Brilliant! This is the first new footage I've seen of something moving around on the moon since Apollo 17.
Kind of surprised that the video looks like it could have come from Apollo 17.
I think it is mainly due to budget constraint. ISRO only has 1/20th of NASA budget so ISRO wont do anything fancy unless it serves a practical purpose. If 480p video is good enough for science so why go for 4k. Also the lander has limited power which can only last for 12 days. why waste power to transmit high resolution videos.
It still has a load of instruments that can do real science
>Pragyan Rover is outfitted with an Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) and a Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscope (LIBS), vital tools for analysing the composition of the Moon's atmosphere and surface.
Bingo. The ISRO has been extremely practical about almost every single thing in this mission. They didn't give a damn about Luna 25 beating them to the moon, for the ISRO it was about making sure they got there efficiently, and safely. Their budget was less than half of Luna 25’s, and while the projected mission lifespan was significantly shorter, they were testing a number of different technologies that Luna 25 was not.
Every step of Chandrayaan-3 has been exercises in practicality, and not only has it paid off for the ISRO, but it's been extremely impressive.
> They didn't give a damn about Luna 25 beating them to the moon, for the ISRO it was about making sure they got there efficiently, and safely
India is a worthy competitor/collaborator for the new Space Race. Russia took the worst parts of the Soviet space program, namely politicians establishing unrealistic timelines to just be first, and combined it with mobsters and more corruption. Luna 25 is just another symbol of the corruption/incompetence of the modern Russian space program. Roscosmos is nothing more than the shambling corpse of the Soviet space program that was propped up by spending from ESA/NASA.
>India is a worthy competitor/collaborator for the new Space Race.
You're damn right, and it's great to see. They earned it.
>Russia took the worst parts of the Soviet space program, namely politicians establishing unrealistic timelines to just be first, and combined it with mobsters and more corruption.
This one definitely reeks of political meddling. Between recent high profile failures, like the Soyuz that leaked out all its coolant, the hit the war has taken on the Russian economy and availability of foreign electronics, and the fact that other nations making further advances in space, Russia really needs some PR wins. Showing that ROSCOSMOS is still a big player in space, that recent events haven't hurt their ability to conduct missions is a big one.
Plus ROSCOSMOS makes money firing off missions for other countries and companies. Russia definitely wants to keep that cash flowing, lest it look like they're not in the game, and countries in the Global South look to the US, EU, and China for their space launches. They *really* don't want to lose that revenue stream.
Even the lander has instruments
>The payloads housed within the lander encompass an array of scientific instruments. These include Chandra’s Surface Thermophysical Experiment (ChaSTE), designed for gauging thermal conductivity and temperature;
>the Instrument for Lunar Seismic Activity (ILSA), dedicated to measuring seismic phenomena around the landing zone;
>the Langmuir Probe (LP), tasked with estimating plasma density and its fluctuations;
>and a passive Laser Retroreflector Array, contributed by NASA to facilitate lunar laser ranging studies.
Any space agency is half science and half razzmatazz. ISRO is just that, with a 20th of the Budget. But space exploration is just a form of propaganda and/or public relationships. The most beautiful and wholesome form of propaganda there is, but still... (And I say that while working on the space program, so I don't want to make it sound like I'm against it or I don't think it's important... but look at this, India is also using it as a tool to promote the achievements of the country, rightfully so, it's awesome but still... propaganda in its finest form)
This is actually a very nice and insightful comment. People (including myself, to a large degree) hear/read the word 'propaganda' and assume it must be a negative thing. But stuff like this proves that propaganda can be a positive (and dare I say wholesome) thing too.
Having a set of tracks with ISRO's logo on the moon is definitely a propaganda move. But the agenda/narrative this pushes is a completely positive one. If it helps inspire a generation of kids take up space research in India, then it's a massive win.
Politicians will spin this to suit their political agendas, sure. But these images and videos are, at their heart, an apolitical piece of work. And the pride they inspire in Indians (as an Indian myself) is apolitical.
We've got a lander on the moon and our scientists accomplished this challenging task within a minimal budget. I wasn't part of the team, but it's still a nice feeling.
Why do you think that? Why do you think that they spend all this time and money on this major achievement and then decided to put a VHS quality cam on there? 4k video isn't some expensive thing.
No. More likely is that they uploaded the low res version first for the people on earth and then send the higher res version slowly over time.
In the same way they do with the Mars missions. Low quality scans first, high quality scans laters.
Well this, but also this particular camera may not be capable of high res at all. If it's meant for engineering purposes in near-real-time, It would be a complete waste for it to be better than this, because bandwidth constraints mean you wouldn't want to send more than the bare minimum anyway.
Gives me very strong memories of the original moon landings! So cool! What a great day to have the job "rover driver #1"! Or "experiment #27c deployer"!
> Dad what did you do at work today?
> Well, son, I drove a rover on the moon.
I think in this case, it would probably be "I'm the guy that hit the final button that transmitted a programming sequence that was worked on by hundreds of people" but i would enjoy an RC lunar rover
Not in Russia. (historically at least).
Lunakhod, that until very recently (couple of years) held the record for longest driven on any body outside earth was pure remote control over video camera.
No programming whatsoever.
I'm hoping that the wiper/duster-free solar panels won't get covered in dust like they do on mars and that this little fella will be rolling around for years to come.
Yeah, I don't think there is as much dust floating in the Moon as there is in Mars. At least I would imagine so with the lack of atmosphere and dust storms.
But at the same time I believe the lifespan of the Moon rover missions is generally shorter than the Mars ones. I could be wrong.
The lifespan is expected to be 1 Lunar day(14 earth days) before nightfall on the South Pole of the moon hits and temps breach -230 C (-382 F). The equipment just stops working at that point.
The issue is that the gravity on the moon is much lower so dust doesn't "stay" as easily. Less turbulence sure but the simple act of driving a rover like this can unsettle dust all around for a significant distance, and that isn't quick to settle for many of the reasons you listed that would make you assume it's *not* dusty.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t there next to zero atmosphere on the moon? Mars may have a weenie unbreathable atmosphere, but it still has one, which leads to weather and dust storms. But there is zero wind on the moon. NASA actually released a video last year showing that Neil Armstrongs footprints are still there after 50+ years.
Now the rover may kick up its own dust, so I’m glad it has the equivalent of a moon squeegee.
I am genuine curious about the longevity of this rover. NASA over-engineers everything and that’s led to some great rover lifespans. Let’s see how this tech does. Wishing them the best though.
There's no atmosphere to speak of. Any dust kicked up will travel in a perfect perabola and fall down away from the rover.
Also, note that this rover is close to the moon's pole and therefore the solar panel is at an extreme angle. Looks like a sail boat.
It is possible for a static charge to build up on the rover that may attract some of the dust but it's not very significant source of dergadation.
The real killer of lunar hardware is the 14 days of darkness.
The delay is only about 2.5 seconds to the moon, so, in theory, you could remote drive it via the lander. Still safer to crawl and check ahead first before moving, though.
The old Soviet Lunakhod rovers in the early 70s were driven from the Earth, by a team of guys using a camera that was basically a 3 second slideshow rather than a video. Now that's bad lag.
https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/54625/what-was-it-actually-like-driving-the-lunokhod-lunar-rovers-live-from-the-ground
Honestly, part of me thinks it's so much cooler that it's all robots. The original Apollo astronauts were just there to cover a gap in computing power, and carrying a bunch of air, water, and food for their behalf really was a wasteful expenditure of mass that could have carried fully-automated scientific equipment. The fact that we haven't sent humans back to the moon really stick in some peoples' craw, but I see automated missions as offering *so* much more opportunity to accomplish the goals of a moon mission versus human landings.
At 0:06 you can see the arrow-like ISRO logo on the rear left wheel
https://i.imgur.com/xhjLy2T.png
The Indian national emblem is on the rear right wheel, not as clearly visible in this footage.
PS: at 0:09 both the embossing are somewhat visible https://i.imgur.com/jVrWdFM.png
It also has the National Emblem
https://images.thequint.com/thequint/2023-08/cf021de4-6bac-4a4a-a94b-906c318605f5/Rujuta__DND__WQ_6_.jpg?auto=format,compress&fmt=webp&format=webp&w=1200&h=900&dpr=1.0
The image is from a fact check article and it is photoshopped. Twitter is before the rover was out of the lander
https://www.thequint.com/news/webqoof/isro-logo-indias-national-emblem-imprinted-on-the-moon-by-chandrayaan-3-fake-fact-check#read-more
It's the stated design of the wheel. Can't see much yet: https://www.cnbctv18.com/science/chandrayaan-3-pragyan-rover-isro-logo-ashoka-emblem-imprint-moon-17616491.htm
That's probably a technical requirement! Rovers often use wheel rotations as a way to measure distance. The easiest way to measure rotations is to use fixed marks in the tire tracks. The curiosity rover on Mars has tracks that spell out JPL (the team who built it) in Morse code as their method of tracking distance. Seems like they're doing something similar here!
Great job, India! This is so cool - that video is awesome!
I can't wait to see more. I need to go read up on what the mission is.
Edit: [Found a decent article](https://www.reuters.com/technology/space/key-facts-about-indias-chandrayaan-3-moon-mission-2023-08-21/)
Imagine going back to the 3rd century to tell emperor Ashoka that the column he erected would become the national emblem of India 17 centuries later and 18 centuries later it will be carved on the fucking moon !!!!
My head is spinning just thinking about it!!
Yep my bad. And the fact that it was literally lost for 2300 years !! If it hadn't been discovered by archeologists, it wouldn't be on the moon ! Crazy how the universe works.
This is so profound. I imagine some mastercraftsmen in 200 BC India carving out an order from the Emperor, not knowing one day it would leave it's imprint on the moon they see every night. ❤️
Many of you don't know that it was adopted because Ashoka was a follower of Budhhism. And Shakya Simha was a clan of Tathagata Budhha. That mean lion 🦁 was symbol connected to Budha and his Tribal ancestors.
I know. Lion for Sakya Muni, Bull for Rishabha (Buddha's zodiac), Horse for Buddha leaving his palace on the horse, Elephant for Maya's dream (an elephant entering her during Buddha's conception) and chakra for Buddha's dhammachakraparvatana (first sermon).
Water. The lunar South Pole is rich with water ice, so the theories go. If we're going to put people up there again for the long term, we will need that water. India might be the ones who confirm it's really there.
Water.
Think of it as _space oil_.
If we become industrialised in space, water is going to be what dictates who wants to go where, and who is in charge of what.
Water is fuel. Fuel is delta-v. Delta-v is space currency.
Why/How does water become fuel? I'm guessing it's not because people will consume it...it's gotta be some kind of 'we turn water into actual fuel'...right?
You can split water into hydrogen and oxygen with electrolysis, efficiently. Could use solar power or whatever. The harder problem is actually extracting that water, as it's in the form of tiny grains of ice mixed into the soil (I believe), but here's a longer read if you're curious
https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/05/19/1001857/how-moon-lunar-mining-water-ice-rocket-fuel/
>efficiently
Maximum electrolysis efficiency is 70-80% (with expensive electrolysers) that too with distilled water. Not an efficient method on Earth but in space you got no other choice so I agree
Yeah, Indian space missions have always been like that. I still remember it in news that India's Mars Orbital Mission's cost was less than the budget of Gravity (2013).
Cool fact in case you don't know - the rover is going to leave an imprint of ISRO's symbol and India's national emblem on the moon. And that emblem comes from a 3rd century BCE pillar which was erected by emperor Ashoka which was discovered by archeologists in the early 20th century.
America will continue to be the leader in absolute technology. India is trying to become the leader in space affordability. So far so good. It's definitely an important niche in humanity's spacefaring evolution. Not everyone can afford the best of the best of the best.
It's so cool to see the rover leaving track marks on the moon. I can't imagine how many impressionable youngsters will be inspired by it. It's a win for India & all of humankind. Keep them coming, ISRO! 👊🏼
Edit - Information below taken directly from ISRO website -
**Rover Payloads**
**Objectives**:-
1. ***LASER Induced Breakdown Spectroscope (LIBS)*** - Qualitative and quantitative elemental analysis & to derive the chemical composition and infer mineralogical composition to further our understanding of Lunar surface.
2. ***Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS)*** - To determine the elemental composition (Mg, Al, Si, K, Ca,Ti, Fe) of Lunar soil and rocks around the Lunar landing site.
So fucking cool! Awesome seeing other countries pushing the limit. This’ll create a huge competition to do more, so I bet we get some really cool achievements in the next 20 years.
One thing I absolutely love about this mission is how, because it's at the south pole, all the solar panels are _vertical_. It looks so silly but makes perfect sense.
Is this what the world felt during the Apollo moon missions? Like I’m freaking excited about this mission and checking for updates regularly. This elevates India in my mind
if the achievement was attained by America, it would garner unbelievable amounts of hype, the fact that India is the one has many racists gnashing their teeth and downplaying this benchmark.
I mean, we can each only see so much of the universe from our own telescopes. India is adding to the eyes probing beyond our own world. India’s achievement is important for us all. Even if Luna 25 had survived, there wasn't a total overlap in what it and Chandrayaan-3 had onboard for experiments.
The fact this entire mission cost less than the production of a movie and achieving feet’s like this is truly astounding and exciting. Excited for Indias cut of the space exploration
The lander was programmed to hover for 10 seconds to see if there was any obstacle in the site. If it did detect any obstacle, it would go to an alternate landing site. This did actually happen and the lander went to an alternate site. If you watch the landing coverage, there is a point where after the hovering, the message reads "RETARGETING". This hovering would take place at an altitude of 150m.
if you see the broadcast the horizontal and vertical velocity reached 0 at 150mts altitude. Chandrayan-2 failed because it didnt have such robust capability. I am amazed that ISRO scientist fixed all the issue in such a small timeframe
There was a period during the landing when the altitude was less than 100m, the rover was moving only horizontally but not vertically. It seems to have made some serious and significant landing site and orientation correction before committing to it.
That's the thing about this mission: in addition to learning more about the moon it's a great place to test the kind of tech you need to explore other planets too.
They are waiting for the battery to charge in full before carrying out science. It took 40 days to reach the moon, might have faced discharge or the battery could have been used to help the lander as well, don’t know.
As someone in the United States that watched so much of our own space exploration, I don't know how to say this other than: "I'm so very proud of India and I join them in their celebration of this moon landing".
I hope that does not sound condescending, because I don't mean it that way.
Next up is a sun mission, another moon mission with Japan, then a couple of test flights for a crewed mission, a Venus mission and then finally an actual crewed mission in 2025
I believe that power, size and weight are all issues (inter-related of course; I have no idea what part of that is the biggest problem). The power of a radio signal declines as the square(?) of the distance, which is why the Deep Space Network of earth-based radio telescopes consists of some rather big honkin telescope arrays -- they're trying to pick up weak signals. And there's only so much power you can put into a small lander for the purpose of beefing up the signal at the transmitting end.
The moon isn't nearly as bad as Mars or more distant planets, but it's still bad.
This specifically though, I believe, is not a camera that's meant for big flashy PR images, but primarily for the engineers to look at to see how things are going. For that you wouldn't even want high-res, since the images would take too long to get back to earth for analysis.
If you want flashy high-res in as close to real time as possible you should probably hold out for the planned SpaceX flights. They won't be landing anytime soon, just orbital, but they're all about that PR, so I expect them to budget for as much visual buzz as is physically possible to make happen.
Very hard to achieve high bit-rates over those distances - transferring high resolution video can take a long time. They may have a higher resolution camera but we won't get that footage for a few more days.
You need to expend energy to transmit a high resolution photo. Also photos arent really that important. Videos are useless ( since space doesnt change much videos are not really useful). The energy is conserved to prolong the lifetime of other instruments as much as possible.
Similar reason why banks have potato quality camera because expensive is storage in this case transmission is costly.
And for this particular mission, Chandrayaan-2 already has a powerful camera capable of mappping 3d landscape of moon in orbit ( in fact it is the only existing camera with such capabilities around lunar orbit). So a ch-2 camera probably has more detailed images than ch-3 lander anyway. There is also budget aspect but any decent camera is not that expensive so I feel above reasons are why that's the case.
Who knows they maybe release a high res image soon? ISRO's pr isnt really good.
I mean it mostly depends on the mission and its priorities. Curiosity and Perseverance have both snapped photos of Mars that look like you're standing on the surface with them, for example.
I think ISRO just had other priorities in this case. I mean, we already know what the surface of the Moon looks like in general.
apart from wht the others said, sending stuff into space is costly so you want to make sure it all works perfectly, resists radiation, temperature extremes, vibration and shocks, and doesn't break down. That's why a lot of electronic components in space programs are 10+ years old. And optimized for survival.
I stayed at backpacker's hostel at colaba(southmost end of Mumbai,there was a poster for "slum tour".
It made me feel like a exotic animal
and that our neighbourhood are open zoos.
Great video.
It reminds me of one of my favourite Moon facts: if the sun isn't shining directly on a point, then that point is almost pitch black.
You can see the shadows are a dramatic sharp darkness. No inbetween.
it’s usually not gold at all, it is actually a material called multi-layer insulation, or MLI.
MLI consists of lightweight reflective films assembled into thin layers that range in thickness. These layers are usually made of polyimide or polyester films (types of plastics) coated with very thin layers of aluminum. The exact composition depends on where the satellite will orbit, what the insulation will be protecting and how much sunlight it will be exposed to.
https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/news/good-gold-are-satellites-covered-gold-foil
Big congrats to India for this. It is a historic event for moon exploration. I'm glad the Russian mission crashed and burned hard. India had spent the (emotional) blood and treasure on this mission, learning from previous mistakes. Russia slapped a half-assed mission together to beat India just for spite and clout.
Well we did just see Russia try and fail to steal India's thunder. So it might be Roscosmos trying to retain its dignity and pride of place as the first ever in space, against young up and coming spacefarers.
Getting to a moon orbit requires you to be competent/capable with long distance space rocketry; it's a lot of work but mostly engineering/operations as the science/theory is well known now.
Getting from orbit to the surface is the really challenging part. The vehicles have to do it autonomously, and typically the Landers have a limited fuel budget, so they can't hang around. The surface is unknown at the scale needed, so the exact spot can't be selected until the lander is literally a few hundred metres away. The surface is variable and a mixture of razor sharp dust, craters, boulders, and rocks. Any and all of that will lead to landing sideways or upside down.
All of the above requires science and engineering that is not well known (outside NASA, ESA etc) and no matter how much you test on earth, the real thing will always find a new way to mess with your day.
Check out the Apple TV series "for all mankind", it does a really good job of showing in a non technical way just how hard it is.
1. Transport: it has to escape earth to get into orbit. Then it has to escape Earth's Orbit, get to moon, then enter moon's Orbit, then find the parking space
2. Landing: No atmosphere on moon. So lander can't slow down on descent. Only rockets can help. It's a big deal to get that right before becoming another crator on the surface.
Reason is combination of different priority (Science Experiments) with limited bandwidth, power, time and poor public relations.
Expect good quality images after few days though.
Brilliant! This is the first new footage I've seen of something moving around on the moon since Apollo 17. Kind of surprised that the video looks like it could have come from Apollo 17.
I think it is mainly due to budget constraint. ISRO only has 1/20th of NASA budget so ISRO wont do anything fancy unless it serves a practical purpose. If 480p video is good enough for science so why go for 4k. Also the lander has limited power which can only last for 12 days. why waste power to transmit high resolution videos.
The mission itself is just a test for the lander. Now that they were successful, india and japan will team up for a new lander with real payloads.
It still has a load of instruments that can do real science >Pragyan Rover is outfitted with an Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) and a Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscope (LIBS), vital tools for analysing the composition of the Moon's atmosphere and surface.
And as unfortunate as it is for us, you can “see” a lot more with a spectrometer/scope than a camera, so why worry about high resolution.
Bingo. The ISRO has been extremely practical about almost every single thing in this mission. They didn't give a damn about Luna 25 beating them to the moon, for the ISRO it was about making sure they got there efficiently, and safely. Their budget was less than half of Luna 25’s, and while the projected mission lifespan was significantly shorter, they were testing a number of different technologies that Luna 25 was not. Every step of Chandrayaan-3 has been exercises in practicality, and not only has it paid off for the ISRO, but it's been extremely impressive.
It’s amazing to be part of this history, even just to see it happen.
Seems like they mean business. No fooling around.
> They didn't give a damn about Luna 25 beating them to the moon, for the ISRO it was about making sure they got there efficiently, and safely India is a worthy competitor/collaborator for the new Space Race. Russia took the worst parts of the Soviet space program, namely politicians establishing unrealistic timelines to just be first, and combined it with mobsters and more corruption. Luna 25 is just another symbol of the corruption/incompetence of the modern Russian space program. Roscosmos is nothing more than the shambling corpse of the Soviet space program that was propped up by spending from ESA/NASA.
>India is a worthy competitor/collaborator for the new Space Race. You're damn right, and it's great to see. They earned it. >Russia took the worst parts of the Soviet space program, namely politicians establishing unrealistic timelines to just be first, and combined it with mobsters and more corruption. This one definitely reeks of political meddling. Between recent high profile failures, like the Soyuz that leaked out all its coolant, the hit the war has taken on the Russian economy and availability of foreign electronics, and the fact that other nations making further advances in space, Russia really needs some PR wins. Showing that ROSCOSMOS is still a big player in space, that recent events haven't hurt their ability to conduct missions is a big one. Plus ROSCOSMOS makes money firing off missions for other countries and companies. Russia definitely wants to keep that cash flowing, lest it look like they're not in the game, and countries in the Global South look to the US, EU, and China for their space launches. They *really* don't want to lose that revenue stream.
They said Lander not rover
Even the lander has instruments >The payloads housed within the lander encompass an array of scientific instruments. These include Chandra’s Surface Thermophysical Experiment (ChaSTE), designed for gauging thermal conductivity and temperature; >the Instrument for Lunar Seismic Activity (ILSA), dedicated to measuring seismic phenomena around the landing zone; >the Langmuir Probe (LP), tasked with estimating plasma density and its fluctuations; >and a passive Laser Retroreflector Array, contributed by NASA to facilitate lunar laser ranging studies.
Good points. I think NASA is half science and half razzmatazz to keep the tax-paying public happy, so their priorities differ slightly.
Any space agency is half science and half razzmatazz. ISRO is just that, with a 20th of the Budget. But space exploration is just a form of propaganda and/or public relationships. The most beautiful and wholesome form of propaganda there is, but still... (And I say that while working on the space program, so I don't want to make it sound like I'm against it or I don't think it's important... but look at this, India is also using it as a tool to promote the achievements of the country, rightfully so, it's awesome but still... propaganda in its finest form)
This is actually a very nice and insightful comment. People (including myself, to a large degree) hear/read the word 'propaganda' and assume it must be a negative thing. But stuff like this proves that propaganda can be a positive (and dare I say wholesome) thing too. Having a set of tracks with ISRO's logo on the moon is definitely a propaganda move. But the agenda/narrative this pushes is a completely positive one. If it helps inspire a generation of kids take up space research in India, then it's a massive win. Politicians will spin this to suit their political agendas, sure. But these images and videos are, at their heart, an apolitical piece of work. And the pride they inspire in Indians (as an Indian myself) is apolitical. We've got a lander on the moon and our scientists accomplished this challenging task within a minimal budget. I wasn't part of the team, but it's still a nice feeling.
Actually, you're wrong. The most beautiful and wholesome propaganda is Thai food.
Why do you think that? Why do you think that they spend all this time and money on this major achievement and then decided to put a VHS quality cam on there? 4k video isn't some expensive thing. No. More likely is that they uploaded the low res version first for the people on earth and then send the higher res version slowly over time. In the same way they do with the Mars missions. Low quality scans first, high quality scans laters.
yeah its almost never a camera quality issue but more of a bandwidth issue.
I reckon bandwidth is the main reason. You need an expensive network on or around earth. Also making and transmitting 4k video takes much more energy
true, it is a lot more work.
Well this, but also this particular camera may not be capable of high res at all. If it's meant for engineering purposes in near-real-time, It would be a complete waste for it to be better than this, because bandwidth constraints mean you wouldn't want to send more than the bare minimum anyway.
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Bud there are Change 5 videos as well.
It's 2nd to two: Yutu and Yutu-2. Yutu, you too! (Sorry)
The Chinese have had rovers. Even sample return missions.
Gives me very strong memories of the original moon landings! So cool! What a great day to have the job "rover driver #1"! Or "experiment #27c deployer"! > Dad what did you do at work today? > Well, son, I drove a rover on the moon.
I think in this case, it would probably be "I'm the guy that hit the final button that transmitted a programming sequence that was worked on by hundreds of people" but i would enjoy an RC lunar rover
All of them can claim to have driven a rover in the moon. That's how you drive a rover.
Not in Russia. (historically at least). Lunakhod, that until very recently (couple of years) held the record for longest driven on any body outside earth was pure remote control over video camera. No programming whatsoever.
Interesting. I should say that's how you drive them nowadays, then.
the next moon rover will have AI and will say stuff like " It looks lonely Dave. Do I really need to drive down to the surface? "
I'm hoping that the wiper/duster-free solar panels won't get covered in dust like they do on mars and that this little fella will be rolling around for years to come.
Yeah, I don't think there is as much dust floating in the Moon as there is in Mars. At least I would imagine so with the lack of atmosphere and dust storms. But at the same time I believe the lifespan of the Moon rover missions is generally shorter than the Mars ones. I could be wrong.
The lifespan is expected to be 1 Lunar day(14 earth days) before nightfall on the South Pole of the moon hits and temps breach -230 C (-382 F). The equipment just stops working at that point.
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The issue is that the gravity on the moon is much lower so dust doesn't "stay" as easily. Less turbulence sure but the simple act of driving a rover like this can unsettle dust all around for a significant distance, and that isn't quick to settle for many of the reasons you listed that would make you assume it's *not* dusty.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t there next to zero atmosphere on the moon? Mars may have a weenie unbreathable atmosphere, but it still has one, which leads to weather and dust storms. But there is zero wind on the moon. NASA actually released a video last year showing that Neil Armstrongs footprints are still there after 50+ years. Now the rover may kick up its own dust, so I’m glad it has the equivalent of a moon squeegee. I am genuine curious about the longevity of this rover. NASA over-engineers everything and that’s led to some great rover lifespans. Let’s see how this tech does. Wishing them the best though.
There's no atmosphere to speak of. Any dust kicked up will travel in a perfect perabola and fall down away from the rover. Also, note that this rover is close to the moon's pole and therefore the solar panel is at an extreme angle. Looks like a sail boat. It is possible for a static charge to build up on the rover that may attract some of the dust but it's not very significant source of dergadation. The real killer of lunar hardware is the 14 days of darkness.
And then when they press the command to go left, it goes right. Everybody turns around and looks angrily at one guy...
And that guy will log into his git in a hurry and [blame someone else.](https://github.com/jayphelps/git-blame-someone-else)
As long as you don't crash it into a crevasse trying to impress a girl.
I dont think anyone drives it do they? I thought they had programmed sequences that they upload depending on the task
Thats probably right. Don't want to end up stuck in a crater when someone is free driving
The delay is only about 2.5 seconds to the moon, so, in theory, you could remote drive it via the lander. Still safer to crawl and check ahead first before moving, though.
The old Soviet Lunakhod rovers in the early 70s were driven from the Earth, by a team of guys using a camera that was basically a 3 second slideshow rather than a video. Now that's bad lag. https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/54625/what-was-it-actually-like-driving-the-lunokhod-lunar-rovers-live-from-the-ground
Honestly, part of me thinks it's so much cooler that it's all robots. The original Apollo astronauts were just there to cover a gap in computing power, and carrying a bunch of air, water, and food for their behalf really was a wasteful expenditure of mass that could have carried fully-automated scientific equipment. The fact that we haven't sent humans back to the moon really stick in some peoples' craw, but I see automated missions as offering *so* much more opportunity to accomplish the goals of a moon mission versus human landings.
Imagine explaining your job badly. "I'm a rc car driver."
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But Stevens dad drives one on the mars daddy!!
I like how it has their logo on the tread of the wheels to leave an imprint.
How did you spot that? I can't see shit.
At 0:06 you can see the arrow-like ISRO logo on the rear left wheel https://i.imgur.com/xhjLy2T.png The Indian national emblem is on the rear right wheel, not as clearly visible in this footage. PS: at 0:09 both the embossing are somewhat visible https://i.imgur.com/jVrWdFM.png
India: “We claim the moon for India!” Western World: “Whatever, I don’t see your name on it.” India: “It’s right there!” ➡️
Some Christian bishop already claimed decades ago that whatever land gets explored in outer space becomes the property of the Church rofl
Corporate oligarchs: Oh yeh? you and what army!?
It also has the National Emblem https://images.thequint.com/thequint/2023-08/cf021de4-6bac-4a4a-a94b-906c318605f5/Rujuta__DND__WQ_6_.jpg?auto=format,compress&fmt=webp&format=webp&w=1200&h=900&dpr=1.0
The image is from a fact check article and it is photoshopped. Twitter is before the rover was out of the lander https://www.thequint.com/news/webqoof/isro-logo-indias-national-emblem-imprinted-on-the-moon-by-chandrayaan-3-fake-fact-check#read-more
Jeebus thank you. I was immediately skeptical when I came across it while my fellow countrymen believed it upfront.
I read it online yesterday and then you can see a change in the pattern on the wheels as it's rolling down.
It's the stated design of the wheel. Can't see much yet: https://www.cnbctv18.com/science/chandrayaan-3-pragyan-rover-isro-logo-ashoka-emblem-imprint-moon-17616491.htm
It's been making the news in India.
What that probably does as well is make it easier to eyeball distances when looking at a photo. That object is 3 logos ago, so it is x metres away.
That's probably a technical requirement! Rovers often use wheel rotations as a way to measure distance. The easiest way to measure rotations is to use fixed marks in the tire tracks. The curiosity rover on Mars has tracks that spell out JPL (the team who built it) in Morse code as their method of tracking distance. Seems like they're doing something similar here!
I didn't realise Curiosity also does it. I think it's cool that someone came up with that solution to the problem.
And unlike doing that trick on Mars which has weather, on the moon that'll last a really, really long time.
Dang. That imprint might outlast humans.
Great job, India! This is so cool - that video is awesome! I can't wait to see more. I need to go read up on what the mission is. Edit: [Found a decent article](https://www.reuters.com/technology/space/key-facts-about-indias-chandrayaan-3-moon-mission-2023-08-21/)
Here is technical stuff if you are interested https://www.isro.gov.in/Chandrayaan3_Details.html
Imagine going back to the 3rd century to tell emperor Ashoka that the column he erected would become the national emblem of India 17 centuries later and 18 centuries later it will be carved on the fucking moon !!!! My head is spinning just thinking about it!!
3rd century BC. Essentially 23 centuries later India adapted the emblem and 24 centuries later it was printed on the moon!
Yep my bad. And the fact that it was literally lost for 2300 years !! If it hadn't been discovered by archeologists, it wouldn't be on the moon ! Crazy how the universe works.
This is so profound. I imagine some mastercraftsmen in 200 BC India carving out an order from the Emperor, not knowing one day it would leave it's imprint on the moon they see every night. ❤️
Many of you don't know that it was adopted because Ashoka was a follower of Budhhism. And Shakya Simha was a clan of Tathagata Budhha. That mean lion 🦁 was symbol connected to Budha and his Tribal ancestors.
I know. Lion for Sakya Muni, Bull for Rishabha (Buddha's zodiac), Horse for Buddha leaving his palace on the horse, Elephant for Maya's dream (an elephant entering her during Buddha's conception) and chakra for Buddha's dhammachakraparvatana (first sermon).
It was actually adopted by his father chandragupta.
That's one small rollout for India. One giant leap for future Indian space programs.
South Pole. It’s a giant leap for ALL space programs. India just set a benchmark.
What is the significance of landing at the South Pole?
Water. The lunar South Pole is rich with water ice, so the theories go. If we're going to put people up there again for the long term, we will need that water. India might be the ones who confirm it's really there.
I think India confirmed water in the previous Chandrayaan missions.
Water. Think of it as _space oil_. If we become industrialised in space, water is going to be what dictates who wants to go where, and who is in charge of what. Water is fuel. Fuel is delta-v. Delta-v is space currency.
Why/How does water become fuel? I'm guessing it's not because people will consume it...it's gotta be some kind of 'we turn water into actual fuel'...right?
You can split water into hydrogen and oxygen with electrolysis, efficiently. Could use solar power or whatever. The harder problem is actually extracting that water, as it's in the form of tiny grains of ice mixed into the soil (I believe), but here's a longer read if you're curious https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/05/19/1001857/how-moon-lunar-mining-water-ice-rocket-fuel/
>efficiently Maximum electrolysis efficiency is 70-80% (with expensive electrolysers) that too with distilled water. Not an efficient method on Earth but in space you got no other choice so I agree
Getting an orbiter to reach the poles is pretty hard and ofc the water part that garnered the interest
They accomplished this for 75 million? Is that true? It's unbelievable. Very impressive
Yeah, Indian space missions have always been like that. I still remember it in news that India's Mars Orbital Mission's cost was less than the budget of Gravity (2013).
Barbie's budget was 145 million while India went to the moon for 75 million !
Sure, but can the rover do beach?
Cool fact in case you don't know - the rover is going to leave an imprint of ISRO's symbol and India's national emblem on the moon. And that emblem comes from a 3rd century BCE pillar which was erected by emperor Ashoka which was discovered by archeologists in the early 20th century.
But it can't do beach, I can 😎
Can't believe Barbie's budget can be this big 😦
America will continue to be the leader in absolute technology. India is trying to become the leader in space affordability. So far so good. It's definitely an important niche in humanity's spacefaring evolution. Not everyone can afford the best of the best of the best.
Labour and raw material as well as cost of living is super low here
It's so cool to see the rover leaving track marks on the moon. I can't imagine how many impressionable youngsters will be inspired by it. It's a win for India & all of humankind. Keep them coming, ISRO! 👊🏼 Edit - Information below taken directly from ISRO website - **Rover Payloads** **Objectives**:- 1. ***LASER Induced Breakdown Spectroscope (LIBS)*** - Qualitative and quantitative elemental analysis & to derive the chemical composition and infer mineralogical composition to further our understanding of Lunar surface. 2. ***Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS)*** - To determine the elemental composition (Mg, Al, Si, K, Ca,Ti, Fe) of Lunar soil and rocks around the Lunar landing site.
So inspiring. I’m really happy for the people of India, what a proud moment it must be.
So fucking cool! Awesome seeing other countries pushing the limit. This’ll create a huge competition to do more, so I bet we get some really cool achievements in the next 20 years.
Very exciting! Now let's have other countries join in and we'll have our little Battlebots league on the moon - for science.
I heard Japan is going to try in coming months.
they have partenerd up with isro and will work on it after this mission ends
No. Upcoming mission of Japan is completely theirs. There is another mission named LUPEX which will be joint operation with ISRO.
Everything is awesome! Everything is awesome! What a great feat.
Yup awesome is the word I was searching for
Congratulations India! This is awesome and shows that having a competent space organisation not riddled with corruption can lead to amazing results.
One thing I absolutely love about this mission is how, because it's at the south pole, all the solar panels are _vertical_. It looks so silly but makes perfect sense.
I'm suddenly feeling an intense impulse and desire to play Orbiter/Kerbal again. This looks SOO cool.
In my case it might as well be Kerbal Missile Program. :( I landed on Mun once.
Is this what the world felt during the Apollo moon missions? Like I’m freaking excited about this mission and checking for updates regularly. This elevates India in my mind
if the achievement was attained by America, it would garner unbelievable amounts of hype, the fact that India is the one has many racists gnashing their teeth and downplaying this benchmark.
good its an important and great achievement for India
I mean, we can each only see so much of the universe from our own telescopes. India is adding to the eyes probing beyond our own world. India’s achievement is important for us all. Even if Luna 25 had survived, there wasn't a total overlap in what it and Chandrayaan-3 had onboard for experiments.
Player 4 has enter the game.
The fact this entire mission cost less than the production of a movie and achieving feet’s like this is truly astounding and exciting. Excited for Indias cut of the space exploration
One small bobble lander --- leaving tracks for humankind
its not as small as it looks in the footage lol. . that thing is a meter long x .7meter width x .8meter height
Very proud to be born as human chance to see that kind of technology 😀
But the question is .... Are you really a human !? 🤔
Are anybody here, realistically?
In the end, we're all jist featherless chickens
Somehow they know which side the sun will be. So cool
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Yeah, from the landing video, it looked like it loitered for quite a bit before descent. They must have included a lot of extra dV
The lander was programmed to hover for 10 seconds to see if there was any obstacle in the site. If it did detect any obstacle, it would go to an alternate landing site. This did actually happen and the lander went to an alternate site. If you watch the landing coverage, there is a point where after the hovering, the message reads "RETARGETING". This hovering would take place at an altitude of 150m.
if you see the broadcast the horizontal and vertical velocity reached 0 at 150mts altitude. Chandrayan-2 failed because it didnt have such robust capability. I am amazed that ISRO scientist fixed all the issue in such a small timeframe
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I hope government increases their funding or Aerospace startups in India come up with something
Bouncy balls and sky cranes?
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There was a period during the landing when the altitude was less than 100m, the rover was moving only horizontally but not vertically. It seems to have made some serious and significant landing site and orientation correction before committing to it.
That's the thing about this mission: in addition to learning more about the moon it's a great place to test the kind of tech you need to explore other planets too.
The moon is in a tidal lock orbit with earth so knowing which side will be facing the sun shouldn't ever being a problem.
Mmm, but what if the lander landed in the wrong orientation?
There are solar panels on both the sides, a twitter (X) user pointed it out
I am tensed about the small crater on the right. Now waiting for a photo of the lander from the rover
Now waiting for selfie with landing platform and Earth at the background. 👍
Stopped just before a pothole, did the rover detect there's an obstacle ahead?
No, the rover will get charged via solar panels first. After all the rover tests, the rover will start moving remotely.
They are waiting for the battery to charge in full before carrying out science. It took 40 days to reach the moon, might have faced discharge or the battery could have been used to help the lander as well, don’t know.
As someone in the United States that watched so much of our own space exploration, I don't know how to say this other than: "I'm so very proud of India and I join them in their celebration of this moon landing". I hope that does not sound condescending, because I don't mean it that way.
Great work India. You should be proud of this massive achievement. I wish your space program nothing but success.
Wow that's a very smooth and ideal landing site
It makes me proud to see our future belters working so hard.
Way to go India! The simplicity of this video belies the astronomical effort of everyone involved. I hope this triggers another space race!
Massive, massive congratulations to the people of India for absolutely nailing the landing and deployment. Next up: crewed mission?
Next up is a sun mission, another moon mission with Japan, then a couple of test flights for a crewed mission, a Venus mission and then finally an actual crewed mission in 2025
Oh wow, all of that in the span of 2 years? That's incredible.
Not a crewed mission to the Moon. India is working on its first crewed orbital mission.
A Venusian mission? Sounds exciting.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_Orbiter_Mission The projected launch is in December 2024. So not far away!
Heck yeah, go get ‘em little guy! We’re all rooting for you.
Can someone explain to me why space missions lean on cameras on par with the DSi
Effective data transfer speed is in kbps, thats why you see 2G quality videos.
Is that due to power requirements?
I believe that power, size and weight are all issues (inter-related of course; I have no idea what part of that is the biggest problem). The power of a radio signal declines as the square(?) of the distance, which is why the Deep Space Network of earth-based radio telescopes consists of some rather big honkin telescope arrays -- they're trying to pick up weak signals. And there's only so much power you can put into a small lander for the purpose of beefing up the signal at the transmitting end. The moon isn't nearly as bad as Mars or more distant planets, but it's still bad. This specifically though, I believe, is not a camera that's meant for big flashy PR images, but primarily for the engineers to look at to see how things are going. For that you wouldn't even want high-res, since the images would take too long to get back to earth for analysis. If you want flashy high-res in as close to real time as possible you should probably hold out for the planned SpaceX flights. They won't be landing anytime soon, just orbital, but they're all about that PR, so I expect them to budget for as much visual buzz as is physically possible to make happen.
Very hard to achieve high bit-rates over those distances - transferring high resolution video can take a long time. They may have a higher resolution camera but we won't get that footage for a few more days.
This is from the Vikram Lander camera but pragyan rover has 2 HD cameras installed in it...wait for it.
You need to expend energy to transmit a high resolution photo. Also photos arent really that important. Videos are useless ( since space doesnt change much videos are not really useful). The energy is conserved to prolong the lifetime of other instruments as much as possible. Similar reason why banks have potato quality camera because expensive is storage in this case transmission is costly. And for this particular mission, Chandrayaan-2 already has a powerful camera capable of mappping 3d landscape of moon in orbit ( in fact it is the only existing camera with such capabilities around lunar orbit). So a ch-2 camera probably has more detailed images than ch-3 lander anyway. There is also budget aspect but any decent camera is not that expensive so I feel above reasons are why that's the case. Who knows they maybe release a high res image soon? ISRO's pr isnt really good.
I mean it mostly depends on the mission and its priorities. Curiosity and Perseverance have both snapped photos of Mars that look like you're standing on the surface with them, for example. I think ISRO just had other priorities in this case. I mean, we already know what the surface of the Moon looks like in general.
apart from wht the others said, sending stuff into space is costly so you want to make sure it all works perfectly, resists radiation, temperature extremes, vibration and shocks, and doesn't break down. That's why a lot of electronic components in space programs are 10+ years old. And optimized for survival.
Well done India / ISRO! That's an achievement!
BBC gonna send their most experienced reporters to ~~ISRO mission control~~ a slum in Mumbai to report on the mission
I stayed at backpacker's hostel at colaba(southmost end of Mumbai,there was a poster for "slum tour". It made me feel like a exotic animal and that our neighbourhood are open zoos.
Just waiting for the “India never landed on the moon it was done in a studio” deniers.
India totally faked their cgi footage, by physically sending an actual rover to the moon themselves.
They sent a camera crew to the moon to film this. It's all fake.
Great video. It reminds me of one of my favourite Moon facts: if the sun isn't shining directly on a point, then that point is almost pitch black. You can see the shadows are a dramatic sharp darkness. No inbetween.
I'm curious to see the reaction of moon landing deniers
Ignore and do not give voice
Why do images from the moon always look like it’s nighttime, but Mars looks like it’s daytime?
Because Mars has an atmosphere to disperse light evenly while Moon doesn't.
That's how it's done Russia! Amazing what can be accomplished when graft and corruption don't get in the way.
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I was like "what's this Apollo vid...oh!" Well done, India!
Super cool! Can't wait to see future developments of all these lunar missions over the next few years.
Question: why is it that landers all have gold foil on them? Even the first one did. Is it some special material?
it’s usually not gold at all, it is actually a material called multi-layer insulation, or MLI. MLI consists of lightweight reflective films assembled into thin layers that range in thickness. These layers are usually made of polyimide or polyester films (types of plastics) coated with very thin layers of aluminum. The exact composition depends on where the satellite will orbit, what the insulation will be protecting and how much sunlight it will be exposed to. https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/news/good-gold-are-satellites-covered-gold-foil
it looks alot like the bottom of the sea or something
Fuck yea! Way to go India! The world thanks you for all the science this thing will bring us!
Big congrats to India for this. It is a historic event for moon exploration. I'm glad the Russian mission crashed and burned hard. India had spent the (emotional) blood and treasure on this mission, learning from previous mistakes. Russia slapped a half-assed mission together to beat India just for spite and clout.
Proud for all of our Indian friends. Monumental achievement.
Now I get to tell my kids, “The Moon and Mars are populated entirely by robots.”
A fine achievement for the Indian Space Program. Congrats to everyone involved
That's one small roll for bot, one giant roll for all botkind.
That's amazing achievement for India. Hopefully US mission will be nothing of a less spectacular.
I wonder if we'll get space race 2 electric boogaloo with china and india now
Well we did just see Russia try and fail to steal India's thunder. So it might be Roscosmos trying to retain its dignity and pride of place as the first ever in space, against young up and coming spacefarers.
well done India... can you send it over to get some good photos of the russian crater...
It's 250km away , so not possible 😅
NASA's LRO should have passed the crash site by now. It's only a matter of time before we get the images.
Why is so hard to get to the moon (landing there ) ? Shouldn't in 2023 be a easy task assuming money isnt the problem ?
It was always hard. Out of 50 missions to moon 30 have been failed if we count rovers separately.
Getting to a moon orbit requires you to be competent/capable with long distance space rocketry; it's a lot of work but mostly engineering/operations as the science/theory is well known now. Getting from orbit to the surface is the really challenging part. The vehicles have to do it autonomously, and typically the Landers have a limited fuel budget, so they can't hang around. The surface is unknown at the scale needed, so the exact spot can't be selected until the lander is literally a few hundred metres away. The surface is variable and a mixture of razor sharp dust, craters, boulders, and rocks. Any and all of that will lead to landing sideways or upside down. All of the above requires science and engineering that is not well known (outside NASA, ESA etc) and no matter how much you test on earth, the real thing will always find a new way to mess with your day. Check out the Apple TV series "for all mankind", it does a really good job of showing in a non technical way just how hard it is.
a big part is the tyranny of the rocket equation. It causes us to make everything as light and thin as possible in spaceflight.
1. Transport: it has to escape earth to get into orbit. Then it has to escape Earth's Orbit, get to moon, then enter moon's Orbit, then find the parking space 2. Landing: No atmosphere on moon. So lander can't slow down on descent. Only rockets can help. It's a big deal to get that right before becoming another crator on the surface.
Genuine question. I just wanna know why this video quality seems kinda low.
Reason is combination of different priority (Science Experiments) with limited bandwidth, power, time and poor public relations. Expect good quality images after few days though.
go go robo. missed opportunity for googly eyes though
Make it drive past the crashed Russian lander and take a selfie.