[ Skywatchers ] [ Main Menu ]
48580
From: ryan, [DNS_Address]
Subject: more trash on the moon...
URL: https://www.sfgate.com/business/article/private-lunar-lander-blue-ghost-touches-down-on-20197424.php
|
Private lunar lander Blue Ghost aces moon touchdown with a special delivery for NASA By MARCIA DUNN, AP Aerospace Writer Updated March 2, 2025 7:44 a.m. CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A private lunar lander carrying a drill, vacuum and other experiments for NASA touched down on the moon Sunday, the latest in a string of companies looking to kickstart business on Earth's celestial neighbor ahead of astronaut missions. Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lander descended from lunar orbit on autopilot, aiming for the slopes of an ancient volcanic dome in an impact basin on the moon’s northeastern edge of the near side. Confirmation of successful touchdown came from the company's Mission Control outside Austin, Texas, following the action some 225,000 miles (360,000 kilometers) away. “You all stuck the landing. We’re on the moon,” Firefly’s Will Coogan, chief engineer for the lander, reported. An upright and stable landing makes Firefly — a startup founded a decade ago — the first private outfit to put a spacecraft on the moon without crashing or falling over. Even countries have faltered, with only five claiming success: Russia, the U.S., China, India and Japan. A half hour after landing, Blue Ghost started to send back pictures from the surface, the first one a selfie somewhat obscured by the sun's glare. The second shot included the home planet, a blue dot glimmering in the blackness of space. Two other companies’ landers are hot on Blue Ghost’s heels, with the next one expected to join it on the moon later this week. Blue Ghost — named after a rare U.S. species of fireflies — had its size and shape going for it. The squat four-legged lander stands 6-foot-6 (2 meters) tall and 11 feet (3.5 meters) wide, providing extra stability, according to the company. Launched in mid-January from Florida, the lander carried 10 experiments to the moon for NASA. The space agency paid $101 million for the delivery, plus $44 million for the science and tech on board. It’s the third mission under NASA’s commercial lunar delivery program, intended to ignite a lunar economy of competing private businesses while scouting around before astronauts show up later this decade. Firefly’s Ray Allensworth said the lander skipped over hazards including boulders to land safely. Allensworth said the team continued to analyze the data to figure out the lander's exact position, but all indications suggest it landed within the 328-foot (100-meter) target zone in Mare Crisium. The demos should get two weeks of run time, before lunar daytime ends and the lander shuts down. It carried a vacuum to suck up moon dirt for analysis and a drill to measure temperature as deep as 10 feet (3 meters) below the surface. Also on board: a device for eliminating abrasive lunar dust — a scourge for NASA’s long-ago Apollo moonwalkers, who got it caked all over their spacesuits and equipment. On its way to the moon, Blue Ghost beamed back exquisite pictures of the home planet. The lander continued to stun once in orbit around the moon, with detailed shots of the moon's gray pockmarked surface. At the same time, an on-board receiver tracked and acquired signals from the U.S. GPS and European Galileo constellations, an encouraging step forward in navigation for future explorers. The landing set the stage for a fresh crush of visitors angling for a piece of lunar business. Another lander — a tall and skinny 15-footer (4 meters tall) built and operated by Houston-based Intuitive Machines — is due to land on the moon Thursday. It’s aiming for the bottom of the moon, just 100 miles (160 kilometers) from the south pole. That’s closer to the pole than the company got last year with its first lander, which broke a leg and tipped over. Despite the tumble, Intuitive Machines' lander put the U.S. back on the moon for the first time since NASA astronauts closed out the Apollo program in 1972. A third lander from the Japanese company ispace is still three months from landing. It shared a rocket ride with Blue Ghost from Cape Canaveral on Jan. 15, taking a longer, windier route. Like Intuitive Machines, ispace is also attempting to land on the moon for the second time. Its first lander crashed in 2023. The moon is littered with wreckage not only from ispace, but dozens of other failed attempts over the decades. NASA wants to keep up a pace of two private lunar landers a year, realizing some missions will fail, said the space agency's top science officer Nicky Fox. “It really does open up a whole new way for us to get more science to space and to the moon," Fox said. Unlike NASA’s successful Apollo moon landings that had billions of dollars behind them and ace astronauts at the helm, private companies operate on a limited budget with robotic craft that must land on their own, said Firefly CEO Jason Kim. Kim said everything went like clockwork. “We got some moon dust on our boots," Kim said. |
48584
From: ryan, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: more trash on the moon...
URL: https://www.sfgate.com/business/article/private-lunar-lander-is-declared-dead-after-20208403.php
|
Private lunar lander is declared dead after landing sideways in a crater near the moon's south pole By MARCIA DUNN, AP Aerospace Writer Updated March 7, 2025 9:54 a.m. This photo provided by Intuitive Machines on Friday, March 7, 2025, shows the Athena, a private lunar lander, after landing sideways in a crater near the moon's south pole. (Intuitive Machines via AP) CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A private lunar lander is no longer working after landing sideways in a crater near the moon’s south pole and its mission is over, officials said Friday. The news came less than 24 hours after the botched landing attempt by Texas-based Intuitive Machines. Launched last week, the lander named Athena missed its mark by more than 800 feet (250 meters) and ended up in a frigid crater, the company said in declaring it dead. Athena managed to send back pictures confirming its position and activate a few experiments before going silent. NASA and other customers had packed the lander with tens of millions of dollars' worth of experiments including an ice drill, drone and pair of rovers to roam the unexplored terrain ahead of astronauts' planned arrival later this decade. It's unlikely Athena's batteries can be recharged given the way the lander's solar panels are pointed and the extreme cold in the crater. “The mission has concluded and teams are continuing to assess the data collected throughout the mission,” the company said in a statement. The bigger, four-wheeled rover never made it off the fallen lander, but data beamed back indicates it survived and could have driven away had everything gone well, said Lunar Outpost, the Colorado company that owns it. This was the second landing attempt for Intuitive Machines. The first, a year ago, also ended with a sideways landing, but the company was able to keep it going for longer than this time. Despite all the problems, the company's first lander managed to put the U.S. back on the moon for the first time in more than 50 years. Earlier in the week, another Texas company scored a successful landing under NASA’s commercial lunar delivery program, intended to jumpstart business on the moon while preparing for astronauts' return. Firefly Aerospace put its Blue Ghost lander down in the far northern latitudes of the moon’s near side. Firefly CEO Jason Kim reported Friday that eight of the 10 NASA experiments on Blue Ghost already have met their mission objectives. It's expected to operate for another week until lunar daytime ends and solar power is no longer available. The south polar region of the moon is particularly difficult to reach and operate on given the harsh sun angles, limited communications with Earth and uncharted, rugged terrain. Athena's landing was the closest a spacecraft has come to the south pole, just 100 miles (160 kilometers) away. That's where NASA is targeting for its first landing by astronauts since the 1960s and 1970s Apollo program, no earlier than 2027. The craters are believed to hold tons of frozen water that could be used by future crews to drink and turn into rocket fuel. Intuitive Machines has contracts with NASA for two more moon landing deliveries. The company said it will need to determine exactly what went wrong this time before launching the next mission. After the 15-foot (4.7-meter) Athena landed, controllers rushed to turn off some of the lander’s equipment to conserve power while trying to salvage what they could. In both landings by Intuitive Machines, problems arose at the last minute with the prime laser navigation system. Intuitive Machines' rocket-propelled drone, Grace, was supposed to hop across the lunar surface before jumping into a crater to look for frozen water. The two rovers from two other companies, one American and one Japanese, were going to scout around the area as well. NASA's ice drill experiment was activated before the lander's batteries died. How much could be accomplished was not immediately known. Several other objectives were accelerated and milestones met, according to the company. NASA paid $62 million to Intuitive Machines to get its three experiments to the moon. |
Responses:
None
48581
From: ryan, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: more trash on the moon...
URL: https://www.sfgate.com/business/article/here-s-a-look-at-moon-landing-hits-and-misses-20197443.php
|
a list of moon trash... Here's a look at moon landing hits and misses By MARCIA DUNN, AP Aerospace WriterMarch 2, 2025 CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Landing a spacecraft on the moon has long been a series of hits and misses. Last year, a spacecraft built by Intuitive Machines through a NASA-sponsored program put the U.S. back on the moon for the first time since the end of the Apollo program, but the lander ended up tipping on its side and operated briefly on the surface. Now another U.S. company — Firefly Aerospace — on Sunday added its lunar lander to the win list, becoming the first private entity to pull off a fully successful moon landing. Both U.S. businesses are part of NASA’s effort to support commercial deliveries to the moon ahead of astronaut missions later this decade. The moon is littered with wreckage from failed landings over the years. A rundown on the moon’s winners and losers: First victories The Soviet Union’s Luna 9 successfully touches down on the moon in 1966, after its predecessors crash or miss the moon altogether. The U.S. follows four months later with Surveyor 1. Both countries achieve more robotic landings, as the race heats up to land men. Apollo rules NASA clinches the space race with the Soviets in 1969 with a moon landing by Apollo 11’s Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. Twelve astronauts explore the surface over six missions, before the program ends with Apollo 17 in 1972. Still the only country to send humans to the moon, the U.S. hopes to return crews to the surface by the end of 2026 or so, a year after a lunar fly-around by astronauts. China emerges China, in 2013, becomes the third country to successfully land on the moon, delivering a rover named Yutu, Chinese for jade rabbit. China follows with the Yutu-2 rover in 2019, this time touching down on the moon’s unexplored far side — an impressive first. A sample return mission on the moon’s near side in 2020 yields nearly 4 pounds (1.7 kilograms) of lunar rocks and dirt. Another sample return mission from the far side in 2024 delivers rocks and soil from the less explored part of the moon . Seen as NASA’s biggest moon rival, China aims to put its astronauts on the moon by 2030. Russia stumbles In 2023, Russia tries for its first moon landing in nearly a half-century, but the Luna 25 spacecraft smashes into the moon. The country’s previous lander — 1976’s Luna 24 — not only landed, but returned moon rocks to Earth. India triumphs on take 2 After its first lander slams into the moon in 2019, India regroups and launches Chandrayaan-3 (Hindi for moon craft) in 2023. The craft successfully touches down, making India the fourth country to score a lunar landing. The win comes just four days after Russia’s crash-landing. Japan lands sideways Japan becomes the fifth country to land successfully on the moon, with its spacecraft touching down in January. The craft lands on the wrong side, compromising its ability to generate solar power, but manages to crank out pictures and science before falling silent when the long lunar night sets in. Private moon landing attempts A privately funded lander from Israel, named Beresheet, Hebrew for “in the beginning,” crashes into the moon in 2019. A Japanese entrepreneur’s company, ispace, launches a lunar lander in 2023, but it, too, wrecks. Intuitive Machines becomes the first private outfit to achieve a safe moon landing. The lander tipped over on its side in 2024, but worked briefly with limited communications. Another U.S. company — Astrobotic Technology — tried to send a lander to the moon the same year, but had to give up because of a fuel leak, eventually returning to Earth and burning up over the Pacific. There's another private rush to the moon this year after Firefly landed Blue Ghost, delivering experiments for NASA. Intuitive Machines and ispace also plan more moon deliveries. |
Responses:
None
[ Skywatchers ] [ Main Menu ]