China's Space Program News Thread
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^^^
Seems like something that usually wouldn't be missed - if True.
I'd expect them to be really conservative and critical when picking up components of the rover and be putting each and every part through stringent tests.
Maybe the vibrations during ascent or landing caused failure of the wiring?
It just doesn't cut it, for me at-least. It's the first rover to the moon and therefore it's success is just so critical. To say that the insulation failed under a lunar environment, which has been studied by other nations for half a century ....
Seems like something that usually wouldn't be missed - if True.
I'd expect them to be really conservative and critical when picking up components of the rover and be putting each and every part through stringent tests.
Maybe the vibrations during ascent or landing caused failure of the wiring?
It just doesn't cut it, for me at-least. It's the first rover to the moon and therefore it's success is just so critical. To say that the insulation failed under a lunar environment, which has been studied by other nations for half a century ....
Sorry, space is hard, that is a universal constant. And CNSA is certainly not immune to that. This is how you progress after all in this field, through error, root-cause analysis and re-adjustment.
Hell, it's not been more than a month since a much, much more mature system (the European Vega rocket) failed because the cables to two thrust vector control actuators were inverted. Both a human error and a design system failure.
Space. is. hard. And if you don't pay the price, you cannot reap the rewards.
Except the Yutu 1 and the carrier vehicle including payload delivery vehicle did everything correct and was actually mostly successful. Certainly much more than a certain 2019 lunar mission that's 99% successful.
The launch was successful. The delivery into space was successful. Putting payload into lunar orbit was successful. Detaching payloads was successful. Orbiter function was successful. Lander successfully pulled off China's first soft landing at designated landing zone. Rover activated successfully and drove off the lander.
Rover drove off lander on 14th of December 2013.
Rover was all functional as intended from 14th December to 16th December. This is when systems shut down and the rover experienced its troubles.
From 16th December's failure until after the lunar night passed, the rover's came out of the month long (earth time) lunar night and was rebooted on the 11th of January 2014. Communication was again managed in mid Feb and then data was transmitted until September 2014 which long surpassed the design life but then it also didn't have to move around so could explain why.
Compare how Indians call this a total failure while their lunar landing attempt (with very similar mission tasks - orbiter + lander) had their lander smash into the lunar surface in 2019. While that's considered a 99% success by the Jai Hind crowd, the Chinese mission from 2013 despite landing and functioning for even a while, it is considered a failure by them. Oh and even if the Indian rover landed successfully (which it didn't because successfully means intact at least), the Indian rover was the size of a glorified shoebox with even less impressive mission list and specs (except low weight I guess). Anyway in 2019 China's successful Yutu 2 orbiter, lander, rover lunar mission was already successful for a year and continued to function and drive around well beyond designed operational life.
They also like to only focus and think about China's negatives or failures and missteps. Yutu 2 and subsequent 100% successful Chinese lunar missions are ignored. Now a retrieval mission has been completed with much heavier payloads than even Yutu 2 which is already several times the payload of India's Chandrayaan (the one with less than half the overall launch weight and the one that smashed into the moon as 99% supadupa success).
Whatever Yutu 1's rover problems were, obviously they've long been understood and overcome since we've had more than 1 successful lunar programs after it. One would expect that since Yutu-1 program started in the 2000s and landed in late 2013.
The launch was successful. The delivery into space was successful. Putting payload into lunar orbit was successful. Detaching payloads was successful. Orbiter function was successful. Lander successfully pulled off China's first soft landing at designated landing zone. Rover activated successfully and drove off the lander.
Rover drove off lander on 14th of December 2013.
Rover was all functional as intended from 14th December to 16th December. This is when systems shut down and the rover experienced its troubles.
From 16th December's failure until after the lunar night passed, the rover's came out of the month long (earth time) lunar night and was rebooted on the 11th of January 2014. Communication was again managed in mid Feb and then data was transmitted until September 2014 which long surpassed the design life but then it also didn't have to move around so could explain why.
Compare how Indians call this a total failure while their lunar landing attempt (with very similar mission tasks - orbiter + lander) had their lander smash into the lunar surface in 2019. While that's considered a 99% success by the Jai Hind crowd, the Chinese mission from 2013 despite landing and functioning for even a while, it is considered a failure by them. Oh and even if the Indian rover landed successfully (which it didn't because successfully means intact at least), the Indian rover was the size of a glorified shoebox with even less impressive mission list and specs (except low weight I guess). Anyway in 2019 China's successful Yutu 2 orbiter, lander, rover lunar mission was already successful for a year and continued to function and drive around well beyond designed operational life.
They also like to only focus and think about China's negatives or failures and missteps. Yutu 2 and subsequent 100% successful Chinese lunar missions are ignored. Now a retrieval mission has been completed with much heavier payloads than even Yutu 2 which is already several times the payload of India's Chandrayaan (the one with less than half the overall launch weight and the one that smashed into the moon as 99% supadupa success).
Whatever Yutu 1's rover problems were, obviously they've long been understood and overcome since we've had more than 1 successful lunar programs after it. One would expect that since Yutu-1 program started in the 2000s and landed in late 2013.
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Yes there was at least one occasion where unit conversion was responsible for trivial to catastrophic problems. Space mission failures are absolutely rife. Everyone from NASA, JAXA, CNSA, ESA, ISRO, Israeli programs, Soviet ones, Russian ones etc etc are riddled with a history of errors and failures. The difference is all China's are focused on and exaggerated to the nth degree mostly by Anglos and Indians and made fun of while being used as some sort of way to belittle China's efforts despite China's space efforts now being considerably capable at the very least. These years it's mostly the anglo propaganda brigades and CIA trolls that do the work with the backing of their Indian call centre IT cell trolls and Jai Hind chauvinists. Whatever though. Words don't change reality as much as actual work and accomplishments.
There is no difference, the same happens to anyone and everyone. If you think otherwise, you are probably suffering from a persecution complex. Or.. simply pay too much heed to online trolls and stupid nationalists (of any flag), which have nothing to do with space exploration or the field in general.
See the for reference. Also, this article is a good starter for similar grave errors in general. A good read.
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Precisely that is what I was referring to. Add on the random accounts from CIA/western paid trolls and the contracted ones from click farms in India, there are a lot and I mean A LOT of trolls who target China and help spread inaccurate or downright false "information" and "news" on China as well as propagate hate and a sense of China being exceptional in its missteps or blunders (which exist of course but to no commensurately greater or lesser degree than most others). This isn't limited to space programs, if anything probably the one place where its definitely more populated by level headed and thoughtful people who aren't as easily swayed by the troll posts.
Anyway it may be me paying too much attention to those trolls and chauvinists to the degree where I have a persecution complex. This may be true but some other truths - these trolls only target China... sorry other nations and ethnicities are NOT targeted or treated anywhere near the same. Not even remotely close. The same doesn't happen to anyone and everyone. If one cannot even see that when the evidence is obvious, then there is no point. Maybe Russia gets targeted as much since they have pretty much similar levels of participation in this field and high profile.
Do Chinese paid trolls do this to others? Not even close in fact they probably aren't paid to do much more than look through wechat logs and the like. Chinese chauvinists? These days they give the Indians some attention but they're totally contained within China and they're definitely fewer in numbers by some considerable margin. The rest are sensible individuals and thoroughly unmotivated by politics. Most Chinese space watchers and discussion boards have extremely healthy respect for even "lesser" players. Quite unlike the former groups.
Anyway this is getting off topic but I feel your claim that China isn't treated differently on the field of internet opinion I feel deserved a response. But you're also right about me being particularly aware of this perhaps even to that persecution complex degree. Anyway I digressed. This was all in response to my observations from online sentiments and posts on Chinese space programs vs western ones and Indian ones and how differently the attitudes were between Indian failure and Chinese success.
That is how you learn and move forward.
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