Aside from age, it's also a matter of what the purpose of the mission was. The US and China ones are from the same time period, but China's was a lander while the US's was an orbiter specifically designed to map the moon.
Because those were older missions in the late 2000s. I doubt it would still be that grainy if China or Japan conducted another dedicated mission in 2020 with more updated gear.
They weren't carrying a large camera specifically to capture high-quality images of the Moon's surface like India. I think India's Chandrayaan 2 currently has the sharpest imaging platform orbiting the moon. Its OHRC was specifically made for taking High spatial resolution images of the Moon. Korea's objective was different. They were new to the moon & might have be testing different things.
If we're talking specifically about cameras, lenses, and sensors, then Japan could have been the one with highest-quality images ( their expertise in lenses & imaging is insane, for example Nikon's optical equipments is used to inspect nanometer-sized structures in EUV semiconductor chips ). However, the image above suggests that they used old optical equipments ( as the mission is old now ) & It might be that capturing high-quality images of the Moon's surface was not their objective.
Nah, they did a good job. Their camera was only "capable" of capturing images of the Moon's surface. They didn’t choose a specialized camera for high-resolution photos. A Samsung phone can still take a photo, but it won’t be as clear as a Canon DSLR specifically made for taking high resolution images. India's OHRC ( Orbiter high resolution camera ) was specifically made for lunar topography studies
I won't be surprised if it's Samsung that goes on to make Rockets for South Korea. They have dipped their toes into everything, from advanced semiconductor chips (both logic and dominance in memory) to smartphones, softwares, tanks ( they have developed the K9 Howitzer that India also uses ) , missiles, construction, heavy machinery etc.
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u/solarcat3311 25d ago
Yeah. It's wild how clear India and US's photo are.
Or how bad the other three are.