China's Yuto Rover Dead for Real This Time

China’s lunar rover Yutu has been pronounced dead—for the second and (probably) final time, this time after a bit over two-and-a-half years on the moon.

It’s unlikely that the rover is going to pop back from the dead this time, though. Jade Rabbit (which is Yuto in Chinese) was only meant to last for three months and ended up lasting 31 months. In that time, the rover was slowly losing functionality. Towards the end of the rover's life, it slowly lost the ability to even move away from its current spot. Even so, Jade Rabbit continued to beam back data to researchers

For complete Gizmoto article - click  HERE

To the Moon & Back

CNN reports that China, in the very near future, will launch a craft  to the moon and then return to Earth, landing in Mongolia, a first for China's space agency. 

Previous Luna missions included a rover called the Jade Rabbit, which was fraught with technical difficulties and was designated incapacitated. 

China has also had good success with its manned missions to low Earth orbit, sending up several individuals and teams, since 2003.  But it is the unmanned missions that will grab the headlines in the coming months.

Ultimately China is aiming at a Luna probe mission, dubbed Chang’e-4, to take place possibly in 2015. and the Chang'e-5 in 2017 that will put a rover on the surface to collect samples, then returning them to Earth.

Read the complete CNN article HERE

Short Vid of the Yutu Rover Seperating From Lander

China's Yutu rover separated from it's lander platform Chang'e 3 and successfully rolled several feet away showing that the system is healthy and ready to begin exploration of the Lunar surface. 

Here is a video of the translation from lander to ground.

The Luna Rover Manual?!

What's 221 pages of geekie reading nirvana? The Apollo Luna Rover Manual that's what! And now, what's even better....you can down load it as a pdf! The pdf not only shows an exploded view of the remarkable battery driven vehicle, but also how to unload it from the LEM and unfold it and plug the sub assemblies together in order to a working ride.

The PDF can be downloaded as a single file or an eight part booklet, all from the NASA site here

The Rover was included as part of the last three Moon 15, 16 and 17. The vehicle was stowed in the decent module of the L.E.M. and each one was abandoned in place at the end of each mission.

Four rovers were built for the last 4 missions. Since the program was canceled before Apollo 18 flew, the final rover was used for spare parts.

Apollo 17's rover traveled a total of 22.30 miles, its' longest single trip was 12.50 miles. Total operating time was 4 hours and 26 minutes and traveled a maximum distance from the LM of 4.7 miles.