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14 May, 9 tweets, 3 min read
Morning from UTC+8.
Not a single piece of update (or rumor) from this side of Earth for #Tianwen1, so this suggestion that lander separation might have occurred (not directly observed) is as much as we get an update so far.
Landing should be in 1.5 hours.

Update on #Tianwen1 from the Chinese side as of 22:54 UTC: Image
Actually due to uncertainties with the single source (the one who posted that 23:11 UTC time indicated in the same tweet that the minutes might be “07” instead) it might be deep into EDL now. I have also seen 23:17 mentioned.

This also assumes the time is Earth Receiving Time.
First signals from Mars, except for those at MCC Beijing, will be down to...Weibo tweets. 👀

I'm refreshing this every few seconds: 😶

m.weibo.cn/search?contain…
So back in the Chinese spaceflight forum I frequently visit some guy believe to be working at SAST typed the following:

"Success......"

🤔
CCTV's 8 am News right now didn't start with #Tianwen1... 🤔
(I got this from 2nd hand reports BTW, I'm outside and my home's TV only has BBC/CNN et al. 😛)

Anyway this might be not unexpected - it took a whooping *one and a half hours* for the Chinese to confirm Chang'e 4 successfully landed on the Moon in January 2019.
OK just saw a few more usually-reliable insiders celebrating on Weibo so I guess it's down in one piece.

Let's see when official updates will come...
Looks like the different state media organizations aren't coordinating, China Youth Daily just reported successful landing...but others haven't followed, including CCTV which just reported "it is landing soon" per yesterday's reports. 🤐 Image

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More from @Cosmic_Penguin

Cosmic Penguin Profile picture
16 May
After some reading (including a trip down my memory lane of a Grade 7 me reading Spirit/Opportunity mission updates, which kick-started me in following real-time news of space missions) - this is indeed a much longer silence than we usually see.

For S/C that did operate on Mars surface, 1st imagery was released:

@MarsCuriosity/@NASAPersevere/@NASAInSight - ~real time
@MarsPhoenix - ~2 hours
Spirit/Opportunity - ~3-4 hours
Mars Pathfinder - ~8 hours (partly due to landing at night)
Vikings - within several hours
Another good comparison is Huygens on Titan w/ its 1st photos (& whatever data it collected on the way down) acquired within a few hours.
Lunar missions are not a good comparison as we have constant view of the site assuming global Earth ground station coverage.
Read 7 tweets
Cosmic Penguin Profile picture
15 May
LOL I didn't expect our interesting neighbors across the Pearl River to be the first bringing the coordinates of the Chinese Mars Rover...

For the record landing time (I assume Earth receive time?) was 23:18 UTC May 14: m.weibo.cn/7340734455/463…

Zhurong becomes the 1st Mars rover to land sitting on the deck of a "conventional" lander, first foreseen for the cancelled Mars Surveyor '01 lander. ImageImage
Deployment animation of Zhurong, which should happen within the next 3 sols per reports.

Source: Chinese Academy of Sciences mp.weixin.qq.com/s/CHHEsu9WuSYD…
Read 16 tweets
Cosmic Penguin Profile picture
14 May
And so probably the quietest planetary surface operations outside of Earth's gravity influence ever since the end of Cold War begins.

MCC Beijing probably looks like this - something we 99.9% won't see:

Also some notes on what to expect - while Chang'e 3 had a good coverage of its landing on TV, Chang'e 4's safe touchdown wasn't even confirmed until *1.5 hours* after fact. So if nothing was heard for minutes after the leaked time, it could mean *anything*.
And given the coverage on TW-1 is even more quiet than Chang'e 5's so far, I'm not even sure they will talk about Mars rovers in generic terms in early morning local news there.

It might be already excellent if we got one of two Mars photos off the ground in Sol 0.
Read 4 tweets
Cosmic Penguin Profile picture
3 Mar
It's interesting to see how @RocketLab's Neutron rocket fits in with the market in a regime that I call the "Soyuz-Antares Class" for the mid-2020s.

Here's my opinion:
* Soyuz-2/6: Easily the biggest loser in the fight w/ S-2 a major player currently including mega-constellation building. W/ @Arianespace dumping Soyuz & now this it seems the venerable R-7 may finally go into history.

S-6? I'm not sure this @Rogozin trampoline will ever fly...
* Antares: Another obvious loser in this potential fight, but I'm not sure @northropgrumman want to keep it anyway (w/ Atlas V used before). Heck it seems Cygnus can be an anchor customer for Neutron as a drop-in replacement even using the same pad!
Read 14 tweets
Cosmic Penguin Profile picture
15 Feb
A recent Chinese book published by the CLEP program has confirmed that there was indeed a problem associated with Chang’e 4 between launch and landing (which might explain the aloof/tense coverage back then in Dec. 2018 - Jan. 2019).

(1/6)
One of the two fuel tanks on the lander was found to be leaking propellant far faster than expected 7 hours after launch on Dec. 7. Not only fuel loss was concerning (it was once believed that it was lacking 10 kg of fuel reserves), there was also problems w/ shifted COG.

(2/6)
In the end the LOI and pre-landing orbit changing plans were changed. Instead of entering straight into a 100 km circular lunar, the LOI was performed on Dec. 12 to enter a 200 x 400 km (one say 100 x 400, needs checking) orbit w/ the 7500N main engine.

(3/6)
Read 6 tweets
Cosmic Penguin Profile picture
31 Dec 20
So regarding to my "bombshell"...it's perhaps a bit less dramatic than many presumed, yet it still troubles me a lot, to the point that I wondered whether I should stop posting on certain things here.

You see, I realized in the last few months that, by translating information and news related to one of the fastest growing spaceflight powers of the world...I inadvertently became a spreader of PRC propaganda.

And with me exactly 180 degrees away from them, I feel scared.
It actually started a few years ago - it's not hard to meet Chinese Twitter users interested in spaceflight, either those living overseas or find a way to climb over the wall. Not surprisingly, many of these S/F enthusiasts are interested in their own military too.
Read 18 tweets

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