Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
State media reported that an "autonomous visual obstacle avoidance system" assessed the "brightness and darkness of the lunar surface" and found a safe place for the probe to land.
The lander then "hovered about 100 meters above the safe landing area and used a laser 3D scanner to detect obstacles on the lunar surface to select the final landing site."
Chinese authorities have published the video below that shows Chang'e-6 touching down.
The craft is the first to land in this region of the Moon, making its mission to retrieve samples of great interest and importance.
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China Successfully Lands Probe Chang'e-6 on the Far Side of the Moon
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(Score: 4, Insightful) by Tork on Tuesday June 04 2024, @04:04PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 4, Informative) by drussell on Tuesday June 04 2024, @04:24PM (9 children)
This is old news by now... It launched on May 3 and landed on the moon on June 1.
It has not only landed, it completed the sample-collection mission and launched the samples back into lunar orbit to go back to earth already. (Water. They're looking for water.)
The lander will remain on the surface to do more science for approximately 50 more days, presumably until the batteries run out, I suppose?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 04 2024, @04:34PM (3 children)
The mission is a failure. The didn't deploy a rover. If there are no tracks left in the regolith, was man really ever there? Wait til Elon gets to Mars - he plans on lots of tracks in the dust!
(Score: 5, Funny) by Gaaark on Tuesday June 04 2024, @04:38PM
Don't you mean he plans on doing lots of lines on the mirror? ;)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Tuesday June 04 2024, @05:20PM (1 child)
If you look in the top left of the photograph you can see the tracks from the rover.
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by drussell on Tuesday June 04 2024, @07:22PM
The entire lander vehicle assembly landed, yes and is still there (sans the little (well, ~700kg fueled) ascender module which already blasted the lunar "soil" samples back into lunar orbit to rendezvous with the orbiter to return to Earth orbit and deploy the returner reentry capsule return through the atmosphere to Earth with the samples aboard.) ... at least as I understand it.
The rest of the lander, including the accompanying little mini-rover doodle is still there on the lunar surface. Presumably the French, Italian and Swedish science payloads are still there aboard the lander as well, but I've not really looked into the specifics of the rest of the actual science mission payloads.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Tuesday June 04 2024, @04:41PM
It's still cool though!
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Tuesday June 04 2024, @05:15PM
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Friday June 07 2024, @07:15PM (2 children)
This is something of an achievement in itself. "Night" on the moon is almost 15 days long. Keeping the lander active throughout a night is nontrivial. There's a 250-degree (C or K) swing in temperature and it soaks in the heat during the "day" and cold during the "night" plus no solar power at night. Some clever engineering went into this kit.
(Score: 2) by drussell on Friday June 07 2024, @09:30PM (1 child)
What are you talking about?!!
They're on the far side of the moon, there will be no "day" or "night" and it is not a solar-powered apparatus.
I think it was actually the entire mission that was 52 days and they already took a month to get to the moon, so only about 20 (??) days expected of science actually on Luna before they run out of juice?
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Friday June 07 2024, @09:45PM
I'm 93% certain there are day/night cycles on the moon, and the length of the dark/cold period is a key limiting factor in both exploration and colonization of the body. It's tidally locked to Earth, not the Sun. (The 7% uncertainty includes both an allowance for ADHD and the possibility that we live in a simulation and close examination of the far side of the moon will show purple "Texture not found" messages on a black background.)
If they aren't staying overnight, I'm significantly less excited. It's still a nontrivial accomplishment, but I'd hoped to see pictures. A few Scifi books have talked about condensed trace gasses and volatiles boiling off in the moments after sunrise and I would like to know if that's a thing. :/
(Score: 5, Funny) by looorg on Tuesday June 04 2024, @04:38PM (6 children)
Did they find that prism Pink Floyd left behind?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 04 2024, @06:07PM (3 children)
No, that's on the dark side...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 04 2024, @06:41PM (2 children)
How many sides does the moon have? Front side? Far side? Dark side? The other side? Four?
(Score: 2) by turgid on Tuesday June 04 2024, @08:34PM
Time Cube!
Do I win?
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Friday June 07 2024, @10:04PM
The moon is tidally locked to Earth, so the same hemisphere always faces us. That's the Near side. The other hemisphere faces away and is the far side. This should not be confused with the popular comic by the American Gary Larson [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 04 2024, @07:38PM (1 child)
"There is no dark side of the moon really
As a matter of fact, it's all dark"
(Score: 2) by quietus on Wednesday June 05 2024, @04:42AM
Whatever, boomer. [genius.com]