km area. It is also used to characterize landing sites for future missions.

https://www.isro.gov.in/gslv-mk-iii-m1-chan...rayaan-2-launch

[Ohsin]

Chandrayaan-2 six month data release for seven instruments.

https://www.isro.gov.in/update/24-dec-2020/...al-data-release

ISRO Science Data Archive (ISDA) currently holds data sets acquired by Chandrayaan-2 payloads from Sep-2019 to Feb-2020 from seven instruments. Data sets from IIRS payload will be added to this shortly. This release has Level-0 and Level-1 basic data sets prepared using Planetary Data System (PDS) version 4 standards.

https://www.issdc.gov.in

https://pradan.issdc.gov.in

[threadworm]

Chandrayaan-2 six month data release for seven instruments.

https://www.isro.gov.in/update/24-dec-2020/...al-data-release



https://www.issdc.gov.in

https://pradan.issdc.gov.in

Thanks for this - instead of opening presents I've been opening Chandrayaan files Frustratingly this first release just misses the Apollo sites - I hope they'll be coming soon!

[Phil Stooke]

Are there images of the Vikram site? And some of us will be hoping for images of the MIP site near the south pole.

Please post anything interesting that you find.

Phil

[threadworm]

Are there images of the Vikram site? And some of us will be hoping for images of the MIP site near the south pole.

Please post anything interesting that you find.

Phil

I'll try my best! To be honest the site is even worse than Chandrayaan 1's to navigate and download, and yesterday's connection was so flakey I barely got anything - there's no resume capability so a dead download is a dead download! Most of the strips listed so far seem to be taken from over 80km, which unfortunately negates the theoretically much better camera. There's one strip that looks like it ought to have Luna 21's location in it (and hopefully trails from Lunokhod 2) but nothing showed up in the ortho/DEM pair so I'm checking the larger IMG file once that downloads (attempt number 7).

[Shan]

Are there images of the Vikram site? And some of us will be hoping for images of the MIP site near the south pole.

Please post anything interesting that you find.

Phil

Total of OHRC images was only 6 but the pictures are at 0.25 m/pix Here is an example of it - https://twitter.com/Ramanean/status/1342384727471267843

And all those 6 OHRC images were near 75 degree S - https://twitter.com/Astro_Neel/status/1342647521928241152 (From Astro Neel)

Gonna email those scientists about asking for more images..