I am setting this up to record activities of Yutu 2, but it looks as if this will be difficult unless we start to see more data releases. As soon as LRO images the lander (and the image is released) I can put a rough background on the map. When descent images of the actual site are released thay can be improved on. Until then this will be very simple.

Let me know if you see any signs of maps or feature names, including in the background of a TV broadcast or on a forum.

Meanwhile, a first contribution. So simple it's almost not necessary, but you have to start somewhere. So rough I am not including a scale yet.

I welcome anyone else's maps as well.

Phil

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A second drive on Jan. 4. By the end of the first lunar day it will seem more useful to have a map!

EDIT: the new location is being called point A. On the previous mission the first stop was X, then each stop for the next few drives were A, B, C and so on.

Phil

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Here's a first crack at a proper route map. They will presumably turn west rather than east as the preliminary (probably pre-landing) plan suggested.

I will deal with scales etc. when I can get to it.

Phil

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Jan. 11 update. I am still working on getting the scale right but Gonetoplaid's scaled image in the other thread will help a lot.

The screenshot of a map - if enlarged - shows the site labels X, A, A', B.

Phil

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With new data and images, a new map. The base is now a mosaic of descent frames (with room for more details to be added), and the scale is shown by the 10 m grid. The path is redrawn to fit the new base. I hope this will be good for a couple of lunar days. please let me know if you see any mistakes or if you find anything I should add to the map.

Phil

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Looking at the selfies posted from the rabbit earlier it looks to have circled round to the rear of the lander having first gone west. Look at the rover tracks heading south from the lander.

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According to tweets from China including this one:

https://twitter.com/ShanghaiEye/status/1090927343311286273

and post 1679 on this forum:

http://www.9ifly.cn/forum.php?mod=viewthre...3D1&page=84

Yutu 2 appears to have moved 8 m northwest from the last position I knew about. Accordingly I have updated my route map:

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Keep in mind the way information is released. You can expect to see a lot of iterations of this map as bits of news appear from various sources. It is possible the latest drive was the last before the lunar night began. EDIT - I have concluded that the drive did in fact take place before the lunar night, and changed the map accordingly.

Phil

LRO should be taking its image of the site today; should make your job at least temporarily a bit easier once that's down-linked and released

CCTV screen shots posted on the 9ifly forum show more drives this lunar day which are mapped here. My date labels may need a bit of editing but this is the best i can do right now.

Phil

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EDIT - added a link to the forum page with the screenshots. Look at the next page as well for a picture of the lander taken about noon last lunar day.

http://www.9ifly.cn/forum.php?mod=viewthre...3D1&page=87

Hi Phil,

I tried to locate the screenshots on chinese forum you mentioned, but ...unfortunately I've got nothing.. Could you please post here few screeens you're talking about? Thanks in advance.

Thank you very much Phil
By the way, do you know how far Yutu 2 is able to explore within reach of radio contact with its lander ?
Or can it rove far away and transmit its data via the relay satellite ?
Thanks in advance for your answers and with warmest regards, VM

Yutu can communicate with the relay on its own. It is designed to operate far away from the lander.

Phil

Thanks Phil

The last date on my map above should be 1 Feb., not 2 Feb. - now I have seen a better source image I can see the date. We are now in the noon siesta period.

Phil

Just looking at the path it's taking, I would say the rover drivers prefer level ground.

No new information really, except the total distance driven (120 m) and an azimuth derived from the latest image of the lander against the hills of the SE horizon... but here is a new map showing the approximate location of Yutu-2 during the second night. The background image needs some minor adjustment of scale and position which I will deal with as soon as I can.

Phil

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So it has now exceeded the drive distance of Yutu-1?

A recent picture from LRO on Chang'e-4' landing site

http://www.spxdaily.com/images-hg/far-side...619844lr-hg.jpg

Further details: http://www.moondaily.com/reports/IAU_names...f_Moon_999.html

Yes, Kenny, it has exceeded the first Yutu's distance. And Sojourner's.

Phil

Phil...to see rover tracks: presuming LRO will lower its in-orbit altitude downwards?

John

No, don't look for any change in the orbit, they are conserving fuel. But images with higher sun angles will show the tracks very well. They show up in Chang'e 3 images from LRO at a higher altitude. What I really need is a Chinese map of the path, better than the oblique rendering we have seen up to now.

Phil

Thanks, John.

Here is an update based on a map seen on the 9ifly forum. That map has some issues but for now it is the best source I have. I'm hoping to see a map at LPSC in a few weeks.

Note that the base image has been adjusted a bit since the last map.

Phil

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Just a reminder that the route map threads are strictly for posting route maps; please converse about mission operations in the appropriate thread.

A very approximate location for our current position. It is based on the distance travelled, 7 m, an assumption that some of that was taken up with maneuvering to get the rock in the instrument field of view, and an interpretation of the wide angle image.

Phil

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Another iteration of the map. I wanted to get the first 2 lunar days on the close-up map.

Phil

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A map update using the new LRO image to get an exact position for the second lunar night (it only needed a very small correction). I also estimate where the third lunar night location is.

Phil

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Andrew Jones tweeted a map here:

https://twitter.com/AJ_FI/status/1110035767697567746

(plus a nice image of tracks)

which allows me to update our map. Note that the Chinese map does not distinguish between daily end-of-drive locations and mid-drive waypoints, which I try to do in my map. In the later parts of the route there are too many stops for days, so some are waypoints. When I know which are which I can add date labels to stops.

Phil

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No real news but I decided to show an estimate for the new location at the end of day 4. We are told the day 4 drive was about 30 m, probably not in a straight line. I have no evidence for the location, this just lets me record the dates and I can update it when I actually know something. A new LRO image would be nice!

Phil

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This is a slightly tentative route map up to day 5, with the day 4 drive estimated from day 4 tracks visible in the new images. When I realized that the early day 3 rocks were visible in the track images I understood the track images better. The positions are still only approximate for the 4th day.

Phil

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China isn't exactly making my life easy at the moment, and my maps will not improve much until a Chinese version appears. Most likely that will be in a journal article in the coming months.

However, here is my current version of the map. The 6th night location is an estimate with very little (OK, nothing) to support it. I have plotted the 5th night location a little more securely from the latest images of tracks and a crater to the south. Anyone who spots new information - let me know!

Phil

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Pictures from lunar day 6, released at the start of lunar day 7, let me revise the route map. I don't really know that those images cover all the day 6 tracks or that I have joined them correctly, but this is what i have at the moment.

3 maps this time. The first is the updated version of the previous map. The other two are more detailed maps adding labels from a recent Chinese map noted in the other thread. I have changed symbols and added a legend to match previous work on Chang'e 3's route map.

Phil

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This is a preliminary update based on the reprojected image shown in the other thread. I think that image is from the mid-day siesta, based on illumination, and there is no indication how far Yutu 2 has moved since then. My scaling of the new drive is only approximate. So basically it's all guesswork so far. But I am suggesting a drive on the order of 40 m on the 7th day.

Phil

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Andrew Jones tweeted a total distance of 271 m after day 8 which lets me estimate a new position. Since the last map I have pulled my estimated position for the end of day 7 back a bit. This map extends the base to the west to show a sharp-rimmed crater ahead. Will it be a future target? I am trying to decide if this crater is shown as a bright band across one of the newly-released images (see discussion in the main thread).

Phil

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Took a while to get this together from the latest data. As always, changes may be needed later!

Phil

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A new paper in Earth and Planetary Science Letters ( Gou et al., 2019. Lunar deep materials observed by Chang'e-4 rover. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, v. 528, 115829. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2019.115829 ) provides more details of VNIS operations. I have used it to update the more detailed version of my map.

Phil

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This is my estimate of the location after the 11th day of operation. The point is chosen to give a distance from the lander of 218 m, a path in day 11 which avoids craters, and to reflect my hope that the prominent crater SW of the current position will be investigated. Needless to say, I may have to revise this when I get new images of the tracks.

My lunar night dates are a bit unreliable, but I have not found time to check the actual sunset-sunrise dates for each month. I will try to sort that out soon. I think my dates are mixing up UTC dates and dates in China, and are further messed up by my efforts to adjust them.

Also this is a composite of two maps joined together, and the join is not perfect. Mars has been interfering with the Moon in my life recently.

Phil

A new map update using the newest Day 12 images.

Phil

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OK, new data! From maps and a video of the traverse tweeted by Andrew Jones I have updated the route map to the end of lunar day 13.

This base image (an LRO orthophoto) has been adjusted to match the Chinese maps. My grid is labelled with zero at the lander, which I prefer to their approach. The last few days are based on images of tracks including frames from the video. The tracks in the video show the actual traverse pattern but the landscape is schematic, not the real pattern of craters.

Phil

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EDIT: Map replaced on 4 Jan 2020 - correcting two errors.

This is my current route map, updated using the new panoramas from the PDS release and other recent images. Thanks to Doug for all his work on panoramas.

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Yutu 2 will soon wake up for lunar day 14. The Chinese PDS node just released the lunar penetrating radar data for the first two lunar days.

Phil

I am incorporating those observation numbers (or whatever we should call them) into the map, and correcting dates as I get more information. This is the enlarged version of the map, and I will repost the first panel of this map (the landing site) later when i have done more to it. Oh yes - and I am adding parts of reprojected panoramas where I have them - lots more to add.

I don't have any information on the 14th night location so it is only roughly indicated.


Phil

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Here's a special map of the area around the impact glass crater. I'm not certain of every detail but this fits everything I know so far.

Phil

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Here is an updated version of the map. Still no information on the day 14 activities but I have corrected dates and updated the 4th night location.

Phil

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EDIT:

Stop the presses!!! Just learned more via a tweet from Andrew Jones with a link to a drive diary and new images. Now I can update day 14 properly.

Phil

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Here's a map update to day 15, which just ended. The details of the last few days have been adjusted to match new maps which Andrew Jones tweeted recently (I will put a link to the source in our main thread). I am having a bit of trouble reconciling that map with published drive distances, especially for day 15 which should show 33 m driving. The grid on this map is 50 m by 50 m. It is possible that the newly released map doesn't go right to the end of day 15. The large degraded crater now shown on the map is described in the Chinese source as an obstacle they have to avoid so they are going to pass it on the northeast side as they begin a long trek to the northwest. They have turned away from the prominent crater to the south of the 13th night position which was an earlier target.

Phil

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A very tentative update to the 16th lunar night, which we are in as I post this. It's based on nothing but drive distances, and since I am dubious about my 15th night location (see above) I show a large uncertainty in the location for the 16th night. I hope to know more soon.

Phil

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This is an updated version of the map shown a few posts ago, the impact glass (AKA 'gel') crater. The base image is more accurately projected based on a map in a new paper by Ding et al. in Geophysical Research Letters. Some changes to site designations as well. The paper suggests that this and other small blocky craters seen nearby are secondaries from Zhinyu crater, 40 km to the west.

Phil

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Another close-up map: this is the rock analyzed by VNIS on day 3:

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And look! One rock has a name, Qi Yuan, translated as 'unexpected encounter'. The first name I've seen for any feature along the traverse. This comes from here:

https://els2020.arc.nasa.gov/abstracts (PDF file)

- the abstracts for the upcoming European Lunar Symposium, which will be held virtually next month. On Page 52 of the PDF file is an abstract about this rock with the name included. A full paper is due out soon but not yet available.

Phil

I have updated the route map based on a map in the latest drive diary:

https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/n7ic77uIA-QtniYSRD6gcg

(thanks to Andrew Jones for pointing it out to me).

The 15th night location has been moved to a point where the daily distance figures make sense.

Phil

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This map updates us to the end of lunar day 17. Using images from the latest drive diary tweeted by Andrew Jones I have been able to map the path reasonably well for day 17 (recent days have been based mostly on Chinese mapping). The exact locations of the last 2 points are a bit uncertain still.

Phil

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I don't know how useful it can be, but this paper (in Chinese) includes some details of the route of the first and second lunar day:

Modeling and application analysis of the pixel-spatial resolution of Yutu 2 rover with large-scale transformed images

Thanks, Paolo. This is interesting but doesn't add anything to the early route map which is well documented.

No move during day 18, but I believe we will be back in action for day 19. My map is not changed except for text updates, including the rock name mentioned earlier.

I have been enjoying seeing my map turn up on various Chinese forums and outlets, sometimes with little additions. It's fun to see it diffuse out into the world like that.

Phil

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