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Moon Atlas 2009
The Moon Atlas has been sent to interested parties around the
world: Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany,
Greece, Hawaii, Hong Kong, Iceland, Ireland, Isle of Man, Italy,
Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, South Africa, Spain,
Sweden, Switzerland, UK, United Arab Emirates and the USA.
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News
Archive Jan - Dec 2008
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16 December 2008: A research group based at MIT concerned with
policy for man's future in space has recommended in a
new report (PDF File) that technologies play a more important
role in support of exploration of the Moon. Called "The Future of
Human Spaceflight," the report goes on to suggest that a new human
spaceflight policy should be drawn up to clarify the balance between
the Moon, Mars, and other destinations, and, overall, be more
ambitious in their objectives. Under the current President Bush
administration, NASA were directed to land astronauts on the Moon by
2020 in preparation for eventual Mars missions, however, no
specifications were made to say how long such lunar endeavours
should last. The main basis for going to the Moon and setting up a
lunar base is that it would prepare astronauts for an eventual
mission to Mars by 2033. The lunar perspective of having
laboratories on the surface would glean information about the
effects of space radiation on astronauts; inform about living and
working in less-than-normal gravity conditions; and prepare future
travellers for extreme isolated year-length missions to the red
planet. The report says that full advantage of the lunar experience
should aggressively employ robotics as central precursors in human
missions to the Moon and beyond, and from these experiences bring
the whole nature of exploration of such worlds to a wider audience
and the public. From the outset, it looks like that a lunar base
would be of enormous help in the long run, however, fears expressed
by others suggest that the setup could evolve into an expensive
facility and drain resources from future exploration goals. That's
why the MIT team are now recommending that a new human spaceflight
policy be put in place to clarify the expected size and duration of
a U.S. lunar presence, which would then lead to a direct balance
between future exploration programs. The report goes on to cover
several other critical areas of research that needs to be looked at
more, which overall will redefine what it is to be human in man's
quest for exploration in space and in our Solar System. If you need
to contact me about this article, then please do
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13 December 2008: The Lunar X PRIZE 2009 competition is starting to
hot up already for the year ahead, as two new contesting teams are
expected to be announced this Tuesday, December 16th. The names of
the two entrants aren't known quite yet (all hush, hush - don't you
know), however, if that hasn't made you fall off your seat in
anticipation already, then guess what, on the following day, the
Stealth Team (formally known as 'Mystery Team') who entered the 2008
competition last May, will also disclose their members' names...phewww...can't
wait. Upto 14 teams entered the competition this year, but it's not
yet known if those existing teams will run into 2009. Right now, or
rather in three days time, however, the count will stand at 16. The
$30 million Google Lunar X PRIZE is divided accordingly into three
separate prizes: the First Prize (Grand Prize) of $20 million will
go to the team who can successfully soft-land a privately funded
spacecraft on the Moon, use a rover to roam on the lunar surface for
a minimum of 500 meters, and transmit video, images and data back to
the Earth; Second Prize is $5m; and Third Prize is $5 million in
bonus prizes. There's a limit on time upto 31 December 2012 as to
when the Grand Prize can be claimed; which thereafter will be
reduced down to $15m up until 31 December 2014. If no team has been
successful by then, the competition could be terminated unless
Google and the X PRIZE foundation choose to extend it. All entrants,
however, don't have to actually go to the Moon and demonstrate their
technology, but rather perform the same manoeuvres here on Earth.
Both announcements will be made at around 8:30 am PST through
teleconference means. If you need to contact me about this article,
then please do
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11 December 2008: If you happen to think that the Moon rising from
your eastern horizon tomorrow, Friday 12 Dec., appears exceedingly
larger than usual, well, you won't be wrong, because it will be. The
reason is simply due to both its elliptical orbit around Earth and
its position relative to the Sun and Earth - producing the biggest
and brightest Full Moon of 2008. Full Moons are produced when the
Sun, Earth and Moon are in such alignments respectively. During the
moon's monthly elliptical orbit around Earth, its path sometimes
brings it closer to us at times, while at others it brings it
further away. However, because this time its Full Moon position
happens to coincide very near its closest approach to Earth than for
any other previous Sun, Earth and Moon alignments during the past
year, a bigger Full Moon will be seen. The effect, tomorrow, should
be noticeably obvious. In fact, the Full Moon will appear upto 14%
bigger and upto 30% brighter than for previous Full Moons during the
last twelve months. For better effect, try to see it as it just
rises on your horizon, as objects like trees or buildings in the
distance produces a kind of optical illusion - making it appear even
bigger still. This illusion has been proven many times over in
experiments with moonrises, however, as to that other illusion -
that Full Moons make people go crazy (lunatics) at site of one in
their local sky, does this imply that this larger Full Moon will
produce more crazier people than ever in 2008? Hmmm...let's keep an
eye out for them tomorrow - just in case. If you need to contact me
about this article, then please do
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9 December 2008: Earth's early formation onto the Solar System stage
is estimated to have occurred about 4.6 billions years ago. Geologic
evidence found in its rocks - some 4 billions years old and to the
present - has told us much about the destructive conditions the
Earth experienced, and moreso the cosmic environment in which it
grew up in. However, if you were to look for similar geological
evidence before those 4 billions years, it just isn't there, as most
of it has been obliterated and lost through bombardment of the
surface, plate tectonics and erosion by our weather. Now, a team of
researchers based in Japan and the USA suggest that by analysing
lighter elements, such as, helium, nitrogen, oxygen, neon, found
today in the lunar soil (regolith), this lost evidence could be
re-found. Previous research points to evidence that the lighter
elements on the early Earth were transported into space by the Solar
Wind. This landed on the lunar surface becoming naturally stored
into the minute grains that make up the soil, which has remained
undisturbed on the Moon to this day. The grains, have, in effect,
therefore locked in them a period of history of Earth that are
inaccessible at the moment, however, as missions to the Moon
increase over the coming years, collection of samples could tell us
a lot about our early world. Analyses of the elements, says the
researchers, could tell us about the exact period when a permanent
geomagnetic field occurred on Earth; tell us about variations
between the early Earth and Moon distance (the Moon is twice as far
away from Earth as it was 4 billion years ago); disclose information
about our increasing day-length today (estimated at 0.002 seconds
per day per century); and tell us when oxygen appeared on the Earth
(through photosynthesis), and the subsequent occurrence and origin
of life. Hundreds of thousands of soil samples from the Moon
globally would be required, adds the researchers, and these could be
stored in an international laboratory on Earth for analyses. For
more information about the scientists' research paper - entitled " Toward
understanding early Earth evolution: Prescription for approach from
terrestrial noble gas and light element records in lunar soils."
it can be found in the November edition of the
'Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences, November 18, 2008, vol. 105, no. 46,
17654-17658'. NB. The paper is a subscribed release, however, it
is possible to
access it for two days at just US$10.00. If you need to contact
me about this article, then please do
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5 December 2008: A 'Phase A' technical study on Britain's first moon
mission, called
MoonLITE, got the go-ahead today by members from the country's
science board. MoonLITE, or "Moon Lightweight Interior and Telecom
Experiment", would deploy a seismic network of four
micro-penetrators onto the lunar surface, and investigate areas as
diverse as moonquakes, the heat-flow of the moon's interior, and the
presence of water and other volatiles. Each penetrator would impact
into the surface a few metres down, and immediately begin to monitor
changes in the subsoil and surrounding rock regions positioned at
different locations around the Moon. Two of the penetrators would
land somewhere on the nearside of the Moon (the side that
continually faces our Earth), while the remaining two would each
land at separate locations - one on the farside and the other
possibly at the lunar South Pole. All four would act like as a
network for about a year or so, and transmit upto 30 kbits of data
per day to the main MoonLITE orbiter overhead - analysed later by
stations on Earth. The Phase A study is just the first step in the
investigative process towards potential development and deployment
of MoonLITE - expected to launch around 2014. The study will look at
the capabilities and lifetime of instruments onboard the
penetrators, and return a technical evaluation as to their use and
science objectives. Cost constraints will also be looked at during
the study, and if it's found that certain limits will have to
reached in terms of affordability, some instruments may have to be
removed in the end. Whatever the outcome, members of the board
decided to keep all four penetrators onboard MoonLITE, as this
number would be essential for a full scientific return. While
MoonLITE is a collaborative concept between the UK's
British National Science Centre
and NASA, the mission will predominantly be UK-led overall. A final
report on the study is expected out in late 2009, and for more
information concerning an International Peer Review Report about
MoonLITE, see here.
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5 December 2008:
Armadillo Aerospace - the winner of this year's
Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge Level One design of a
vehicle to simulate trips between the moon's surface and lunar orbit
- will today receive $350,000 for its effort. The company, which was
one of ten teams that entered into the challenge through the
X PRIZE Foundation,
successfully demonstrated through their rocket-powered vehicle
capabilities of it lifting off vertically to a height of 50 meters,
flying horizontally to a landing pad 100 meters away, and then
repeating the whole flight again in reverse (see this
You Tube
video). Armadillo Aerospace is an old hand to the Challenge as they
are the only team to have flown a vehicle in both the 2006 and 2007
X PRIZE Cup. Their achievement is seen as a great success, however,
the company would have loved to pull off a double by winning Level
Two of the competition. This level was much more difficult as it
required a rocket to hover for twice as long before landing
precisely on a simulated lunar terrain strewn with boulders and
craters. As all challenges weren't succeeded by any of the teams
involved, however, it now leaves approximately $1.65 million worth
of prize money up for grabs. This will now run into the 2009
competition. If you want to see the handing over ceremony of the
$350,000 prize to Armadillo Aerospace,
NASA TV will be broadcasting the event live today - sometime
between at 9am and 11am EST. If you need to contact me about this
article, then please do
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24 November 2008: With Chandrayaan-1 now orbiting the
Moon, scientific instruments onboard are turning on. Already, its SIR-2
instrument has begun science observations on 20 November, while its
X-ray Spectrometer, C1XS (activated on 23 November), is currently in
process of being commissioned. Next week, its Sub-keV Atom Reflecting
Analyser, SARA, will be commissioned from between 7 to 10 December, and
when fully activated, should start taking images of the Moon's surface
using low energy neutral atoms. The instrument will be able to look at
the surface composition in both the permanently shadowed and volatile
rich areas of the Moon, and take images of surface interaction between
the solar wind, magnetic anomalies, and space weathering. SARA is the
first-ever energetic neutral atom imaging mass spectrometer on the Moon,
and was designed by ESA, the Swedish Institute of Space Physics, Sweden
and the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre,
ISRO. SIR-2 is a Germany/ESA instrument that will analyse the
geological and mineralogical aspects of the lunar surface; studying also
the moon's crust composition, its maria lava plains, and the formation
of huge basins and craters. CIXS - an ESA, Rutherford Appleton
Laboratory (UK) and ISRO designed instrument - will carry out high
quality X-ray spectroscopic mapping of the lunar surface; answering key
questions about the Moon's overall formation and evolution. For more
about the Chandrayaan-1 mission, see
here. If you need to
contact me about this article, then please do
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19 November 2008: Between 2012 and 2014 NASA hopes to
have, at least, the first two of four main network nodes down on the
lunar surface in preparation for future lunar lander missions. The nodes
- each consisting of a suite of scientific instruments - would be placed
at different locations around the Moon, and act like a geophysical
network of additional data that the future missions would use. The first
two nodes are envisioned to be placed at both the lunar poles where
lunar exploration is expected to kick off seriously within the next
decade (e.g. a lunar base may be positioned at the South Pole by 2020).
The other two nodes (launched sometime around 2016/17) would be
positioned at locations probably near the equator, and all four would
work as one - tying the whole lunar exploration program together. The
main objective of the nodes is to primarily understand the interior
structure and composition of the Moon. But four nodes aren't enough if
we are to fully understand the Moon globally. So NASA, in response to a
2007 report, suggested that other international space agencies get
involved and launch their own nodes to the Moon. As a result, the
International Lunar Network (ILN) was created. In all, upto 8 nodes
would make up the ILN, and each would be positioned around locations on
the Moon that would also include the farside (the side that we from
Earth cannot observe directly). Together they would work as a unified
monitoring network in exploration of the surface and subsurface, and
serve as an experiment in international cooperation beyond Earth. As
part of continuing in preparation for the ILN, NASA has just solicited a
Request for Information (RFI) on the following types of scientific
instruments: seismometers, heat flow probes, electromagnetic probes, and
laser ranging instrumentation. These would make up the core suite of
instruments onboard each node, however, NASA is also looking to other
lightweight instruments that would compliment the ILN. As the
instruments, however, have not yet been finalised, nor neither has the
ILN's science objectives, NASA is hoping the RFI will inform the
development of an instrument procurement approach, and open up eventual
development through Announcement of Opportunity. Those interested
parties - both US and Non-US alike - thinking of getting involved should
contact Program Scientist, Dr.
Thomas Morgan, of NASA, or for more information about the RFI, see
here. If you need to
contact me about this article, then please do
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14 November 2008: Just 25 minutes was all it took for
the MIP (Moon Impact Probe) - a scientific probe that separated from
India's recently-launched
Chandrayaan-1 moon
spacecraft - to reach the lunar surface. The probe's camera recorded
the journey downwards, before finally impacting the surface expected to
be some 32 km away from Shackleton crater near the moon's South Pole.
With two other instruments onboard - a radar altimeter that measured the
rate of descent of the probe and a mass spectrometer that took readings
of the moon's almost non-existent atmosphere - data from all three
payloads are currently been looked at by
ISRO scientists. The rate of
descent of the probe on approach was initially slowed down to about
5km/s before impact, however, as to if any of the MIP survived
afterwards we'll have to wait. News from ISRO's headquarters monitoring
the main Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft orbiting overhead isn't saying
anything quite yet, however, over the next few days or so images taken
by the orbiter of the region may give some idea as to its survival. More
than likely, however, the MIP fully disintegrated on impact; mixing its
varied metallic body and payloads onboard into the ejecta that dispersed
outwards radially from the point of impact. One thing that did survive,
however, is India's pride and entrance onto the lunar stage, as they now
have become the fourth country in the world to have landed on the Moon.
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14 November 2008: As China released yesterday its first
image map of the entire Moon, NASA also unveiled a newly restored
historic image from the early days of lunar exploration. The image is
just one taken from the ~1000 pairs of medium (MR) and high resolution
(HR) images produced during the Lunar Orbiter Program NASA sent to the
Moon between 1966 and 1967. Images back then were produced with two
types of 70-mm black and white cameras onboard each orbiter - the MR
camera having a short focal length with a wide field of view, while the
HR camera had a long focal length with a narrow field of view. All
processing of the images were done onboard the crafts, that is,
negatives were developed, then scanned and transmitted to photographic
and magnetic tape recorders back on Earth through the Deep Space Network
operated by JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory). The images were
then transferred onto 35-mm film in the lab and turned into film
segments, called a framelet (about 60cm long), and from these a full
reconstruction of a single frame of each image was produced. Some of the
images taken were extremely difficult to see any clear detail from, as
scanning in between framelets produced a bright line to run across each
subframe. As a result, this produced images with brightness variations
and a kind of streaking effect. These defects, however, were somewhat
cleared up later as photographic techniques developed in the intervening
years, however, today more modern techniques are tackling the problem.
LOIRP (Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project), based at NASA Ames
Research Centre, will over the next year or so undertake the task of
translating original Lunar Orbiter analog data from 1,500 tapes into
digitalised format. The images when fully corrected will then be
available to the public. If you need to contact me about this article,
then please do
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13 November 2008: Nice view tonight of the Pleiades
being occulted by the Moon. The Pleiades, or, the "Seven Sisters" (the
main brightest stars) as they're usually called, are a beautiful sight
in your local sky at the moment. But, this evening some of the them will
become a bit shy. Over the course of the night, the Moon - their
boy-friend - is set to visit them for several hours for a wee chat (and
possibly a date - who knows), as it passes, "occults", in front of them
throughout its orbit. The dating period will last for several hours at
least, and some of us back on Earth are certain to get lucky, too, as
one or two of the sisters throws us a wink while yer man isn't looking.
The occultation will most favourably be visible from Europe, North
Africa and Asia (USA viewers will miss out), so time to get your binos'
or telescope out. These instruments allows you to see better the
Pleiades cluster of upto 50 stars in total wink in and out on either
side of the Moon as it moves. If you need to contact me about this
article, then please do
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12 November 2008: India's first lunar spacecraft,
Chandrayaan-1 is now
in orbit around the Moon. The final 60-second manoeuvre, which lowered
the craft into a polar orbit some 100 km above the surface, was the last
step that ISRO engineers back on Earth were waiting for, as it now
officially puts India on the lunar exploration stage. According to ISRO
resources, the event is a momentous one, and for a first-time attempt by
a country who would be considered the new "noobies" in the
back-to-the-Moon arena, it has to seen as very impressive by other space
agencies around the world. Chandrayyan-1 now in its current orbital
altitude will take, roughly, two hours a time to complete one complete
orbit around the Moon, and is expected to take measurements of the
surface for the next two years. With 11 scientific instruments onboard,
the craft will conduct high resolution mineralogical and chemical
imaging of the polar regions, search for surface or sub-surface
water-ice, and try to identify the chemical end members of lunar high
land rocks. Observations of the surface through X-ray eyes will also be
carried out, and stereographic coverage of most of the moon's surface
with 5 metre resolution will provide new insights in understanding the
moon's origin and evolution. This coming Friday, 14 November, the Moon
Impact Probe (MIP) - an impactor device with an altimeter, spectrometer
and CCD camera onboard - will crash onto the surface, supplying ISRO
scientists with some idea about the moon's constituent makeup and
surrounds. The main spacecraft will continue to be monitored by ISRO's
Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network and by the Deep Space Network
(IDSN) based at Byalalu over the course of the two years, and all data
gathered is sure to prepare India for their next endeavour of
Chandrayaan-2 -
expected to launch sometime in 2012. If you need to contact me about
this article, then please do
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11 Nov 2008: Lunar dust problems during the Apollo
missions back in the 1970s were a curse to the astronauts and their
equipment. It stuck to everything - to the astronauts' suits, clogged up
their sensitive sensors and electronics, and even got into their eyes
and lungs. Each dust particle is just a few microns wide and very
abrasive, and as there is no weathering process on the Moon to wear each
down, their potential to affect future lunar missions and astronauts
remains at very high risk. NASA are very interested in trying to
alleviate the problem before they again return to work (and live) on the
Moon. Detectors onboard the then Apollo 11, 12 and 14 landers supplied
data about the dust, and these were beamed back to Earth and stored on
magnetic tapes. However, during the intervening years the tapes
subsequently became "misplaced" by NASA afterwards, and so all the
information about lunar dust seemed lost forever. But, a new light has
shone above the horizon. It now seems that the tapes have been around
all along, and were in a room in Perth, Australia, for the last 40 years
or so. Upto 173 tapes at the time were recorded, and only recently have
they been looked at to see if the information enclosed can be retrieved.
Initially, data on the tapes was recorded using a 1960 IBM729 Mark 5
tape recorder back then during the Apollo missions, however, as such
equipment is very rare and far out-moded by modern technology today,
retrieval may prove difficult. A data-recovery company (SpectrumData)
has now been given access to the tapes donated by a Sydney-based
computer society, and over the next few months, they are faced with the
task of seeing if any information is recoverable. The company, however,
won't be using modern data-recovery equipment on the tapes as this might
cause damage, so instead they will use another old 1960's tape recorder
based at the Australian Computer Museum to see if that works. The
fridge-sized recorder has the right type of tape-drive to read the data,
and if all goes well with compatibility between the two, information
locked away since the early 1970s could be recovered within a week or
so. The recovery processes are expected to begin in January 2009. If you
need to contact me about this article, then please do
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7 Nov 2008: In commemoration of NASA's recent 50th anniversary, the
people at Newseum in Pennsylvania will broadcast a live discussion
by
Apollo 8 astronauts, Frank Borman, James Lovell and William
Anders this Thursday 13 Nov. The astronauts will talk about their
own personal experiences of the mission which orbited around the
Moon back in December 1968, and how its momentous journey laid, in
part, foundations for the successful Apollo 11 mission that landed
on the Moon some several months afterwards. The team of astronauts
will also discuss the most recent efforts by nations around the
world with spacecrafts ( Kaguya,
Chang'e-1) at the
Moon and others about to enter orbit ( Chandrayaan-1),
and say a few words about the future of space exploration. The
60-minute broadcast will go out at 1:30 p.m. EST from
NASA Television .If you're not
sure about the exact time for your location, you could check out
some of the time-converters (e.g.
this for one). If you need to contact me about this article,
then please do
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6 Nov 2008: Want to know where we will be going in terms of lunar
exploration and beyond over the coming years - given that the USA
will have a new Administration and Congress in January 2009? If so,
keep an eye out on The
Planetary Society's website next Thursday 13 November as
speakers, Louis Friedman (Director), Jim bell (President) and Scott
Hubbard, present their plans about its new “Roadmap for Human Space
Exploration in the 21st Century.” The Roadmap will look at key
elements of exploration from the perspective of the current economic
situation, and give some idea as to the Society's goals in areas of
human spaceflight, commitment to Earth observations from space, and
the future of the lunar program. The Roadmap came about from
previous Society discussions held last February during a workshop,
which looked at "Examining the Vision: Balancing Science and
Exploration.". If you are interested about the event or thinking of
attending, contact the Society's ace-reporter,
Susan Lendroth,
for more details. If you need to contact me about this article, then
please do
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4 Nov 2008: As Chandrayaan-1 today entered its fifth and final orbit
raising manoeuvre; putting it in a Lunar Transfer Trajectory some
380,000 km at its furthest point from Earth, the Indian space agency
( ISRO) are already
looking to Chandrayaan-2. The spacecraft will be a three-tonne class
satellite and is targeted to be launched sometime late 2012. This
future mission will include a Russian-built lander designed to put
Chandrayaan-2 safely down on the lunar surface, and a rover (jointly
built by India and Russia) with an array of scientific instruments
to analyse soil, search for water vapour and deposits of Helium-3.
Weighing between 30 kg and 100 kg - depending on whether it is to do
a semi-hard landing or soft landing - the rover will have an
operating life-span of about several months, and will run
predominantly on solar power. All data will then be sent to the
mother-spacecraft, Chandrayaan-2, orbiting overhead and from there,
transmitted to ISRO's headquarters via the Indian Deep Space Network
at Bylalu. Meanwhile, back on Chandrayaan-1, all seems to be working
fine; with latest tests carried out on the Terrain Mapping Camera
(TMC) - one of 11 instruments onboard - returning their first
successful images of Earth. The TMC is a stereo-type camera working
in the panchromatic band, and will have a 5-metre spatial resolution
capable of observing 40 km swaths of the lunar surface as
Chandrayaan-1 orbits the Moon. Tests on the other instruments will
begin in the next few days, as the spacecraft prepares for its final
approach to the Moon by November 8. There, its engine will be fired
again to put into another highly elliptical polar orbit, where the
gravity of the Moon will slowly pull it closer and closer into a
safe altitude some 100km above the surface. The mission is expected
to have an operational life of about 2 years -- for more details
about the mission see
here. If you
need to contact me about this article, then please do
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30 Oct 2008: Of the fourteen entrants currently vying for the $30m
Google Lunar X PRIZE competition, Astrobotic Technology Inc. today
unveiled a
White Paper (PDF File ~ 0.5Mb) on its plans for a series of
robotic expeditions for landing on the Moon. The first mission,
discussed in the Paper, begins with a return to the Apollo 11 site
to demonstrate precision landing of the lander, and off-loading of
the first lunar commercial rover, called Tranquillity Trek. Using
stereo HD cameras and a telephoto HD camera, the rover will observe
from a respectable distance degradation of Apollo materials left
there by Apollo 11, and see how they have weathered from radiation
and micrometeorite bombardment. Boot prints will also be imaged and
investigated for any micrometeorite impact rates and their
micro-craters, and all data gathered will be uploaded to a lunar
library on Earth. According to the rules of the Lunar Google X
PRIZE, the first commercial rover to land on the Moon before
December 31 2012 will receive a prize of $20m. Clearly, Astrobotic
Technology Inc. hopes to win the prize as they see Tranquillity Trek
on the lunar surface by May 2010, however, other entrants may have
something to say about that as they, too, release their White Papers
in the coming years. Whatever happens in the meantime, the company's
optimistic approach and plans will see two separate Pole landers -
the first (South Pole Scout) at Shackleton Crater by 2011, and the
second (North Pole Scout) at an undetermined crater by 2012. A
further three missions - Moon Quake 1, Ice Surveyor and Moon Dozer -
will then follow; each looking at different aspects of the Moon from
seismic activity to confirmation of water volatiles to demo-building
from the regolith (lunar soil). The White Paper release was
announced during the tenth International Lunar Exploration Working
Group ( ILEWG), held at the
Radisson Resort in Cape Canaveral, Florida, where three
organisations - the Lunar Exploration Analysis Group (LEAG), the
International Lunar Conference 2008, and the Space Resources
Roundtable (SRR X) attended. If you need to contact me about this
article, then please do
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27 Oct 2008: Year 2015 is set down by NASA as the expected date when
the Ares I rocket will launch a four-man crew into a low orbit
around the Earth, and then onto the Moon. But will that now happen -
given recent discoveries by new computer models which show the Ares
rocket may never get off the ground? The problem, the models show,
lies with possible "lift-off drift" of the rocket as the main
booster ignites. In effect, what they show is that if a breeze
happens to be blowing more than 12.7 mph in a south-easterly
direction during the same time as lift-off, the whole structure
could, literally, "jump' sideways off the pad and crash into the
supporting tower. All rockets move, or 'jump', a little during
takeoff, however, because the newly-designed Ares rocket underwent
major changes from its original design - engines were changed,
rocket boosters were made longer - the "lift-off drift" effect could
play a larger role. NASA say the effect will be minimal after they
make some additional changes to the launch-pad itself, however, that
means additional costs. However, as allocated budgets and employment
cuts are expected to be very tight for the agency over the next few
years, is the whole Ares project, literally, up in the air (pardon
the pun)? Back in July 2008, over 57 engineers (some from NASA and
who remained anonymous) had doubts about the Ares rocket, supporting
a better designed rocket known as Jupiter. However, as Jupiter was
turned down by NASA management; suggesting it was too inefficient
and too expensive, Ares is now far too into production that stopping
it at this stage would mean shutting down the whole space program.
Given the current, global economic turndown, and, not forgetting
there's an election in the offing, will the rocket survive the
criticisms and will the new administration be in a position to
further support continuation of it? Surely, one to watch in the
coming years. If you need to contact me about this article, then
please do
Email me a comment.
Top
14 Oct 2008: The slopes of Mauna Kea - home to several of the
world's largest telescopes - next month will have roaming about on
its surface a rover that one day may drill for water on the slopes
on the Moon. Called,
SCARAB, the rover - designed by researchers from Carnegie Mellon
University's Robotics Institute - will carry a 1-metre long coring
drill and a suite of instruments for analysing the abundance of any
water-based materials that could lie in permanently-shadowed craters
at the moon's South Pole. SCARAB's unique alterable body-pose allows
it, firstly, to climb and clamber over any ridges or boulders it is
likely to experience inside a crater, and, secondly, belly-down onto
the surface when it comes to drilling. The core samples - later
crushed and transferred into a heating chamber some 900 degrees
Celsius - are each analysed for release of essential gases like
hydrogen or oxygen (like those found in water - H2O), and their
abundance is measured over a 20-hour period. Hydrogen signatures at
the lunar poles were first detected during NASA's Lunar Prospector
mission back in the 1990's; signifying that upto six billion metric
tonnes of water-ice deposits could lie half a metre down in 'cold
traps'. However, when the craft was intentionally crashed into a
crater at the South Pole on 31 July 1999, no signatures were
detected, and further Earth-based radar observations showed no signs
either. The issue, thus, remains controversial, however, as SCARAB's
coring facility to dig down deep has the ability to provide an
answer, the Mauna Kea tests will be one NASA will very much be
interested in following. The tests will run from 1 Nov - 13 Nov at
elevations of about 9,000 feet (the scopes lie further up at 14,000
feet). If you need to contact me about this article, then please do
Email me a comment.
Top
When man eventually returns to work and live on the Moon at a lunar
base located at the moon's South Pole, technology, undoubtedly, will
play a major role in his success. One important piece of technology
will be the moon rover; a bone-shaker first used during the Apollo
15, 16 and 17 missions back in the 1970s that proved a great asset
for astronauts to get around. As an updated version will again be
used at the South Pole, NASA are now asking students enrolled in
post-secondary institutions, universities, colleges and other
professional schools to submit designs of tools that astronauts
could use with the rover. Unlike previous use of the Apollo rovers
that were designed for mid-latitude regions of the Moon, at the
South Pole, however, experiences will be quite different. Areas
there allow for conditions of both extreme sunlight (some peak's of
craters remain continuously in sunlight) and extreme darkness (other
craters remain permanently in shadow). As these areas are expected
to be fully utilised by the astronauts, e.g. setting up solar panels
on the peaks for power, or, searching for potential water-ice
deposits in the shadowed regions, well-designed tools and equipment
will therefore be essential. The tools could, for example, be
designed for use in navigation of the rover in darkness, used for
sample retrieval and on-site analysis, or for communication and
transmission of video back to Earth as astronauts rove around. NASA,
of course, will have their own ideas as to what they will use and
require, however, by throwing the offer open to the schools and
colleges, submitted designs could improve upon those already
envisioned. The contest is only open to USA individuals or teams,
and winners of any submitted design will be invited to the next set
of lunar technology mission tests planned for the summer or fall of
2009. Anyone interested in entering must submit a notice of intent
to NASA by Dec. 15, 2008, followed by a finalised design before 15
May 2009. The winners, if any, will then be announced in June 2009.
To find out more information about terms and conditions, see
here. The contest is
sponsored by NASA's
Exploration Systems Mission Directorate. If you need to contact
me about this article, then please do
Email me a comment.
Top
As German scientists meet during the five-day European Planetary
Science Congress
EPSC 2008 in Münster, Germany, one of the main topics being
discussed is the fate of their country's first ever moon mission
called LEO ( Lunar Explorer
Orbiter). The problem is due mainly to necessary 2009 funds not
being allocated for development of the mission by the German
Ministry for Economy and Technology, so as a result, upto sixty-nine
of Germany’s leading scientists have signed a declaration in support
of it's case being looked at seriously. Over the past two years, a
detailed mission concept was drawn up by the scientists,
universities, industrial partners and Germany's main space agency,
DLR, and the mission was to be
seen as a national demonstration of the country's competence in
science and technology. The overall completion of the mission would
also have determined future opportunities for young people in the
fields of space research and technology, and the possible prevention
in migration of highly qualified scientists from German
universities. However, due to recent worldwide economic upset in the
last few months, Germany and other countries in Europe have now had
to focus on priorities in research and development towards a
sustainable approach in the long run. LEO's mission would have a
series of innovative instruments onboard - produced by German
engineers and scientists - and their main objectives would be to
globally obtain high quality mapping of the surface. They would also
look specifically at areas in the mineralogical and chemical
composition of the lunar soil, and take data sets of magnetic and
gravitational field anomalies deep within the surface. If you need
to contact me about this article, then please do
Email me a comment.
Top
Previous data gleaned from ESA's SMART-1 mission, which studied the
Moon for three years before being intentionally crashed onto its
surface on 3 September 2006, has shown the first ever
three-dimensional view of the lunar South Pole. The image was
produced by SMART-1's AMIE (Advanced Moon micro-Imager Experiment)
camera, along with reflectivity and sun-angle data all integrated
into a topological map of the area. The new three-dimensional views
are being presented today by
Dr Detlef Koschny of ESA/ESTEC at the European Planetary Science
Congress in Münster, Germany, during the European Planetary Sceince
Congress EPSC 2008
(21 to 26 Sept.,), which covers a broad range of science topics
related to planetary science and planetary missions. The South Pole
region of the Moon is of particular interest for setting up of a
future lunar base - expected to begin around 2020 - as certain areas
remain forever in sunlight. Setting up solar panels at these areas
would give the base a free resource of power needed to construct it
in the first place, but also provide the means for growing plants,
producing water and other essential activities for astronauts to
live and work there. At the same time, however, there are also areas
that remain forever in darkness, and it's here that scientists
propose water-ice deposits may exist - another resource that will
determine success or failure of a future lunar base. If you need to
contact me about this article, then please do
Email me a comment.
Top
From the initial 918 individuals chosen by ESA as potential future
astronauts for the agency, a fifth have come through the first stage
of psychological tests. The tests - mainly computer-based that
evaluate cognitive, psycho-motor test, multitasking, linguistic
skills, and various forms of visualisation-based tasks - were
created to find the best candidates that will eventually train at
ESA's Astronaut Corps for human exploration of our Solar System.
The 192 individuals have now moved onto the second stage of
psychological tests at the
European Astronaut Centre in Cologne, Germany; where they will
undergo a series of interviews, computer simulations, group
exercises, roll playing exercises and behavioural testing. When this
stage finishes sometime in mid-December, 80 of the 192 will then be
chosen for extensive medical evaluation, and thereafter a final four
talented individuals will become members of the European Astronaut
Corps in the summer of 2009. The four are expected to meet the
challenges demanded in use of the International Space Station over
the coming years, and possibly they will prepare for living and
working at a future lunar base - beginning sometime around 2020. The
individuals could also form part of an extended mission to Mars;
using the same psychological tests and skills they will need to get
them through a journey that will last upto four year's duration. ESA
initially received 10,000 requests from individuals to join the
program back in June 2008, however, from these only 8413 fulfilled
the application criteria. If you need to contact me about this
article, then please do
Email me a comment.
Top
It's long been suggested that solar panels would most likely be the
preferred option for power requirements as astronauts live and work
on the Moon from a lunar base. While the panels would need special
sites of constant sunlight -- most likely at the Pole regions on the
Moon -- their use, however, is limited for establishing other future
lunar outposts on the mid-latitude and equator regions. NASA,
however, are now looking at another option of free power that might
one day be suitable for these remote areas -- the use of nuclear
power fission reactors. Nuclear power fission reactors usually
consist of a mass of fissionable material, like uranium or
plutonium, which is then able to maintain a chain reaction of nuclei
events -- enough so as to generate heat that is converted into
electric power. Reactors on Earth are usually big and require
extensive shielding and coolant facilities for the fissional
material as it heats up, however, a reactor on the Moon won't
require any of the above, says NASA, and will only be about the size
of a trash can. It will be capable of producing upto 40 kilowatts of
power (enough for about eight houses on Earth) for a lunar outpost,
and can be set up easily anywhere on the surface, no matter what the
type of environment. Two power conversion designs currently in the
offing (the first from Sunpower
Inc., of Athens, Ohio, the second from
Barber Nichols Inc. of
Arvada, Colo.,) are now being looked at by engineers from NASA's
Glenn
Research Centre in Cleveland. Both are capable of generating
upto 12 kilowatts of power right now, however, improvements in this
area are expected to increase as the designs progress. After a
year's phase of design and analyses is completed, one of the designs
will then be chosen for further development, and for integration
into other technology demonstration units at the Glenn facility --
the first tests, of which will take place around 2012/13. As the
first lunar base, and, therefore, initial setup of solar panels for
power requirements are expected to begin around 2020 at the lunar
South Pole, use of nuclear powered facilities on the Moon will take
much, much longer. Undoubtedly, there will be objections to putting
such facilities on the Moon, however, for now, the design
investigations are being conducted under the Fission Surface Power
Systems Project through NASA's
Exploration Technology
Development Program. If you need to contact me about this
article, then please do
Email me a comment.
Top
The
Ares I rocket, which will replace the shuttle and put astronauts
into orbit around Earth in preparation for a trip to the Moon, has
passed its first preliminary design review. The review is seen as a
major milestone for the rocket, as it meets all the technical
requirements that NASA demand for progress onto the next stage of
integrating the vehicle into other supporting systems. The design
was reviewed by over 1100 technical staff associated with different
parts of the proposed rocket, and these will now be scrutinised even
more before another detailed, critical design phase begins and
actual hardware development occurs. The upper stage of Ares I - the
J-2X main engine that will be fuelled with liquid oxygen and liquid
hydrogen - will be the first part to undergo critical design review.
J-2X is an evolved variation of previous rockets (the J-2 and J-2S
engines) associated with the Saturn IB and Saturn V during the
successful Apollo era, and will be the main engine that will power
the Ares I upper stage to orbit after separation from the first
stage. With the Orion crew vehicle attached, this will dock with a
lunar lander (Altair) - previously put into earth orbit several days
earlier by an Ares V rocket - where the two will then head for the
Moon. The review was conducted at NASA's
Marshall Space Flight Centre in Huntsville, Alabama. If you need
to contact me about this article, then please do
Email me a comment.
Top
This coming Monday (September 8) news reporters and media types
alike will get the opportunity of a lifetime; to use one of NASA's
latest designs of a moon truck that one day might rove about on the
lunar surface. The truck, designed specifically to meet
transportation needs of payloads and astronauts to different
locations on the Moon, will be the main workhorse vehicle - allowing
for siting of other facilities like lunar labs several kilometres
away from the main base. With its unique set of wheels that can
pivot in any direction, the truck has the ability to drive sideways,
forward and backward; as well as zigzag up or down from tricky
situations where it might become stuck in the lunar soil. The media
will also get to board a future lunar lander, called Altair, which
NASA will use to land upto four astronauts on the moon, until it
again is used to return them back to an orbiting spacecraft
overhead. Several experts and managers from
NASA's Constellation
Program will also attend the event to answer questions about
future lunar developments, and, hopefully, clear up any queries
concerning problems with the current
Ares and Orion spacecrafts. Reports in the past have brought out
disclosures of technical problems with overweight, concerns about
the heat shields failing, as well as dangerous shaking at launch,
and hard-to-open hatch doors. To further exacerbate the confusions,
NASA sources have just announced that the Orion's PDR (Preliminary
Design Review) report - initially due to be released in November
2008 - will not now be viewable until mid-Summer 2009. While NASA
are trying their best to clear up any wrong misgivings about both
spacecrafts (and also the entire Constellation Program), those
reporters attending the upcoming event will surely have more to say
in the next few days after?
Email me a comment about this news release if you need to.
Top
The Orion (see this
1.5 Mb
PDF file) spacecraft that will replace the Shuttle and will take
astronauts to the Moon suffered a year-long setback today, as it is
now expected to launch sometime later in 2014. The spacecraft was to
launch in September 2013, however, the delay, says NASA, is due to
technical problems (with the heat shield, dangerous level of shaking
during launch, and a hard-to-open hatch door - see 16.8Mb PDF
report),
and a tight budget. Orion will likely have its first launch
therefore in September 2014 (or before that date, says NASA) to the
International Space Station, and later it will be used to ferry
astronauts to the Moon in 2020. Under NASA's
Constellation Program,
Orion (really a crew exploration vehicle) will be launched on an
Ares I rocket that will first put it in obit around the Earth. It
will then dock with a lunar lander - previously launched several
days earlier and put in earth orbit by an Ares V rocket - and the
two head for the Moon with the first crew of three to four
astronauts onboard. On reaching lunar orbit, Orion will act as an
orbiter around the Moon, while the crew onboard the Lunar Surface
Access Module (now called Altair) will undock from it and descend
down onto the surface. Several days later, after the crew have
finished their work time on the surface, they then transfer back up
to Orion using a separate booster on the lander, and both re-dock
and head back to Earth. The service component of the Orion is later
jettisoned on reaching Earth, leaving just the crew capsule to enter
the atmosphere. Sounds all good (on paper), however, as the space
shuttle is expected to be decommissioned in late September 2010,
will this Orion delay force extensions on other programs related to
the overall objective of landing a man again on the Moon? Top
This October the tenth ILEWG
conference to do with exploration and utilisation of the Moon kicks
off with three other organisations joining in the discussions. Held
at the Radisson Resort in Cape Canaveral, Florida, the three
organisations - the Lunar Exploration Analysis Group (LEAG), the
International Lunar Conference 2008, and the Space Resources
Roundtable (SRR X) - will focus on future lunar exploration programs
relative to establishing a "Sustainable Moon", an "International
Moon" and a "Productive Moon". New results from current lunar
missions and other worldwide lunar activities will be discussed; all
pointing towards further increased development in integrating the
scientific, engineering, international and commercial communities in
lunar exploration programs. For those interested in submitting
abstracts in the scientific, engineering, entrepreneurial and
commercial areas, the deadline has been extended to August 19, and
copies of the papers presented will eventually be available in
electronic format as and from September 18, 2008. Registration (fee
required) to both students and professionals alike interested in
attending the conference is still possible through an online
registration form (closes September 30), and a schedule of
presentations is available
here. ILEWG (the International Lunar Exploration Working Group)
is sponsored by the world's space agencies, and will be held from 28
- 31 October, 2008. Anyone wanting to sponsor my accommodation and
flight costs in attending the event are quite welcome to contact me
- I'll even bring along 100 free Moon Posters for those attending
:-) Don't all offer at once.
Top
India's first attempt to rocket to the Moon in their
Chandrayaan-1
mission got a delay notice today - pushing the launch period back to
late October 2008 (or early December). The remote sensing satellite
carries a suite of scientific instruments - not only Indian-made but
also NASA and ESA payloads - for high resolution mapping of the
lunar surface and distribution of various chemical elements and
minerals. The Indian Space Research Organization ( ISRO)
say the delay is due to vacuum tests that have yet to be carried out
on the launch vehicle, which will carry up the 1.3 ton satellite
into space after launching from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in
Sriharikota. The mission is expected to have an operational life of
about 2 years, and if successful, ISRO will seriously look at
launching a robotic rover onboard a mission, called Chandrayaan-2,
to the Moon possibly in 2012, but before 2016. The rover will be
designed to move on wheels on the lunar surface, pick up samples of
soil or rocks, do in situ chemical analysis and send the data to the
mother-spacecraft Chandrayaan-2 orbiting overhead. Weighing between
30 kg and 100 kg - depending on whether it is to do a semi-hard
landing or soft landing - the rover will have an operating life-span
of about several months. Like every other major space agency around
the world, ISRO is also looking at conducting a manned mission
sometime in 2020, however, this date could be shortened by a year or
so if other international partners get involved.
Top
Only one of the ten teams competing in this year's
Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge has the opportunity to
win $2 million for designing a vehicle that can simulate trips
between the moon's surface and lunar orbit. The competition, which
will be held at Holloman Air Force Base in Alamogordo, New Mexico on
October 24 and 25, is divided up into two design levels that
entrants will look at. Level 1 requires design of a rocket that can
rise upto 50 meters above the launch pad, hover for 90 seconds
afterwards, and then set down on a landing pad 50 meters away. The
above is then reversed again, and all must be done in two and a half
hour period. In Level 2, designers must produce a rocket similar to
the first, but this time it must hover for at least twice as long as
in Level 1. It must also land on a simulated lunar terrain strewn
with boulders and craters, so that the whole concept mimics a real
lunar mission. It'll certainly be a nervous time for all ten teams
if last year's results are anything to go by - of the nine that
entered then only one (Armadillo Aerospace) succeeded in flying.
Moreover, as five of last year's entrants are entering this year
again, the other five will be under extreme pressure to impress. Is
it any wonder then that four of the ten have chosen to remain
confidential. According to the X
PRIZE rules, their names will be announced 60 days before the
final event occurs, however, the other six competing are: (1)
Armadillo, (2)
BonNova, (2)
Paragon, (4)
Phoenicia, (5)
TrueZer0, (6)
Unreasonable Rocket. The best of luck to all entrants!
Top
As NASA prepares for its next major mission to the Moon with Lunar
Reconnaissance Orbiter's launch in early 2009, they've now
implemented an RFI (Request for Information) for a visualisation
system that will integrate all data, images and modelling techniques
associated with establishment of a lunar outpost, sortie missions
and crewed operations on the lunar surface. Solicited under NASA's
Lunar Mapping and Modelling Project (LMMP), the visualisation system
must be capable of providing the lunar exploration community an
easy-to-use internet portal that will allow participants view
collections of available lunar data, not only from LRO, but also
historical lunar data (e.g. like Apollo, Lunar Orbiter, Clementine,
Lunar Prospector, Earth-based observations, etc.,), and other
international lunar missions (e.g. like Kaguya - see
Missions page). The system
must be capable of interfacing with existing planetary surface
visualization systems, geographic information systems and mapping
networks, as well as be relevant to software elements, components,
tools, data systems and architectures. This RFI is a market survey
by NASA to interested parties - from the academic to the commercial
- to investigate who would be capable of producing such a
visualisation system. The final contributions would then be
evaluated by the agency for its potential, however, while NASA
aren't committing to actual construction of such a system, the
request has to be seen in a positive light. Those interested can get
more information from Raymond French ( Raymond.A.French@nasa.gov)
of NASA.
Top
One of the prime targets on the Moon for location of a future base
is the Shackleton crater at the South Pole. The area has attracted
attention lately because most of its interior remains perpetually in
shadow, which could harbour water-ice deposits for use in
maintaining life at the lunar base. Obviously, the older any crater
is the more time it has to accumulate these deposits, and new
research based around images taken by ESA's
SMART-1 mission
suggest Shackleton may be just so. Previous estimates put the
crater’s youngest age at ~ 1.1 billion years old to its oldest age
at ~ 3.3 billion years old, however, the research - carried out by a
team of scientists from the Lunar
& Planetary Institute (LPI) in Houston, Texas - suggest roughly
an age of 3.6 billions years. The age was found by counting craters
in and around Shackleton and how they overlapped with older craters
whose age was known. They found that the area could have had enough
time to accumulate significant reserves; collecting extra-lunar
volatile elements - through events such as cometary or water-rich
meteorite impacts - for at least the last 2 billion years.
Shackleton's shadowed interior is believed to maintain a temperature
of about 40 K (-233 °C or -388 °F), so deposits could remain frozen
at or below the surface. When the Lunar Prospector mission observed
both pole regions during the late 1990s, it found high hydrogen
signatures that put upto 6 billion metric tonnes of water-ice
deposits may lie underneath the soil. However, after being
intentionally crashed onto the South Pole afterwards, no such
deposits were liberated from the surface. Thus, the issue today
remains a controversial one. The LPI findings were published in the
Geophysical Research Letters on the 18 July 2008 (see
here for more). Top
Luna exploration stepped up a notch over the week as eight countries
from around the world made a multinational agreement with NASA to
intensify moon research. The agreement, which took place at NASA's
Ames Research Centre in California, involves greater cooperation
between the countries in developing future launches in the next
decade, along with a multinational approach towards research of the
lunar surface. All the countries currently have space agencies of
their own at many different levels of research and development,
however, by joining together individual resources and expertise, the
costs alone saved could see a fleet of robotic spacecraft on the
surface sooner than expected. NASA are delighted with the agreement,
and say its "the beginning of a beautiful friendship". The signed-up
countries - Canada, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, South
Korea and the United Kingdom - couldn't agree more, as each will
benefit through different areas of development and the sharing of
knowledge.
Top
Hopes of having the first
astronomical observatory on the Moon took a step closer today as the
International Lunar Observatory Association (ILOA)
and Google Lunar X PRIZE contender,
Odyssey Moon Limited,
struck a deal to land an observatory on the lunar surface by 2011.
The observatory - a precursor instrument demonstrating both
observation and communication techniques - forms part of Odyssey
Moon's inaugural "MoonOne" lander mission payload, and a testing
ground for delivery of the International Lunar Observatory (ILO) to
the moon's South Pole region. The proposed ILO at present consists
of a multi-wavelength dish 2 metres in diameter and 3 metres high,
along with housing for the dish, solar panels and antenna for direct
communication with Earth. It would be delivered aboard Odyssey
Moon's "MoonTwo" lunar lander early in the next decade, and would be
the company's first step towards plans for a lunar base and
prospecting of the moon's resources. Location of an observatory at
the lunar South Pole would have several advantages over earth-based
observatories, for example, constant sunlight offers a limitless
power supply for use with solar panels, while permanently-shadowed
craters offers observations of extremely deep field objects. With no
air to distort observations, as well as ability to view in the UV,
X-ray and Gamma part of the spectrum, the observatory's only
disadvantage is that it would have access to a single hemisphere
dominated by the galactic centre.
Top
NASA and ESA over the last few months have been looking collectively
at how each can contribute to future lunar exploration missions (see
Comparative Architecture Assessment report). Studying concepts
from crew transportation elements to lunar outpost infrastructures
to surface exploration, both have developed along different paths of
research and reached different levels of expertise. As NASA looks to
ways of getting humans back to the Moon (e.g. using the Ares
rockets, the Orion crew exploration vehicle and the Altair lunar
lander...etc.,) to live and work there, ESA has offered the agency
three scenarios for future potential involvement. The scenarios
cover: (1) Stand-Alone Capabilities - such as, cargo landing systems
for help in transporting habitats on the Moon, as well as enhanced
communications and navigation systems; (2) Crew Transportation
Architecture Elements - for transporting humans into low-Earth orbit
in preparation to going to the Moon, along with development of a low
lunar orbiting station for mission safety and performance while at
the Moon; and (3) Dedicated Lunar Surface Exploration Elements -
that would look at enhancing existing surface habitation with
development in rovers for surface exploration. The scenarios, say
ESA, are similar to NASA's key capabilities that involve
transportation elements of the
Constellation Program,
however, the European agency don't expect any serious decisions will
be made as to their development and implementation until 2011. Given
that NASA are currently having budgetary problems which will likely
force the Orion spacecraft launch back by some months if not years
(expected to launch by 2015, but with an earlier 'possible' launch
by 2013), along with technical problems (with the heat shield,
dangerous level of shaking during launch, and a hard-to-open hatch
door - see 16.8Mb PDF
report),
ESA's scenarios might look very attractive right now to the American
agency.
Top
Presently, the proposed way to get astronauts to the Moon is,
firstly, launch an
Ares V rocket with a lunar stage capsule attached, secondly,
launch an
Ares I rocket with astronauts onboard, and finally, dock the two
in space, where the astronauts then separate in the lunar capsule
towards their destination. The Ares rockets - designed by NASA
engineers - thus seem from the outset the right choice for returning
man again to the Moon, so why is another former rocket design,
Jupiter, being currently reviewed by over 57 engineers? Is it
because it's proposed as being safer, cheaper and easier to build,
or is it because some NASA engineers - secretly and anonymously
working on it - have doubts about using the Ares as the way to go?
NASA Ares management say Jupiter (or the 'DIRECT 2.0' concept as it
is known) was looked at time of design, but it didn't compare anyway
near to Ares and its efficiency. The
DIRECT team that
proposed the Jupiter design, however, disagree and suggest that
their design is far superior and that NASA hasn't taken it into
serious consideration. DIRECT's proposal would use existing shuttle
hardware as well as the present workforce and could save billions in
the long run, however, as work has already begun on Ares with $7
billion in contracts awarded already, NASA say that abandoning the
program at this stage could shut down the space program for decades.
As some NASA employees are already facing job-cuts over the coming
years, is it any wonder then that engineers are looking at Jupiter
as an alternative - devoting their time and expertise (freely) -
just in case the Ares doesn't work?
Top
If you currently have one outstanding wish on your list this month
to learn more about the Moon, then the upcoming NLSI Lunar Science
Conference to be held at NASA's Ames Research Centre in California
is the place to be. Over the three day event beginning on 21 July,
participants are likely to see and hear some of the top lunar
scientists in the world today, as well as learn about the latest
cutting-edge research on lunar science. Topics covered include
anything from geoscience about the Moon to future missions, and
there's also discussions on exploration roadmaps and opportunities
for science sorties and commercial/entrepreneurial interests.
Several of the main scientists involved with the latest missions to
the Moon will give talks on Kaguya,
LCROSS, as
well as on other proposed concepts, and a series of lectures will be
devoted solely to the role a human presence on the Moon will play in
the future. The event will not only be of interest to those working
in areas of lunar science, but also for the many planetary
scientists who see the Moon as a stepping-off point for further
exploration of the planets. Registration closes on the 14 July, and
for more information about the upcoming event, see
here or this
small
PDF file (~ 82Kb) of attendees and lecturers.
Top
According to new research carried out by US scientists at Brown
University, Carnegie Institution for Science, and Case Western
Reserve University, our early-forming Moon may have had as much
water as Earth's upper mantle. The scientists base their findings
around analysis of volcanic glass beads collected during the Apollo
mission era, which show upto 5 part's per million (ppm) amounts of
water contained within. The scientists used a technique known as
secondary ion mass spectrometry ( SIMS)
that is able to measure minute amounts of water in rocks, as well as
their elemental composition. This technique was so good, in fact,
that the scientists were actually able to detect upto 46 ppm in the
lunar samples -- a surprising result that wasn't expected. If that
wasn't enough to go with, they also found from tests that hydrogen
must also have been present during the moon's early formation, and
not, as presupposed, having been contaminated through events such as
solar wind interaction or tainting from other volatiles. These new
findings may also say something about the abundance of water
contained within the early Earth before the Moon formed (the Moon is
thought to have been created from the collision of a Mars-sized
object with Earth). Thus, it leaves the puzzling problem of whether
water was completely vaporised in that collision some 4 billion
years ago, or was it recently added (geologically speaking) some 100
million years ago? Water was once believed to be non-existent during
formation of the Moon as most (upto 95%) was lost due to volcanic
activity, however, these new results point to the possibility that
while most water may have evaporated into space, some may have
drifted towards the poles as volcanoes spewed material into the
lunar atmosphere. Current theory suggest that some permanently
shadowed craters at both lunar poles contain water-ice deposits,
however, findings from the Clementine and Lunar Prospector missions
back in the 1990s conflicted and confused expectations. These
deposits were thought to have come from impacting comets or
water-rich meteoroids, however, this new research suggest that
volcanic activity may also have been a contributing factor. Several
missions planned to launch to the Moon in the very near future (see
LRO) may find these
deposits, however, as to their eventual origin, more studies and
research needs to be carried out. The team of scientists have plans
to analyse more Apollo samples over the coming months, so new
results from them may tell us more. For more information about the
research, see the latest edition of
Nature (must be a subscriber to access).
Top
Under a recent science mission directorate ( PDF
file here ~ 3.5Mb) issued by NASA and in cooperation with the
NASA Lunar Science Institute ( NLSI),
participants interested in receiving funding upto $10 million for
research should apply now if they have any proposals for future
lunar exploration. The proposals seek to address areas in science of
the Moon, on the Moon and from the Moon, and must include an
innovative, interdisciplinary lunar research program in goals and
objectives along NLSI's policies and philosophy. NLSI is located at
NASA's Ames Research Centre at Moffett Field, California, USA, and
is modelled after the NASA Astrobiology Institute, with teams across
the nation working together to help lead the agency's lunar research
activities. Participation is open to all categories of
organizations, both domestic and foreign, including industry,
educational institutions, non-profit organizations, and federally
funded research and development centres. Upto seven funding awards
will be made, including one focused on exploration objectives, and
while each will include programs in education and public outreach to
strengthen public understanding of science, the main goals of the
institute are to strengthen the community of lunar scientists and
encourage students to enter this field. Proposals must be received
before 29 August, 2008. For more information, see
here (or
here for a more detailed PDF file on the funding) and related
news about NLSI below.
Top
The Moon is a wonderful place from an astronomical aspect, as its
lack of air and its1/6 that of earth's gravity environment allows
for constructing huge telescope mirrors on the lunar surface. From
natural mineral resources contained within the the lunar dust, all
one needs to do is mix in hardening composites like carbon-fiber to
produce a concrete-like material, and construct a parabolic-shaped
blank which could then be covered in reflective material like
aluminium. And that's exactly what a group of scientists at
NASA's Goddard Space Flight
Center in Greenbelt, Md, USA, have done! They've taken carbon
fibers, mixed them with crushed rock having the same consistency as
lunar dust, and produced a small 12-inch diameter-wide parabolic
blank which they then coated with reflective aluminium. The
scientists suggest that with these same applications on the Moon,
upto 50-metre-diameter telescopes could be constructed for half the
costs, and would have greater observing advantages over the same
sized telescope built on Earth. Optical telescopes consisting of
just one giant-sized mirror ranging several metres across have
already been constructed on Earth, however, it is possible to
produce the same-sized telescope using several smaller mirrors
grouped together(e.g. the Hobby-Eberly telescope). This technique
would be ideal for constructing a large telescope on the Moon, as
only a small piece of machinery need be set up to produce the small
mirrors, say, a metre across. An astronaut using the lunar dust and
hardeners could therefore produce hundreds of small mirrors from the
same piece of machinery over a period of time where they could then
be assembled together (possibly in a crater). Telescopes upto
50-metres wouldn't pose much of a problem using this technique, and
even 200-metre diameter-sized telescopes would be possible. With no
turbulent air to absorb or blur starlight, the huge telescopes could
see far into areas of the Universe not easily accessible from
similar-sized telescopes sited on Earth. The scientists presented
their research today at the 212th annual
American Astronomical
Society in St Louis, USA.
Top
Japanese engineers monitoring the recently-launched moon orbiter,
Kaguya, have come up with a unique way in presenting the varied ups
and downs of the lunar landscape - through music. The lunar-musical
setup is a simple one; based around transposing certain notes to
individual instances of data. After the engineers first download
altimeter data from Kaguya, they then set a unique key note and
frequency of music to each variance in height-level; which is then
allowed to play out a series of random notes relative to the lunar
landform's shape. The music played thus represents a particular
region of the moon's surface, and each tune is uniquely different to
the rest. Features, for example, like mountains or craters rims
produces a high note of music, while lower features like crater
floors or rille-clefts produces a lower note. To try out this unique
setup about the music and the Moon you can link to it
here (click the
'open' link when at the site). There are also several modes of play
that online participants can avail of - all done while you watch
both the orbiter's progress around the Moon and the landform section
it has passed over.
Top
The amount of entries currently entered into the $30m X PRIZE
competition - to send a spacecraft to the Moon - now stands at 14
after four more competitors joined today. The four new entries
comprise of: Advaeros - a
spacecraft design company in Malaysia;
JURBAN - a robotics company
based in Baltimore, USA;
STELLAR - a aerospace technology company from North Carolina,
USA; and Mystery Team - an anonymous entry who will have to disclose
their company name before 20 July 2009. These four now join the
other ten entries: (1) "European Lunar Explorer" ( ARCA
- Bulgaria, Europe); (2) "Artemis Lander" and "Red Rover" ( Astrobiotic
- Carnegie Mellon University, USA); (3) "Shehrezade" ( Chandah
- Texas USA); (4) "Unnamed mission" ( FREDNET
- Multinational); (5) "Tumbleweed" ( Lunatrex
- USA); (6) "Human Lunar Lander" ( Micro
Space Inc. - Colorado USA); (7) MoonOne (M-1)" ( Odyssey
Moon - Isle of Man); (8) "Moondancer" ( Southern
California Selene Group - USA); (9) "Spirit of Southern
California" ( Quantum3
- USA); (10) "Unnamed rover mission" ( Team
Italia - Italy). The $30 million prize is divided accordingly
into three separate prizes: the First Prize (Grand Prize) of $20
million will go to the team who can successfully soft-land a
privately funded spacecraft on the Moon, use a rover to roam on the
lunar surface for a minimum of 500 meters, and transmit video,
images and data back to the Earth; Second Prize is $5m; and Third
Prize is $5 million in bonus prizes. There's a limit on time upto 31
December 2012 as to when the Grand Prize can be claimed; which
thereafter will be reduced down to $15m up until 31 December 2014.
If no team has been successful by then, the competition could be
terminated unless Google and the X PRIZE foundation choose to extend
it. The ten teams were chosen from over 500 entries (across 53
nations) since the prize was first announced six months ago, and
it's now all down to the best team to test their individual projects
over the coming years. Let the games begin!
Top
Dust floating around in any type of environment where people on
Earth work can affect the state of breathing of the person, and
possibly the future state of their health over a prolonged period.
But for astronauts that will soon live on the Moon for long periods
of time in a reduced gravity environment (about 1/6 of Earth's),
dust particles indirectly inhaled by them may not be removed by
their respiratory systems as effectively as they would on Earth.
Now, scientists of the National Space Biomedical Research Institute
( NSBRI) in Houston, Texas, are
evaluating how these small particles injected into the mouths of
participants behave during short periods of reduced gravity flights
onboard NASA's Microgravity Research Aircraft. The flight periods,
which involve a series of parabolic steep climbs and sharp
descents, can produce upto 30 seconds of low gravity time; during
which the researches monitor how the particles move around inside
the participant's respiratory system and end up in the lungs. Most
dust particles (of Earth and the Moon) can be coughed up, or moved
out of the lungs by cilli-like hairs, however, the NSBRI researchers
have found that particles less than 2.5 microns (a few millionths of
a metre) in size can cause the most damage. Only about one percent
of the lunar soil comprises of particles less than one micron in
size, however, other smaller particles - less than 100 nanometres
(billionths of a metre) - are so small that not only could they end
up in the lungs but they could also pass in the blood system. Once
in the blood, the whole body could then become detrimentally
affected! The NSBRI research is now looking into areas on limiting
the amount of time astronauts can avoid these extremes, and the
engineering prospects to inhibit intake of these harmful particles.
Obviously, better filter systems will play a main role in the near
future for keeping astronauts safe, however, as lunar dust also has
electrostatic properties which causes it to cling to everything,
these effects have the potential to hamper future lunar exploration.
TopThe Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)
- responsible for the KAGUYA spacecraft that launched last September and currently
orbiting the Moon - have released a new
map of its surface. The map was constructed from data taken with
the LALT (LAser ALtimeter) instrument onboard KAGUYA, which is able
measure the lunar topography through reflected laser light bouncing
off features like craters, depressions and other objects on the
surface. Contour levels on the map currently show only a kilometre
scale, so the resolution isn't that good for recognising small
craters and their characteristic details. But larger regions like
the maria - vast expanses of lava sheets found predominantly on the
nearside of the Moon (the side that continually faces Earth) - do
show some changes in heights in elevation not previously measured.
For example, Mares Crisium, Smythii and Humboltianum, found roughly
strewn across regions on the east side of the Moon, were found to be
4 km deeper below the global average of other nearside maria. Over
the coming months, LALT will be able to produce higher resolution
data sets of these regions as it works alongside another instrument
onboard KAGUYA called the TC (Terrain Camera). The TC can collect
high-spatial resolution stereoscopic images of the surface, and when
combined with the data taken by the LALT, the two will produce the
first global high-spatial resolution topographic map of the Moon.
Top
A new NASA organisation, known as the NLSI (NASA
Lunar Science Institute), will open this Friday 11 April 2008 as an
additional effort in support of the agency's goals towards future
lunar exploration. Through a series of funding programs that will
allow teams of scientists further their research in lunar science,
as well as giving support to current and future space missions to
the Moon, NLSI's objectives will be to develop a much stronger lunar
community in preparation for the next generation of investigators.
Upto four or five teams will be selected through a competitive
process based around their research, and funding is expected to be
around $1m to $2m per year over a four-year period. Topics proposed
by each team could include areas of solid basic science about the
Moon (astronomical observation), or of actual experiments conducted
from the Moon itself. The new organisation is being supported by
NASA's Science Mission Directorate and Exploration Systems Mission
Directorate, and will be managed by their office based in
Ames Research Centre
at Moffet Field, California. First funding for the teams chosen will
begin early in 2009. Top
Two research proposals for the upcoming Lunar
Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO)
mission expected to launch in October 2008 will look at the
electrical properties of lunar dust and water-ice deposits on the
Moon. The first, called the "Mapping Lunar Surface Electric Fields
and Characterizing the Exospheric Dust Environment") will
investigate how electrical fields on the lunar surface are
propelling dust across the Moon. Lunar dust, which becomes
electrostatically-charged as it moves across the surface, sticks to
almost everything - astronaut suits, robotic rovers and instruments
- and is generally regarded as a nuisance, if not a hazard, to
working astronauts. Not enough is known about how much becomes
charged, how much is transported, where it moves most across the
lunar surface, or how its effects will hamper lunar exploration.
NASA decided this area needs to be researched more, and when
finished, they should have a better map of its impact - not only to
the future proposed missions - but also how it together with a human
presence on the Moon will affect the lunar environment. The second
proposal, called the "Enhancement of Lunar Exploration Neutron
Detector Mission Operations and Science Return", will investigate
how neutron particles - created as a result of cosmic rays striking
the lunar surface - are slowed down due to the presence of hydrogen
in the soil. By monitoring the neutron speeds, particularly at the
pole regions first detected by the Lunar Prospector mission in 1999,
their hydrogen relationship to water-ice (H2O) could suggest
potential deposits for exploitation in a future lunar base. Water -
either as a free resource in the lunar soil or having to be
transported from Earth to the Moon - will be an essential
requirement for future lunar exploration. Not only can it be used to
grow food in laboratories on the Moon, but it can also be broken
down into hydrogen and oxygen for use as rocket fuel and breathable
oxygen. Both proposals will be backed up by instruments already
onboard LRO (see list of
instruments), and are being funded by NASA through the
Goddard Space Flight Centre
in Greenbelt, Md., who are building and managing LRO.
Top
Within the next year or so the cremated
remains of yourself or your loved ones could soon find their final
resting place...on the lunar surface. Pioneer and global leader in
Memorial Spaceflight, Celestis
Inc., have teamed up with two other companies -
Odyssey Moon Limited and
Astrobotic
Technology, Inc. - in a unusual business opportunity where
anyone can have their family member's or friend's cremated remains
sent to the Moon onboard a spacecraft. As the two companies have
already announced plans to conduct privately funded lander missions
to the Moon in the very near future, the cremated remains (stored
inside special capsules and attached to the spacecraft) would create
a permanent memorial to those on board. Celestis Inc. already has
experience in putting cremated remains into space and on the Moon.
They have conducted six memorial spaceflights todate; sending the
cremated remains of famous people like, Star Trek's creator Gene
Roddenberry and actor James Doohan (Scotty), into space, and a
symbolic portion of planetary geologist, Dr Eugene Shoemaker's,
cremated remains onto the moon's South Pole. In June of this year,
they will send the remains of upto 205 people stored within capsules
onboard a Falcon rocket in orbit around the Earth. Prices for
sending 1 gram or 7 grams of remains of one person into orbit or
onto the lunar surface range from $14,995 to $29,990 respectively,
while for two people (1 and 7 grams again) the costs range from
$22,493 and $44.985. Interested [living] parties can specify a
launch location from a list, or reserve a preferred flight for just
an extra 20% additional costs. A bargain? Top
New data from images taken by ESA's
SMART-1 lunar
spacecraft that ended its mission nearly two years ago indicate that
the moon's South Pole is more than a prime area of study for future
exploration. The images, initially taken with the
AMIE (Advanced Moon Imaging Experiment) instrument onboard
SMART-1, show that there are a lot more older craters in the region
than previously believed, and more potential sites for holding
water-ice deposits. AMIE took the images of the South Pole during
its two-year mission orbiting the Moon, and was able to observe how
light from the Sun struck certain craters and other landforms. More
importantly, however, it also observed regions that remained in
permanent shadow. These areas remain so cold all the time that it is
believed that the water-ice deposits, or different kinds of ice, for
example, iced water, CO2 water, ammonia water, ice of other
molecules etc., still remain lodged metres down underneath the lunar
soil. Such deposits are believed to have been delivered onto the
lunar surface by impacting comets and water-rich asteroids. A
previous mission, called Lunar Prospector, some years ago indicated
that such deposits existed at both lunar poles, but later analysis
of the regions by radar instruments on Earth indicated none existed.
As a result, controversy surrounds their true extent. The AMIE
images were analysed under a study project for robotic and lander
missions to the Moon; which in the near future will be used to set
up the first lunar base expected to begin around 2020. SMART-1 was
ESA's first 'Small Missions for Advanced Research in Technology'
that launched to the Moon on 27 September 2003. It was the first to
comprehensively map key chemical elements in the lunar surface, and
the second spacecraft to use ion propulsion (NASA's Deep Space-1
probe was the first) as a means of thrust to get it to the Moon. On
3 September 2006, the probe was intentionally crashed onto the lunar
surface near Lacus Excellentiae (Lake of Excellence) to produce
valuable information about impact events in general, and analysis of
the dust just beneath the lunar surface. Top
New data released by Japan's recently
launched lunar spacecraft, KAGUYA, show that its laser
LALT
altimeter instrument onboard is working fine. The instrument, which
uses laser light to produce altitude data of the lunar surface,
scanned the 100 km-wide Theophilus crater found north-west of the
Nectaris basin during several polar orbits of the Moon. The results
are very positive, and show agreement with previously obtained data
about the region. LALT transmits laser pulses to the Moon from
KAGUYA and the distance between it and the lunar surface is obtained
from the simple formula: distance = (light speed) x (round trip
times of laser signal) divided by 2. The laser light is transmitted
down to the surface as points once for every 1.6 km scanned, and
over the course of one year, LALT will have obtained more than 30
million points of data about the lunar surface, globally. Laser
instruments like LALT, known as LIDARs, are very precise in the data
they can obtain, however, the only problem is that they sometimes
can't collect data for regions not scanned in between laser point
and orbital intervals. As a result, only an average, overall
topographic image of the terrain can be estimated from the data.
Top
The
National Space Society (NSS) together with
Hadley Rille Books
are offering budding authors and the general public a chance to
write a short story about returning to and living on the Moon.
Winners will get a chance to be included in the print anthology -
Return to Luna, and receive a complimentary full-year-time
membership to both NSS with subscription to the award-winning 'Ad
Astra' magazine. The usual print guidelines apply - stories must
be previously unpublished and have no simultaneous submissions to
other publishers...etc., - and authors must stick to basic science
possibilities (no aliens, no faster than light travel...etc.,). The
submission deadline is now open up until 15 June 2008, and a panel
of judges including well-established authors will select the final
winners in late 2008. Both the NSS and Hadley Rille Books were
independently founded in 1974 and 2005 respectively and, currently,
both are the main source of promotion of space and science-related
topics through publications, periodicals and new emerging voices.
For more information about the competition -- see
here
for entrance and guideline details. The best of luck!
Top
The moon's South Pole region - a
location where a future moon base may be constructed - observed by
radar antennae dishes based in California suggests the area has a
much more rugged terrain than previously understood. The data -
gathered during a six-month period by three of
NASA's Deep Space
Network Goldstone Solar System Radar antennae at Goldstone
- is the best ever yet obtained since the region was previously
observed by the Clementine spacecraft in 1994. Clementine
systematically mapped the Moon at a resolution of about 1 km per
pixel on images, however, the Earth-based Goldstone data is nearly
50 times better with resolution of 20 metres per pixel (NB.
Clementine, in fact, had a resolution greater than 100 metres, so
the above increase in resolution may have to be revised). Scientists
used Goldstone's main 70-metre dish to bounce 500-kilowatt-strong
radar signals (90-minute-long radar stream)
at the lunar South Pole region, and collected the returned signal
using Goldstone's two other 'smaller' 34-metre dishes, which only
took two-and-a-half seconds roundtrip. The two smaller dishes were
some 13 km away, and upto three images were obtained at different
librations of the Moon. Librations allow hidden regions of the lunar
poles to be observed from the perspective of the Earth, as the
moon's rotational axis and plane of orbit in the ecliptic produces a
kind of 'nodding' and 'wobble' effect (not actually a physical
effect). The data indicate that the area has some very high
mountains (as high as 6000 metres in parts) and very deep chasms (as
low as 6000 metres in parts) which may prove challenging for
construction of a future lunar base. The data will prove invaluable
for design of the future lunar base - laboratories and habitats -
and how astronauts will work and live in the region.Top
Upto ten teams have now been registered
with the Google Lunar X
PRIZE - a princely sum of $30m to land a spacecraft on the Moon.
The ten teams' proposals come from various parts of the World - they
are (Mission/Country): (1) "European Lunar Explorer" (ARCA
- Bulgaria, Europe); (2) "Artemis Lander" and "Red Rover" (Astrobiotic
- Carnegie Mellon University, USA); (3) "Shehrezade" (Chandah
- Texas USA); (4) "Unnamed mission" (FREDNET
- Multinational); (5) "Tumbleweed" (Lunatrex
- USA); (6) "Human Lunar Lander" (Micro
Space Inc. - Colorado USA); (7) MoonOne (M-1)" (Odyssey
Moon - Isle of Man); (8) "Moondancer" (Southern
California Selene Group - USA); (9) "Spirit of Southern
California" (Quantum3
- USA); (10) "Unnamed rover mission" (Team
Italia - Italy). The $30 million prize is divided accordingly
into three separate prizes: the First Prize (Grand Prize) of $20
million will go to the team who can successfully soft-land a
privately funded spacecraft on the Moon, use a rover to roam on the
lunar surface for a minimum of 500 meters, and transmit video,
images and data back to the Earth; Second Prize is $5m; and Third
Prize is $5 million in bonus prizes. There's a limit on time upto 31
December 2012 as to when the Grand Prize can be claimed; which
thereafter will be reduced down to $15m up until 31 December 2014.
If no team has been successful by then, the competition could be
terminated unless Google and the X PRIZE foundation choose to extend
it. The ten teams were chosen from over 500 entries (across 53
nations) since the prize was first announced six months ago, and
it's now all down to the best team to test their individual projects
over the coming years. Let the games begin!
Top
Launch of India's
Chandrayaan-1 mission that was
scheduled to go to the Moon in April is now expected to be delayed
by upto two months. Reports by the Indian Space Research
Organisation (ISRO)
say the delay is due to another mission - a remote sensing satellite
called CartoSat 2-A - that they will have to launch first.
Chandrayaan-1 is India's first mission to the Moon devoted to
high-resolution remote sensing of the lunar surface. Onboard are
several instruments - an impactor that will help analyses of surface
materials, an X-ray spectrometer, a high-resolution laser-ranging
instrument, and a terrain mapping camera with 3-D imaging
capability. Also, as well as carrying scientific instruments from
both Bulgaria and the European Space Agency, Chandrayaan-1 will
ferry two NASA research instruments - the Miniature Synthetic
Aperture Radar, and a Moon Mineralogy Mapper which will carry out
high resolution mapping of the lunar surface and distribution of
various chemical elements and minerals. The Chandrayaan-1 mission
has an operational lifetime of upto 2 years, and will be put into a
lunar polar orbiter at an altitude of about 100 km. There, it will
look at the lunar surface in the visible, near-infrared, X-ray and
low energy gamma ray regions. If successful, ISRO hope to launch
another similar type mission in 2015. Top
The darker regions of the Moon are made
up of basalt lava deposits which extruded through fissures and
cracks; created as a result by giant-sized impactors that struck the
early-formed lunar crust. These impactors left behind huge basins
(Imbrium, Nubium, Crisium, Serenitatis, Oceanus
Procellarum...etc.,); their numbers of which across all of the Moon
amount to 45 in all. New research, however, conducted by NASA
scientist, Herb Frey - who initially studied Mars's dense mesh of
elevations using the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA)
instrument onboard the Mars
Global Surveyor mission - suggests that there may be another 47
basins hidden in and on the lunar surface, right next to
pre-existing basins. Frey's research is based around data he studied
from the
Unified Lunar Control Network - a combined grid of data gleaned
during the Apollo and Orbiter missions, as well as images taken by
telescopes on Earth - whose three dimensional selenodetic
coordinates (latitude, longitude, and radial position) indicate that
other, less obvious basins could also have been created because the
topography of the lunar surface shows so. The results, if true, may
indicate that the Moon was bombarded more by giant-sized objects
than was previously understood; opening up a whole new area of study
as to the moon's early history, and how these impactors moulded the
lunar surface we see today.
Top
Observational data from several
Earth-based radio telescopes of the Aristarchus Plateau - a raised
200 km rectangular block located in the vast lava flows of
north-eastern Oceanus Procellarum - suggests that pyroclastic
deposits in the region could one day be used for a future lunar
base. Recognized early in the Apollo days as being unique in its
geologic diversity, the plateau is famous for having one of the
largest sinuous valleys on the Moon - possibly due to a collapsed
lava tube that fell in on itself millions of years ago. The plateau
consists of unusually dark mantling material that rises 2 kilometres
above the 'smooth-ish' floor of Oceanus Procellarum; representing an
explosive stage of basaltic volcanism that filled the huge impact
basins across all of the Moon some 3.9 billion years ago (the Moon
is 4.6 billion years old). The vast deposits in the plateau are
composed of microscopic glass spheres as well as other species rich
in iron, and the scientists who conducted the research in mid 2007
say these deposits could someday be used for exploitation of say,
O2, H2,or halogens. Laboratory research on Earth has shown that bulk
lunar pyroclastic deposits (some tens of meters thick in the plateau
region) are much better suited for facilitating the mining and
processing requirements. Access to Oxygen resources at a lunar base,
for example, could be used in the future to keep astronauts alive
and for the burning of fuel for rockets. The resources could greatly
reduce overall costs of missions to a future base; which in other
circumstances would need to ferry these resources from Earth to the
Moon. The new data represent Earth-based radar images taken at 12.6
and 70 cm wavelengths respectively, and appear in the February 2008
issue of
Geology (Vol 36, Issue 2, pp 135-138)
Top
This Feb 12 -13, a team of US planetary scientists,
several astronauts and former NASA division directors will meet
privately at Stanford University - not to discuss plans for a future
lunar base on the moon's surface, but rather talk about abandoning
the concept entirely and instead send manned missions to an
asteroid. Under the NASA/Bush's Vision for Space Exploration a lunar
base is currently planned to begin construction by 2020. As it would
be used for further exploration to other planets like Mars by 2035,
the above dissenters say that by cancelling the construction of the
lunar base, a much earlier manned flight mission to Mars would be
possible; opening up the whole space exploration initiative that bit
quicker. The above plans are based upon suggestions from the team
that a lunar base, and construction of it through numerous trips of
machinery and equipment to our only natural satellite, will slow
down development in other areas of the space exploration program.
Moreover, the team suggest that as current interest in the Moon
isn't all that popular among the public, and that there's doubt to
the finances being available over the lifetime of the base being
built, wouldn't it be better now to stop the NASA/Bush program and
get a more viable manned spaceflight missions' program on track -
sooner rather than later. It's anyone's guess whether anything
coming from the meeting in February will change the way the current
US space exploration program is going, however, one might pose the
question - "is this team of scientists shooting themselves in the US
foot?". After all, the US isn't the only space program currently
planning to go to the Moon. China, Japan, India, Russia, Europe and
the UK all have plans someday to set up some kind of a base of their
own (eventually), or, get involved with a base from other countries.
If the US are off trying to land on an asteroid or on the planet
Mars, the country may loose out in terms of several areas of
research, developments and new technologies that would someday be
used for planetary exploration. Yes, they would undoubtedly have a
stake in someway in each of these projects and these countries
efforts, but would they hold the leading card anymore when it comes
to exploration of the Moon? No! One thing for sure, however, is that
the growing dissent about which way to take the next appropriate
step has to be debated more, and this meeting is surely not the last
of many to come.
Top .
A team of scientists working at the US
Naval Research, the US Air Force, and the University of New Mexico,
have detected the lowest-ever radar frequencies reflected from the
lunar surface. The data, gathered during a two-day experiment last
October using a high power transmitter located in Alaska called
HAARP (High Frequency
Active Auroral Research Program), show that it is possible to launch
high power radio waves towards the Moon and detect the reflected
lower frequency waves (of long wavelength) from its surface in Earth
transmitters. The reflected signals are weaker because of the long
distance they have to travel between the Moon and the Earth,
however, they can still carry back information about the the
properties of the moon's topography, after the low frequency radar
waves have propagated to varying depths below the lunar surface.
HAARP sent out the signals at both 7.4075 MHz and 9.4075 MHz
respectively, however, an array of antennae called the LWA (Long
Wavelength Array), currently being built in New Mexico for studies
of space physics and astrophysics, were able to detect the returned
weak signals. LWA is only designed to work below the 88 MHz edge
region of the FM band, however, in order for them to detect the
reflected lower frequencies from the Moon (~ 7.4075 MHz), the
antennae were equipped with specially designed digital receivers to
improve their performance. HAARP's full total power capability is
about 3.6 MW, and this was used to transmit pulses two seconds in
length every five seconds over a period of two hours each day - one
hour at each frequency. Such a pulse pattern makes the reflected
signals, arriving back from the Moon 2.4 seconds later, immediately
recognizable from the HAARP signal. Detecting the signals, however,
was not a simple case of direct observation between the Moon and the
Earth! Instead, the scientists had to use the underside of the
earth's ionosphere (the region of the Earth's atmosphere from 50 to
400 km in altitude) to detect the reflected signals as they passed
through it; which also allowed them to study the interaction between
the two - both the signal and the ionosphere. Overall, the
experiment demonstrated that the lower frequency signals were
possible to detect, and that HAARP could be used for future research
of the Moon using such a setup.
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Instruments onboard the EPOXI mission -
formerly called 'Deep Impact' - were successfully recalibrated
during a gravity-assist of the Earth as the spacecraft set a course
for encounter with a comet in October 2011. The recalibration
involved a high resolution camera, an infrared spectrometer and a
medium resolution camera onboard the spacecraft; whose main
objectives will be to study the comet's (comet Hartley 2) surface,
as well as look for extrasolar planets from three nearby stars. The
recalibration was necessary as the instruments onboard required a
different set of adjustments to those of other past missions that
conducted similar research in the cometary and extrasolar planetary
areas. As the Moon has been observed many times across all
wavelengths during other missions, comparisons of that data to data
taken by EPOXI allowed the engineers to make the necessary
recalibrations for the instruments onboard. The recalibrations took
place between the 29 and 31 December as EPOXI made its closest
approach to Earth in its orbit, and the lunar observations results
proved very positive with all instruments working fully and correct.
Deep Impact was launched in January 2005 and successfully impacted a
probe onto comet Tempel 1 on the 4 July 2005. As the spacecraft was
in excellent condition after the encounter, it was decided by NASA
to extend the mission by sending it to comet Hartley 2, and also
conduct extrasolar planetary studies before the spacecraft reaches
its objective in 2011.
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