UPDATE2:
Return of the Jade Rabbit: China’s moon rover back in action
BEIJING — China’s Jade Rabbit lunar rover, feared to have suffered some irreparable technical difficulties, may yet have some spring in its step.
UPDATE: It may have a heartbeat. A website devoted to the amateur monitoring of radio signals from deep space, uhf-satcom.com, reports that a downlink signal from the Yutu rover has been detected. Whether it’s a zombie or not is still unknown.
From wire reports:
China’s lunar rover, Yutu, was has failed to reawaken after 14 days of hibernation.
Yutu, China’s first lunar rover, is dead.
Mission controllers in Beijing were unable to communicate with and restore the rover, also called Jade Rabbit, according to a Chinadaily report released February 12. A problem with the rover was first announced on January 25.
China’s first lunar rover, Yutu, could not be restored to full function on Monday as expected, and netizens mourned it on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like service. [Special coverage]
Yutu experienced mechanical problems on Jan 25 and has been unable to function since then.
==============================================================
One wonders if the cause will ultimately be traced to something many people experience daily on a worldwide basis: poorly manufactured Chinese components often fail quickly.
Of course, there are many instances of other countries moon and mars landers/rovers failing on deployment, so they are not alone. It is still an accomplishment to just get there.
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milodonharlani,
Taiwan is NOT the PRC. Big difference. Taiwan is a relatively free society (at least as fee as our current “By Executive Order” regime), possibly the USA’s best ally in Asia, and their products are far superior to the PRC’s to date (but the gap is closing, slowly.) Look in a machinery catalog like “Grizzly.com” which sells both PRC- and Tawain-made machinery – the items marked “Made in Taiwan!” are top of the line, and cost sometimes twice what the best PRC-made models do. Good metal lathes made in Taiwan are suitable for the most demanding machining.
Someone said Google ‘Chinese superiority’ so I Googled ‘Chinese Inferiority’
First up
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/05/opinion/the-price-of-made-in-china.html?_r=0
I am sure they will do it right next time, or the next. The real question is why the heck dont we have our own shuttles anymore! where is the moon base I was supposed to be able to [live] in by the year 2000! I got robbed!!!
If an actual human isnt standing on mars sometime in my life I will come back and haunt the human race if it is at all possible. YOUVE BEEN WARNED!!!
graphicconception says:
February 12, 2014 at 2:51 pm
Heh! You’re funny. Get a grip please.
I’m a Scot by the way.
http://thediplomat.com/2011/09/chinas-growing-spy-threat/
Don’t rule out the progress Dr. Robert H. Goddard was making in that same area:
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/about/history/dr_goddard.html#.UvwCJGJdXng
In World War II, Goddard again offered his services and was assigned by the U.S. Navy to the development of practical jet assisted takeoff and liquid propellant rocket motors capable of variable thrust. In both areas, he was successful. Robert H. Goddard died on Aug. 10, 1945, four days after the first atomic bomb was dropped …
.
Randy,
Would you like to [find] the young [fine] Anne Francis standing there? 😉
“… find the young …” Do Chinese blogs have “Edit” buttons?
When I was in China (most of October 2013) they did not block WUWT although none of the adds made it through and some of the graphs were never displayed. But all the text got through and I was able to comment.
I recall the Americans slamming a space ship onto the Martian surface a few years back and blaming the metric system.
Does anyone here imagine that China’s ambitions are limited to successfully soft-landing an orbiter? Mark my words; China will be the next nation to send people to the moon. You will have a moon base, Randy, but it will be flying a Chinese flag.
Quality is best defined as whatever the customer chooses it to be.
Isn’t the fact that Walmart is packed with Chinese made goods a clue that the Chinese have understood *exactly* what quality is (so far as the US consumer is concerned) and are delivering it by the container shipful?
Steve from Rockwood says:
February 12, 2014 at 3:30 pm
Incredible as it may sound, NASA apparently truly did use metric units for one ground software package & English units for another, causing the ~700 million 1998 dollar Mars Climate Orbiter to crash. But, hey, that’s just a tiny fraction of the amount wasted in worse than worthless studies of earth’s climate.
China doesn’t have to worry about English units.
Why does WalMart get all the zingers for Chinese goods? Which store do you walk into to purchase products made in America?
Jim! And you even a Free Republic linker – I am disappointed in your memory!
Clinton SOLD previously classified US rocket third-stage technology controls, rocket stage separation drawings, “rules” and design specifications to the Chinese for campaign contributions and donations to his-and-hers Presidential Library coffers FROM NASA to the Red Chinese military back in the 90’s.
Before he forced that sale, the export or release of that knowledge was prohibited. BUT, by forcing the sale and by transferring future contract approval to other bureaucracies from “safe” federal agencies (who knew what was at stake) to those under Clinton control, the Chinese intercontinental rockets (with lots of Litton subcontractor assistance!) suddenly were no longer breaking up in flight.
Gee, what a surprise! So, von Braun’s knowledge and hard-earned lessons learned still work. Thanks to the democrats, our space program no longer works, but their Chinese nuclear and space missiles launch just fine now.
Yes … early ‘oops’ by, well, after NASA was formed for Pioneer 1 and after … about 18 in all with some successes mixed in with failures esp. early on …
http://burro.astr.cwru.edu/stu/advanced/20th_far_pioneers.html
.
Well. I respect your views and see your point, but don’t think it’s right to mock Chinese here like this now. Not after years of challenging the rampant and yet paradoxically misguided disinformation agencies in US and EU.
If mother earth wouldn’t have turned out to be a AGW-heretic (and Chinese wouldn’t have turned the Warsaw 2013 Climate Change Conference into a spectacular gimme-me-money or we-walk-out show), what type of uphill would we be climbing now with our own governments and civil service?
Ahem, need I remind ‘mercans of the Mals Polar Lander, which crashed because NASA failed to convert miles to kms? Compared with that fiasco, this is a major triumph..
[Your keyboard seems to have a Malady. ~ mod.]
RACookPE1978 says:
February 12, 2014 at 3:40 pm
Correct. Instead of perjury & obstruction of justice charges, Clinton should have been impeached for bribery, treason & other high crimes. And convicted. Ditto Gore.
JBirks says:
February 12, 2014 at 3:50 pm
Your’re thinking of Mars Climate Orbiter. The Polar Lander had a different problem. Mars is a tougher target than the moon.
I have to chuckle a bit over China’s “historic achievement.” Really? China has joined the big league? 40 years late, and a dollar short, using er, … borrowed ideas. Let’s see them “land a man on the Moon and return him safely to Earth” within the next decade, even given the benefit of hindsight and modern computing and materials science.
@RACookPE1978 at 2:44 pm
The very telling comment is that NON-TECHNICAL (easy, cheap, simple-to-make) things are also cheaper “Made in China”.
Really, why would a $1.50 toothbrush, a box of 300 toothpicks, a bag of 75 wood BBQ skewers, …. [ be made, boxed, containerized, trucked, shipped, railed, warehoused, distributed, and sold] And still make a profit at 75 cents for the bag of wood skewers?
One answer: Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (Wikipedia). It’s safety rules make it cheap for Mattel to sell millions of toys, but impossibly expensive for the home hobbyist, or reseller.
see also: http://www.handmadetoyalliance.org/Community/CountdowntoExtinctiion.aspx
I recall; and I’m glad to see you do too!
Timeline:
. . http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Cox_Report_controversy.
Key stories at the time:
. . . http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/missile/keystories.htm which starts with:
.
brians356 says: “Why does WalMart get all the zingers for Chinese goods? Which store do you walk into to purchase products made in America?”
Congress…assuming they’re all native-born.
There was a time when “made in Japan” was meant as a joke, about the poor quality of a product.
Japan at least has a democratic system of government and could pursue capitalistic ideas to improve their lives. Unfortunately Japan pursued the wrong economics ideas and have had a stagnant economy for a couple of decades now.
– – –
I worked with Chinese engineers and one with a PhD on Chinas first underwater remotely operated vehicle, designed and built by the company I was working for. In one training exercise for trouble shooting problems, one of our technicians put clear tape over a contact. After some time of trying to troubleshoot, the Chinese gave up and they felt that the technician had cheated. But he pointed out that in the hostile environment that the vehicle would be running in, corrosion could develop, and you have to be aware of that.
It was also fun keeping our Chinese visitors away from the American military “thing” we were working on. They were also surprised of the high up Chinese leadership that they met while here in Canada that they never run into at home.
– – –
I’m not entirely sure, but I think my running shoe laces that keep coming undone, were made in china.
We cannot allow a Moon Base Gap!
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2012/01/newt-gingrich-and-space
Even if it wouldn’t pay for itself by mining all that crust up there that used to be down here, about where the Pacific Ocean is now, MBG would be a huge strategic asset. Stash a few megaton-range nukes up there & hurl them down on anyone who ticks us off.
OK, ask me ,, teacher, ask me I Know,, I KNOW…..
oK we all know what [you are] like if you do not get to put in your two bits worth ,,, get it out…..
Well , NSA hack the China phone call and slipped in “Good Night Irene” ,,,, done deal.