Kaguya to be Flown into moon - ON PURPOSE

The impact is not accidental. The Japanese space agency, JAXA, has long planned to end the mission in this fashion

I was in 2 minds whether to post this in conspiracy or not as it is pretty weird i thought.

It masses 2,900 kg and will hit the Moon at an oblique angle traveling approximately 6,000 km/hr

6000 km/ph, holy smoke. anyone know any more about this?

www.spaceweather.com...

I have read a few things on this spacecraft and how some of its images have been hidden from the public. Is this a normal thing to do when a craft is no longer used??

G/

This should lay to rest the controversy over existence of a moon atmosphere or not. At that velocity there'll be a spectacular light show if it passes through atmosphere of any kind as the craft vaporises.

I'm tipping no light show and the whole craft impacting unscathed (except for the final millisecond when it hits the surface that is )

I suppose they could crash it on the dark side to prevent us seeing it of course

This reeks of stupidity and wrecklessness, and a dash of "something just isn't right".

I suppose if the U.S. did fake the moon landing then this is Japan's way of saying FIRST! with a nice crater to go along with it.

It is a Nuke, ruunnn !!

This could also be an oppertunity to check the 'bell ring' effect again, and I hope it is on the near side so that we can watch it in our telescopes, or is it gonna be on the far side so that we dont know for sure if they crashed it or sent it out in space for some DarkOps mission.. ??

reply to post by ChemBreather

This could also be an oppertunity to check the 'bell ring' effect again

That is what I was thinking as well. I wonder what they have in place to monitor the effect of this?

Lets hope they don't crash it anywhere near NASA's supposed Moon landing sites. Can you imagine the ramifications of that?

Originally posted by danj3ris
This reeks of stupidity and wrecklessness, and a dash of "something just isn't right".

What are you talking about? This is done all the time at the end of lunar missions. Telescopes on earth try to examine any dust plume that's kicked up to study the moon's composition in a given region. An amateur managed to catch the brief flash when the ESA crashed their SMART-1 probe into the nightside of the moon:
cosmonut.org...

Here is an article on this
Japanese Probe to Slam into Moon Today

The Japanese lunar orbiter Kaguya has completed its main mission. But there's one final scientific endeavor: It will slam into the moon's surface at about 2:30 p.m. ET (18:30 UT) today.

Here is an image of the landing site
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/47cf58d26bc7.jpg[/atsimg]

Here is a video of the moon taken by Kaguya


I'm sure the moon will ring like a bell as it seem to do when hit by things, should be interesting!

-E-

Originally posted by ChemBreather
I hope it is on the near side so that we can watch it in our telescopes, or is it gonna be on the far side so that we dont know for sure if they crashed it or sent it out in space for some DarkOps mission.. ??

The above article states...

The impact is expected to occur on the near-side of the moon, in the dark area close to the limb, at lunar coordinates 80°E and 64°S

-E-

reply to post by ngchunter


Thank you ngchunter. I did not know there was any scientific benefit to purposefully crashing something into the moon.

It still does bother me however that it costs x amount of monies to create something capable of floating around space, and then its supposed to be demolished? It doesn't sit right with me, but I'm not a rocket scientist.

Spacecraft have indeed been unpurposely slammed into the moon and planets. Going back to the early 1960's the russians sent many spacecraft called LUNA..they were desigend to intentioanlly slam into the moon, to be the first country to at leat land something their. AS they learned more about the moons gravity and how slow ro fast the spacecraft shuold fly..they probably crashed a good 4 or 5 of them, till they learned how to achieve the mathmatics for lunar orbiting.
The spacecraft Galileo in 2000 was it? ended it mission and was sent hurdling into Jupiter,t ill it melted and fell apart. Thier was a mission to an asteroid late 1990's, that intentioanly shot and crashed a camera attached to a tiny spacecraft to impact the asteroid...
Magellan to Venus, 1990...after its mission , they let the spacecrafts orbit decay utnil the spacecraft burned up in the Venusian atmosphere...
They do that, so they dont leave junk floating around on a foreign sphere. They cant rturn it home as the spacecraft has NO fuel for that kinda journey,even to the moon...plus it wouldnt survive re entry in earth atmosphere..SO! only real option anyone has, is to destry the craft...hwoever it does kinda litter the lunar landscape...

reply to post by danj3ris


Everything has a limited useful life.

Power supplies are not permanent, mission has been completed, etc.

Leaving junk in orbit is an unnecessary hazard, too.

(of course, then the Moon becomes a repository for said 'junk'...but, it's better there than as a threat to something else in orbit)

These things are planned purposefully. Remember MIR? It had served its useful life, and was a hazard if allowed to deorbit without forethought.

(things in Low-Earth-Orbits --- LEO --- will eventually deorbit because of atmospheric drag. Even though very, very, very thin at orbital altitudes, the effects are cumulative over time).

reply to post by danj3ris


In addition to what others have said, it's basically impossible to leave an unpowered satellite in low lunar orbit indefinately; the moon's gravity is uneven, causing a passive orbit to be perturbed gradually until it possibly results in a collision course with a lunar mountain. Better to know where you're bringing it down so you don't accidently trash an apollo landing site or other historical landing location.

reply to post by MysterE


Ok if that is a video of the moon taken by the probe, where in the hell are all the stars above the horizon. Did they film it in the wrong light and contrast just like NASA did deliberately?

You guys know that both the US and Russia have done this before back in the late 1950's right? The first probe to actually impact the surface was Russia's Luna 2 launched in September of 1959. I can't remember the names of the US impact probes. The whole Moon Impact Probe is not a new idea. Though it will be very interesting to see what Japan comes up with datawise.

Well if a big part of Kaguya's mission was to look for frozen water then the impact site and the speed (hence energy) makes a lot of sense.


Think about it, from Earth or Earth orbit they will be able to observe the impact and use Spectral analysis to look for signs of water.

(they are also taking out an alien launch site... I never said that tho )

Originally posted by stevcolx
reply to post by MysterE

 

Ok if that is a video of the moon taken by the probe, where in the hell are all the stars above the horizon. Did they film it in the wrong light and contrast just like NASA did deliberately?

Oh come on, i suggest you try filming or taking photographs of the moon with correct exposure and see if you can see any stars surrounding it!

Then comeback and post.

The Indian probe met the same end, there's really not much else you can do after a certain point.
Better to crash them on the moon instead of keeping them in a degrading orbit, and having them possibly impact future missions.

Originally posted by Pilgrum
This should lay to rest the controversy over existence of a moon atmosphere or not.

That controversy was laid to rest thousands of years ago when man first watched a star pass behind the Moon

reply to post by stevcolx


***Face In Hands***

Gee! You must be the smartest person on Earth! Only you caught that most obvious "mistake".

Please, say you were joking...just to restore a minor modicum of my faith in Humanity as an intelligent species.