Kumtag Desert (Yutu rover tests, Dunhuang)
Unreviewed draft
This page was built from a teammate-supplied list. The text is teammate-written, unreviewed. Sources pending.
Summary
not provided
Location
- Country
- China (Gansu/Xinjiang)
- Coordinates
- 40.30, 92.50 (approximate)
- Elevation (m)
- 1000
- Year first used as an analog
- not provided
Terrain and geology
not provided
Climate
not provided
Parameters matched
not provided
Why it is an analog
Chinese desert rover test area with flat, barren terrain (reported use).
Key differences: where the analogy breaks down
Rounded aeolian sand and gravel, hot summers, thick air; mid-latitude sun.
Experiments done
Reported mobility, navigation and hazard-avoidance field tests of the Chang'e-3 Yutu rover prototype in the Kumtag desert near Dunhuang (2010s); Chinese aeolian research.
Experiments proposed
Long-range rover autonomy on mixed gravel and dunes; dust-ingress tests of mechanisms; solar-array dust accumulation; rover egress from a lander mock-up.
How to adjust it
Lay basaltic simulant lanes; blast small craters for hazard detection; low-sun dusk operations to mimic polar lighting.
Access
not provided
Hazards
not provided
Sources
Sources pending (no sources in CSV).
v1 score, percentile and overlap flag
A descriptive lookup of scores v1 already stored. It is not a test, and a high percentile here does not show that this is a good analog.
v1 used this site
No. The nearest v1 site, "ladakh puga", is about 1486.2 km away.
| Score view | Result | Percentile | Score | Distance to tile (km) | Overlap flag |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Connecting Ridge C1, Base | Scored | 79.8 | 7.5 | 19.8 | Not in a flagged tile |
| Connecting Ridge C1, Landing and mobility | Scored | 86.2 | 8.6 | 19.8 | Not in a flagged tile |
| Connecting Ridge C1, Power and night | Scored | 79.8 | 5.5 | 19.8 | Not in a flagged tile |
| Shackleton rim, Base | Scored | 71.5 | 25.9 | 17.6 | Not in a flagged tile |
| Shackleton rim, Landing and mobility | Scored | 78.4 | 29.6 | 17.6 | Not in a flagged tile |
| Shackleton rim, Power and night | Scored | 71.5 | 18.8 | 17.6 | Not in a flagged tile |
Overlap flag: whether the tile used for the score is one v1 flagged as stable in its top group across the Monte Carlo runs.
What these scores can and cannot tell you
- This is a lookup of scores v1 already stored. It is descriptive and is not a test of the method.
- A site is matched to the best-scoring tile that passed the gates within the match radius. A different radius would give different numbers.
- Tiles are large compared with most sites, so a score describes the surrounding area, not the site itself.
- Scores exist only for tiles that passed the land-cover and data gates. A gated-out or unscored site has no score, which says nothing about how good an analog it is.
- Percentile is the share of scored tiles in that view with a lower score.
- The Moon score is effectively terrain only. Mars is a low-confidence secondary result.
- v1 failed its negative controls, so a high percentile here does not show that a site is a good analog.
- The ranking is not checked against independent data. Gravity, air, dust and radiation are not scored.
- Sites are compared with views of their own body only.
- Match radius: 20 km, the radius v1 used.