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From the NYT article [0] on the topic: "We Chinese people have done something that the Americans have not dared try.” -- someone associated with the Chinese space agency Why so insecure? Not a good look. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/02/world/asia/china-change-4...
Weird comment given Space X is about to start moon orbit tourism trips.
https://www.spacex.com/news/2017/02/27/spacex-send-privately...
https://www.space.com/22743-china-national-space-administrat...
Can someone explain how are these types of devices safe from hackers? I mean, it talks back to the space agency, right? Just curious is all. Haven't seen anything related to this question.
A lot of satellites and probes "back in the day" more or less depended on security through obscurity. You would need to know what frequency (or frequencies) to use, and how to encode the commands. Your ground station also needs a bigass antenna, and a good idea of where to point it. Now most if not all satellites use encryption and/or authentication for command and control, but I wouldn't be surprised if some space p…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It wasn't in TFA, but here's a source: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46724727 > The lander carries a 3kg (6.6lb) container with potato and arabidopsis plant seeds - as well as silkworm eggs - to perform biological studies. The "lunar mini biosphere" experiment was designed by 28 Chinese universities. (Source for the silkworms, at least. I must confess that giant mutant moonworms are only conjecture...…
Not entirely sure about all the ISS tests but most space biology experiments seem to be zero-g. We know a lot about how life survives at 1g and 0g but very little about in between, so hopefully it goes ok, quite a unique experiment.
"...and if the dam breaks open many years too soon..." Perhaps interesting to note the origin of this name for spacecraft. The legend "Chang'e flies to the moon" (嫦娥奔月) lies behind the Mid-Autumn Festival (featuring mooncakes, as it were). Point is, the names of Chinese space missions are every bit as carefully steeped in tradition as, say, Mercury/Gemini/Apollo.
How much lighter is the lander compared to Apollo moon lander? I mean, how far are the Chinese from sending people to the moon? The Russians landed a Lunokhod too but were very far from sending people to the moon.
Russians were on a verge of manned mission, but the program stalled with Korolev's death and then scrapped altogether for non-technical reasons, primarily because of the regime change.
Hopefully they find some carbon in the crust. Only traces have been found so far on the moon.
Noticed this is the same day as NASA got the Ultima-Thule photos. Was this announced today to overshadow it, like how Uber announced their IPO basically a day after Lyft's? Want to avoid going off about conspiracy theories or who's more patriotic, just curious how the announcements actually lined up. This (wikipedia-sourced) AP wire from Oct 22, 2015 when the Pluto flyby happened said they had re-pointed the probe fo…
> Is this what a space race feels like? No. New Horizons capturing Ultima Thule is not a large enough event to warrant the Chinese feeling like they need to compete with it. Spectator wise, it's a nice event for anyone that likes astronomy. It will be ignored by most of the people on the planet, just as the Chinese landing on the far side of the moon will be. These are not seminal moments in space history.
Intercepting a 20 km object in the Kuiper Belt, the farthest body ever explored by mankind, isn't seminal? This also happens to be the first encounter with a planetesimal. It gives us a unique window into planetary formation. This is a very huge accomplishment.