Chang'e 3 landing tomorrow 13:40 UT, earlier than previously reported

According to numerous Chinese news reports, Chang'e 3's landing on the Moon is now scheduled to begin at 21:40 Beijing time on December 14, which is 13:40 UT or 05:40 PT. That's about two hours earlier than previously stated. Once deceleration begins, the whole process will take about 750 seconds. Here is a Xinhua news site in English that may contain news updates about the landing. It is possible that this CCTV website will contain a news feed. Chinese television coverage will begin at 11:00 UT. I am not sure that I will be able to cover this event live; I'm not feeling well and need the sleep! But if I do I will be watching for English language CCTV coverage here.

Some other bits of useful information:

• The European Space Agency will be providing tracking support to Chang'e 3 from 11:41 to 18:30 UT on December 14.
• You can find detailed descriptions of the instruments on rover and lander here.
• You can try looking for images and news for yourself with a Google search on "嫦娥三".

Also, this interesting tidbit about plans for Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter observations, from a comment on a previous Chang'e post: "LRO will be attempting to collect spectrographic data from the LAMP instrument as close to the landing time as possible, primarily to see the rocket plume and the dust kicked up from the landing. The camera will image the lander some time after the landing, but even at the spectacular resolution of the LRO Camera, there probably won't be much more than a blur to see."

In a previous post I included this infographic on the mission. Some very helpful commenters have translated its contents, and I'm including those translations below.

The long text at top:

• Transfer segment: Chang'e 1: GTO to phasing orbit to trans-lunar injection (TLI) orbit.
  Chang'e 2: directly to TLI orbit
  Chang'e 3: over a ton heavier than Chang'e 2, directly to TLI orbit.
• Lunar braking: Chang'e 3 is equipped with a newly-designed variable-thrust rocket engine to directly transfer the payload from trans-lunar injection orbit to the circular lunar orbit. In contrast, Chang'e 1 and 2 were transferred from trans-lunar injection orbit, to elliptical lunar orbit, then to the circular lunar orbit. This was due to limited fuel availability.
• Soft landing: After 4 days in circular lunar orbit, Chang'e 3 will transfer to an elliptical lunar orbit with the perilune point at 15 kilometers and the aposelene point at 100 kilometers. Chang'e 3 will begin its descent at 15 kilometers at around 11:22PM-11:35PM 12/14/2013, [15:22-15:35 UT, 07:22-07:35 PT -- note these times are no longer correct]. The descent engine will be ignited at 15 kilometers to decelerate, above 2 kilometers it'll have pointed its main engine downward, below 2 kilometers it'll be slowly descending. At 100 meters the payload will be hovering without receiving control from Beijing. It'll utilize its camera and computer to identify the surface, and automatically select a plain to land on. At 4 meters the descent engine will turn off, and the payload will land with a free fall.
• Exploring the Moon: after the soft landing, first the lander will charge and initialize the rover; then the rover will start the communication link with Earth control, unlock the locking mechanism, and move to the transfer mechanism (ladder). Then the rover will control the transfer mechanism to descend to the surface of the moon, and drive itself away from the lander. Yutu (jade rabbit, the pet of the lunar princess in Chinese folklore) will be separated from the lander at 4:38-6:21 12/15/2013 [20:38-22:38 UT, 12:38-14:38 PT -- not sure if these times will also shift earlier by about two hours]. The descent will only be around 2 meters but the entire process will take around 2 hours. Nine hours after the separation, the lander and the rover will capture some photographs of each other using the equipped cameras. Both are painted with the national flag, therefore, a color photo of the Chinese national flag on the moon can be captured.

The numbered series of diagrams:

The diagram at right showing activities once on the ground:

• Deploy solar panels
• Establish communications
• Unlock rover
• Deploy rover mast and panels
• Create panorama for rover navigation
• Move to surface (about 350 minutes)
• Do local exploration (about 30 minutes)