Where, oh where, has Chang'e 1 gone?

It’s been quite a while since we’ve heard anything about China’s ground-breaking lunar orbiter launched last October.

Here is a brief history of the program…

Here is a video describing the mission:
Mission Overview

China’s Space Agency, CNSA, launched Chang’e 1 on October 24, 2007
Launch news

Here is a video of the launch:
Blast Off!

On November 12, the orbiter entered lunar orbit at a distance of 200km
Moon Orbit

On November 27th, China released it’s first photo of the lunar surface
First Photo

There was a huge Internet controversy over this photo. When compared to an older Clementine photo of the same area, there was a crater that was out of place.

ATS Thread on initial photo release

China announces on December 4th, 2007 that the data from Chang’e 1 was “Available to all”
Available to All

Another photo (undated) was released on December 12th
Second Photo

On February 21st, 2008, the Orbiter beamed music back to earth for distribution to media outlets

Music from the orbiter

As of 7/29/2008 – Haven’t heard or seen a bit of news since February

What happened to Chang’e 1?

This mission was supposed to last about a year or so.

“China publishes first moon picture” is still on the front page of CNSA’s website

www.cnsa.gov.cn...

- Did the craft ever make it to lunar orbit?
- Are the two released pictures actually from the orbiter?
- Did the craft make it to orbit, then become unoperational?
- Is the craft still orbiting the moon in fully operational condition, but CNSA is withholding information?

I cannot locate any picture of Chang’e1 other than the two released by CSNA. Afterall, they said the data was “available to all”.

What do you think the status of Chang’e 1 is?

reply to post by Zarniwoop


I wondered the same thing. Other than that photo that they appeared to have coppied from NASA, I haven't seen anything.

While we are on the subject, what happened to the JAXA as well?

In stark contrast to the Chang'e 1 program, Jaxa has been continuously posting updated HD movies and stills as the mission progresses. I don't have the link handy, but I'll post it when I find it

EDIT: Here is the Selene orbiter image gallery from JAXA

wms.selene.jaxa.jp...


[edit on 30-7-2008 by Zarniwoop]

I suppose it has gone phut.

You wouldn't expect the Chinese to tell the world about that, did you? The loss of face from such an admission, both for the Chinese people as a whole and the Communist Party in particular, would b far too great. And remember, China doesn't have a free press...

If it had succeeded there would have been plenty in the media about it.

Originally posted by Astyanax

If it had succeeded there would have been plenty in the media about it.

That's exactly what I'm thinking.

I think it made it to orbit, then shut down shortly afterward.

How long can they keep that a secret, though? I guess there is really no way to prove it one way or the other, since ther is nothing that really can verify orbiters up there, except their operators of course.

EDIT: Spelling

[edit on 30-7-2008 by Zarniwoop]

reply to post by Zarniwoop


Thanks for the follow up. I kind of figured that ATS would be finding all sorts of interesting objects in the HD footage by now.

It looks like the last pictures are dated december 2007.
www. clep.org.cn through google translation.

The same pictures are seen here:
www.planetary.org...

Chang'e orbits the moon since november 5th. No update since december. CNSA hates to publish bad news it seems.

The orbiter is dead IMHO

It's better to admit you screwed up than to sweep it under the carpet... National Pride

CNSA is looking pretty stupid right now. Although, no one really cares, it seems.

I'm sure NASA knows what's going on and they are just not commenting on the subject.

Oh

It appears I may have been wrong...

China will release over 700 hours of data sent back by the Chang'e-1 satellite to domestic authorized users and the European Space Agency, according to the State Administration of Science Technology and Industry for National Defence (SASTIND) on Friday.

Source

Lets see

[edit on 8-8-2008 by Zarniwoop]

Hmmm. It's been 21 days since the announcment, and I can't find any evidence of CNSA giving 700 hours of Change' 1 data to anyone.

Perhaps they're waiting for the Olympics to complete. Yep, that's it...

[edit on 22-8-2008 by Zarniwoop]

Curiously it takes three orbits before you can land on the moon.

A small defense system in the low gravity, on the far side would give the owner exclusive access to the surface.

Not that I think the Chinese ever got off the ground with their probe.
But if they had, they should not have been surprised to loose signal after an orbit or two. Not more than three.