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16 May, 7 tweets, 3 min read
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.
What's going on? I'm afraid I'm as clueless as all of you, but my impression from following Chinese spaceflight's that "state media PAO on vacation" might be as plausible of a reason as "rover/lander problems" or "orbiter missed downlink; awaiting @esaoperations help". ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I have just seen another theory, based on slides from an official presentation around 2 years ago, that UHF data linkage w/ the TW-1 orbiter isn't even planned until Sol 3. This probably will be after the orbiter lower its orbit in a few hours from now per earlier reports.
This seems strange to me since this would mean only direct-to-Earth X-band links are usable right now, not a situation that I would like to be immediately after landing.

I'm not sure why didn't they try to get a thumbnail or two back to Earth first.
BTW it seems the only other orbiter able to help out w/ TW-1 is ESA's Mars Express, which per a rumor will perform the 1st comm session tomorrow.
@ESA_TGO is probably unusable due to its UHF package being NASA's ELECTRA (MEX's from in-house for Beagle 2)

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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
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.
Read 9 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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