Chinese National Space Administration officials recently announced that the Chinese lunar rover “Yuytu”, also known as the “Jade Bunny”, woke up after a two-week hibernation regime. As a result of the mechanical damage that occurred earlier in the framework of this mission, the Lunokhod cannot currently move, but its communication antennas are still capable of transmitting and receiving data from the Earth.
Recall that during the past week, “Yuytu” and the landing module “Chang'e-3” were in hibernation mode (shutting down all systems) after they were able to survive another moon night on a natural satellite of our planet. On account of this, it turned out to be the third such event for these two spacecraft since they reached the lunar surface on December 14, 2013. A few hours after landing, the Chang'e-3 brought the moonwalker Yuytu to the surface of the satellite, and since then the apparatus has begun to engage in various scientific research.
Earlier this week, the leaders of the Chinese National Space Administration's center, speaking at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference event held in Texas, reported that despite the fact that the device was able to transfer the third lunar night, which lasts for about two weeks, “Jade hare ”is currently not able to move at all. Nevertheless, according to the Nature News portal, the device is able to maintain radio contact with the Earth and transmit the collected scientific data.
At the end of January of this year, the lunar rover had a mechanical failure of the drive system, which completely immobilized the device and did not allow it to continue its work. Before the appearance of a breakdown, “Yuuta” was able to overcome about 100-110 meters along the lunar surface of the Sea of Rains. Initially, Chinese scientists wanted the rover to get to the edge of the nearest crater and take up research there, but these plans most likely did not come true.
Nevertheless, one of the most important tasks in this space scientific mission was nevertheless completed by a lunar rover: according to Li Qiao, a planetologist from the Chinese Geological University, Yuyu was able to determine the thickness of basalt rocks near the landing area. For this, the lunar rover used a special radar that scanned the terrain to a depth of 100 meters below it.
The scientific data that the Jade Bunny sent back to Earth are still under study by experts, and Li Qiao notes that his team cannot wait to find out how this data will coincide with those collected by the satellite from the lunar orbit. At the moment it is believed that the thickness of basalt rocks ranges from 41 to 46 meters.
The scientists who took part in the conference said that they hoped that Yuuta would be able to collect more useful scientific data as part of its mission, although it is likely that Chinese researchers simply decided to take a pause to better understand the information collected and then fully share it with the public. Now scientists are most interested in information about how different the composition of the rocks in the Sea of Rains is from the composition located in a place located 500 kilometers away, where in 1970 scientific research was conducted by the world's first Soviet rover "Lunokhod-1".
It should also be noted that within the framework of one of the previous presentations, scientists from the Institute of High Energy Physics in Beijing have already noted that the scientific data obtained from the alpha-particle X-ray spectrometer installed on board the "Yuytu" showed that there were various chemicals such as magnesium, aluminum, silicon and calcium.
The article is based on materials .
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