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.
Yo Brit! Where do think the Brit’s got some of those first steam engine plans and ideas? 8<)
Schott + Guericke (Germany, 1637) to Hooke + Boyle (Brit's, 1659) and Papin (the piston, French, 1671, 1681) + Huygens (Dutch, 1675) so in 1690 Papin had an enclosed machine with a cylinder moving by vacuum pressure caused by the contraction of steam in an enclosed cylinder. Add Leibniz (German, 1707) working Hessian bellows and Savery's first pump (1699-1702) patent, Della Porta (Neopolitean), de Caus, Ramsay, and Moreland's first calculation of the volume of steam. Then finally, Newcomen and Calley lifting beam and their recognition.
You can be sure that the components used for Yutu aren’t the same quality as what they sell by the loader bucket-load to America. I ain’t laughing about this achievement. Most fail to understand the Chinese government. Their ultimate objective wasn’t to just join the WTO. This is something to start concerning ourselves about. When the soviets put Sputnik 1 up, America went into overdrive and put men into orbit and finally landed men on the moon only a decade later. An America with stunning resolve, technology, enterprise. I’m concerned that with the “socialization” of America, there is no overdrive to go into. They are fizzling into an EU – government getting bigger and bigger, warring against the shrinking productive sector, enabling world government…. No, like the EU, America isn’t presently fit to go anywhere anymore. Is there a savior out there somewhere? Even Bill Gates is a lefty pussy.
Well, my coffee maker with a digital time display lost a digit after 9 months, they’ll reverse engineer the problem soon I’m sure.
At least they hit the target.
Time to put on those thinking caps.
h/t to Gary Pearse. He gets it.
China does what is best for China. They aren’t allies, and they aren’t partners…they are competitors to the USA (and others) and we’d better start thinking that way or we’re going to be in big trouble. The whole time we’ve been shipping them technical info in exchange for loans or campaign contributions they’ve been planning how to kick our butts if and when they ever get the urge. At least I’m in Kansas…it would suck to be in Taiwan, or Japan, or the Philippines, or anywhere else in the region when China decides to make their move. Who’s going to stop them?
A soft landing on the moon is quite an achievement, but not like it would have been 40 years ago. Comparing Yutu to the Ranger and Pioneer programs is disingenuous at best. Ranger’s navigation and control computer, IIRC, was a mechanical sequencer like the timer in a good old-fashioned washing machine. You started it at launch time and hoped the mechanical triggers were all set at the right time. Not quite the same accomplishment when there is probably an orbital mechanics app for the iPhone that can do all the math for you.
Robotic planetary (including lunar) exploration is hardly routine and each successful mission, even if only a partial success, is something to contemplate and enjoy.
Mighty effort by China.
the place is full of young, educated, driven people ….. and they are learning quickly.
To those who will snicker, remember once when “Made in Japan” was regarded as an indication of cheap, trashy, fragile, disposable.
Word in some of the space community is that it was the lunar dust that took it out. Lunar dust is pretty nasty stuff with sharp, jagged edges (not unlike fresh volcanic ash) and highly electrostatic. Nothing to weather and smooth the individual grains appreciably over time, so they do some interesting stuff. Whomever goes to the moon to stay will have to do something about the dust. Cheers –
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2014/01/enduring-mystery-of-moons-toxic-dust-solved-from-apollo-findings.html
http://science1.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2005/30mar_moonfountains/
I wonder if it was a trojan in the stolen software. Stuxnet II.
Anthony, I work in China fairly often, 4-5 times a year, usually Beijing, Shenzhen, Nanjing, Hong Kong for a week or so at a time and I can usually read WUWT. 2-3 years ago I could not. In Hong Kong it always worked for me. Occasionally it will work in one location, hotel or coffee shop but not in another.
I find the kids I work with doing engineering to be very hard working, smart, motivated and universally dislike their government. If you want to see Chinese engineering at its best google the new Shenzhen airport terminal… Its unreal.
graphicconception says:
February 12, 2014 at 2:51 pm
“As for thinking that they have to steal plans to make any progress, how did the US get hold of the designs to make cotton spinning machines just after the War of Independence, how did you invent the jet engine and was Werner von Braun any help with the rocket program?”
I’m not sure about the thinking behind your question but a Brit and a German are credited with inventing the first jet engine. Reading a patent which is public (a least in the US) and improving on the technology is quite common. Besides at that stage of History the USA and GB were collaborating on wartime technology to the maximum extent possible to win WW II. Do you think the US stole the technology? Also at that time Japan and Russia were also developing Jet Plane technology. Was the USA supposed to sit back and allow our enemies to develop technology unchecked.
Some background info from WIKI
Sir Frank Whittle was an English aviation engineer and pilot, and is credited with inventing the jet engine and was issued his first patent on turbojet propulsion in January 1930. “The historic first flight of the Pioneer took place on May 15, 1941.”
Hans Von Ohain, a German, patented a jet propulsion engine design similar in concept to that of Sir Frank Whittle but different in internal arrangement in 1934. His design, the Heinkel He178 flew for the first time on August 27, 1939. The US flew it’s first jet in 1942.
I think China should be complemented for this accomplishment since only those who do try things make progress and fail sometimes. We learn by our failures to improve the design. Not trying means no progress or failures.
In the Engineering community where often people’s life/safety is involved in the design and fabrication, quality and testing is critical to avoid component failures. Much of the Engineering community is skeptical about critical materials or equipment supplied from China especially where strength and chemistry tests have been known to have been faked in the past.
I don’t get your point
philjourdan says:
February 12, 2014 at 5:35 pm
Or maybe our secret agents Gidney & Cloyd.
….but having appreciated and acknowledged China’s achievements and progress, I must say this:
There may be a certain insanity in the big corporations who, in the name of free trade are freely passing all their technical knowledge to a competitor who, in this age of disposable everything, is not always motivated to manufacture and sell high quality components … the big corporations simply want that consumer machine to keep ticking over for a few more decades so they can fool the stock market with their ‘perpetual growth’ and executives will still get obscenely bonused. (Warning, imagining that is NSFW).
But I am sure they will rapidly acquire the knowledge to manufacture robust high quality components for things that are important to them.
brians356 says:
February 12, 2014 at 2:58 pm
I know. But the Taiwan owned Foxconn plants that assemble iPhones & iPads are in mainland China.
_Jim says:
February 12, 2014 at 3:25 pm
Robert Goddard would be spinning in his grave if he knew the travesty that the institute NASA named in his honor was making of science.
Gary Pearse gets it. Not too many do.
IMHO, America’s apogee was between about the battle of Midway, and the moon landing. Young folks today just do not realize what it took to send a manned mission to the moon, in only ten years’ time. There were essentially no computers in the ’60’s. What got us there was our ‘can do’ attitude. Really, that was enough.
Where is that attiude today? It no longer exists. Politicians and the media both put on long sad horse faces, pontificating about supposedly intractible problems. Money is everything to them, and of course there is never enough money, so the sheep must be sheared again and again. No problem is ever solved, because if it were, there would be no excuse to continue employing the legions of government drones. Just look at the monstrosity the Department of Homeland Security has become in only a few short years. The Dep’t of Energy has never produced one barrel of oil. And the Education department has made a total fiasco of the nation’s education despite mountains of money wasted. And the EPA… but why go on?
One of the big threats — which could easily be countered with the right attitude — is China getting a moon base, then two, then several, and then annexing the moon. Who is to stiop them? The UN? Don’t be ridiculous.
The moon is the high ground militarily. China is positioning itself to be the dominant power, and then the dictatorial power. Anyone with common sense can see what they’re thinking.
An easy and effective counter would be to withdraw from UN membership, make alliances with countries that have the same interests, and form a bloc to counter China’s expansionism. But with the current Administration and general mindset, how likely is that?
The answers are there. We are still very capable. But the willpower is gone.
So… Adios, America.
We (while I was with C isc o for a stretch) sent a couple mechanical eng guys to Foxconn China to help out with the fab of various ‘fixtures’ to be used for production of a Wi MAX base station … they have ‘stories’ about their trip.
Here is a quick walk through of the Engineering lab just off G. H. Bush F reeway in R ichardson where the electronics (an 8 RF-channel board and the Digital/DSP processor board respectively) can be seen in various stages of test either in hot mock-up frames or mounted in their aluminum enclosures the day after this project, the “P4 Base Station” was cancelled:
Against the far wall can be seen the doors to a long series of adjacent RF “screen rooms”.
.
Good luck to the chinese, I have stuff made over there, throw away 15% but per good item still a quarter of the price landed that I can get it made in OZ.
They have benefited much in their lunar project from the failures of the early American program.
Much to the surprise of the rocketeers in the early program, missing the moon and smacking into it was caused by the prevailing view about gravity. They had to come to terms with wrong science.
Thus China had a heads up.
dbstealey says:
February 12, 2014 at 6:20 pm
“So… Adios, America.”
===============
“You can always count on Americans to do the right thing – after they’ve tried everything else.”
Winston Churchill
—
Don’t bet on the wrong horse Smokey.
stevek says:
February 12, 2014 at 2:13 pm
After buying my bmw and it breaking so often, I believe Germans are not that good either at building stuff that lasts. Unless that is their plan to get me to spend more at the dealers.
I’ve had a ’94 325is from new. I’ve found it to be very reliable. Yes, I’ve had to replace some things, but over 20 years I’d say that it’s been quite economical. My major complaint now is that so many econoboxes will outperform it…..
Ian M
In the seventies and eighties cars made in the Britain were called British Rubbish because of the bad quality. The MG’s and Mini’s showed rust marks on the body within a few months after the purchase. The British car industry paid the price for this an went down the tube.
The problem with Chinese rubbish however is that they produce such an incredible amount of it and somehow lack the progress in quality management and control, probably because orders often get produced by an occasional consortium that break up the moment they finish manufacturing.
They regard quality control as an additional cost factor and simply skip it.
What this does is that pushing containers of cheap crap (IQ products = Inferior Quality) gives mass consumption a bad name.
In the 90’s you could order 1.000 printed pen’s and receive a free bicycle with the order.
The pen’s were top quality from Big, a french manufacturer but the bicycle cam from China and it broke into pieces within the first 10 yards driving it.
We’ve moved on 25 years since and they still produce crap.
It’s such a waste.
braddles says:
February 12, 2014 at 2:47 pm
Pioneer 10 and 11 are part of that Pioneer series. They did pretty well. 🙂
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/missions/archive/pioneer.html says 6-9 were launched into solar orbit, it doesn’t say anything about 1-5.
At least the Chinese are interested in getting people to the Moon. Failures like this can go a long way to encourage a culture of quality.
Some of those early Ranger missions were pretty embarassing, but when they finally got it right the video from the “doomed” crafts were pretty neat. (Ranger was designed to return video all the way down. No retrorockets. Splat!)
Sorry, Chinese stuff has a well-earned reputation for being crap. We were fooled into thinking it was as good as ours just long enough to drive our companies out of business. And their crap will retain its reputation until it is no longer crap. That last step still hasn’t occurred. I doubt it ever will. The object was to weak us. They succeeded. Elements in our own country wanted to take down the middle class to make us dependent on government / big business. We don’t have a free market. We don’t have a competitive economy in many industries. We are a shadow of our former selves.
In a larger protracted war, we would lose eventually. The Chinese are too smart for this, but say the war was with China. Unless we destroyed their more modern weapons systems quickly, and destroyed their manufacturing capability, they would out manufacture us, building far more inferior weapons than we could destroy. Sounds like the Sherman v. the Panzer or the Wildcat v. the Mitsubishi Zero. The difference is we are more like Japan in WWII, and China is more like us back then.
Obama was busy expending our stockpiles of high tech weaponry, for example, he wanted to use up a large percentage of our cruise missiles to attack the Assad regime in Syria. Those Tomahawks would likely not be replaced. We would be left far weaker. We have expensive systems because they have fantastic capability, but we use them ineffectively again garbage targets. Commander Zero in the WH uses them for political and not military reasons.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-06/obama-likely-to-avoid-congress-on-cost-of-strike-on-syria.html
Our fight against climate hysteria is a struggle against just one facet of the larger attack on free market economics and individual liberty. It’s important, but not the only fight. If we see it in context, we realize it’s a full court press to achieve the Revolution the aging 60s radicals wanted before they finally (the sooner the better) leave this planet.
The pen’s were made by Bic of course.
http://www.bicworld.com/us/about-bic/history/#
I’m sure they have factories in China today but they still produce products that simply work.
Just for the record. I usually buy a box with 100 of their ball points and all of them work.
I once bought a box of ball point from China and none of the worked.
major says:
February 12, 2014 at 1:38 pm
“Remind me, what was the quality of original hubble images? Oh, and about those shuttles of yours…”
The US shuttles were designed in the late 1970s, first flew in 1981, and were used on a total of 135 missions. I purchased my first personal computer about that time, a Commodore VIC-20 with 5kB of RAM and a MOS 6502 CPU. If you owned a ’20 or even the later ’64 – please stand.
From the “things fail” department: Big Bertha . . .
Has only worked a few weeks and it will be months before she is fixed.
Japanese firm Hitachi Zosen Corp. manufactured the machine that’s digging the tunnel meant to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct near the Seattle waterfront.