Lunar Mission Medley |
Lunar Mission Medley |
Sep 16 2009, 10:40 PM
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#1
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Newbie Group: Members Posts: 5 Joined: 15-September 09 Member No.: 4941 |
Hi, this is Morris Jones, a long-time lurker but new poster.
I thought it would be worth exploring a few lunar missions that don't seem to be discussed much at the moment. The exact fate of some of these missions is open to question. Let's see if we can work out what's going on. International Lunar Network: This was announced with fanfare a few years ago. Little more has been generally discussed. The whole thing seems to be going through committee meetings, with a lot of details unresolved. LADEE: Is this still on target? There were suggestions two years ago that cost overruns in the Mars Science Laboratory could gobble funds from this and other missions. This was later dismissed. Then MSL grew more hungry, and the subject was open to discussion again. GRAIL: Not much more talk, but apparently still actively in development. Luna-Glob: The recent delay in Phobos-Grunt could influence its own launch timetable. American Student Moon Orbiter: The silence is deafening. Reports on the status of any of these missions would be appreciated. Cheers, Morris |
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Sep 17 2009, 01:33 AM
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#2
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Solar System Cartographer Group: Members Posts: 10231 Joined: 5-April 05 From: Canada Member No.: 227 |
Check out the presentations here:
http://lunarscience2009.arc.nasa.gov/agenda The NASA missions you mention are near the bottom. This upcoming meeting: Annual Meeting of the Lunar Exploration Analysis Group November 15–19, 2009 Houston, Texas http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/leag2009/ Will be another source for updates on most of these missions. Luna-Glob obviously is a different matter but it and other upcoming missions might also be discussed there. The Student Moon Orbiter concept is not much more than that at the moment. Some suggestions are being considered... Phil -------------------- ... because the Solar System ain't gonna map itself.
Also to be found posting similar content on https://mastodon.social/@PhilStooke Maps for download (free PDF: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/comm...Cartography.pdf NOTE: everything created by me which I post on UMSF is considered to be in the public domain (NOT CC, public domain) |
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Sep 17 2009, 03:04 PM
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#3
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Member Group: Members Posts: 157 Joined: 22-May 09 From: Ireland Member No.: 4792 |
Not to mention Artemis ~ 2010 - 2012 (American) , or Lunar Explorer Orbiter ~ 2015 - 2016 (Germany)
John --------------- Mission's Page |
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Sep 17 2009, 03:07 PM
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#4
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Solar System Cartographer Group: Members Posts: 10231 Joined: 5-April 05 From: Canada Member No.: 227 |
I understood the German mission was cancelled.
Phil -------------------- ... because the Solar System ain't gonna map itself.
Also to be found posting similar content on https://mastodon.social/@PhilStooke Maps for download (free PDF: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/comm...Cartography.pdf NOTE: everything created by me which I post on UMSF is considered to be in the public domain (NOT CC, public domain) |
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Sep 17 2009, 10:58 PM
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#5
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Newbie Group: Members Posts: 5 Joined: 15-September 09 Member No.: 4941 |
The German LEO orbiter was cancelled, but there are now proposals for a German lander. This is all tenative. Germany faces an election soon.
Artemis is based on Themis, which is a particles/fields constellation already in orbit. Themis looked at the interaction of the solar wind with Earth's exosphere. The proposal is to extend this to the lunar environment. Do we have anything firm on this mission yet? |
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Sep 17 2009, 11:15 PM
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#6
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Solar System Cartographer Group: Members Posts: 10231 Joined: 5-April 05 From: Canada Member No.: 227 |
http://themis.ssl.berkeley.edu/news.shtml
"ARTEMIS P1 and P2 are the outermost two THEMIS probes, which commenced their low-thrust lunar orbit insertion maneuvers on July 20, 2009, slated to arrive at the moon in October 2010." So they are on their way. Phil -------------------- ... because the Solar System ain't gonna map itself.
Also to be found posting similar content on https://mastodon.social/@PhilStooke Maps for download (free PDF: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/comm...Cartography.pdf NOTE: everything created by me which I post on UMSF is considered to be in the public domain (NOT CC, public domain) |
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Sep 18 2009, 04:52 AM
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#7
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Newbie Group: Members Posts: 5 Joined: 15-September 09 Member No.: 4941 |
Canonical list of Upcoming Lunar Missions
By Morris Jones (September 2009) 2009 LCROSS impact (USA) 2010 ARTEMIS orbiters arrive in lunar orbit (USA) 2011 Chang'e 2 orbiter (China) 2011 GRAIL (USA) 2011? LADEE (USA) 2011? Astrobotic lander (Private) (?) 2011? Odyssey Moon lander (Private) (?) 2012 Chandrayaan 2 orbiter and lander/rover (India/Russia) 2012? Luna-Glob (Russia) 2013? Chang'e 3 lander and rover (China) 2014? MoonLITE (?) 2015? Chandrayaan 3 lander/sample return (India) 2015? International Lunar Network first nodes landed (USA) 2017 Chang'e 4 lander/sample return (China) Additions, corrections, etc invited. |
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Sep 23 2009, 11:13 PM
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#8
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Newbie Group: Members Posts: 1 Joined: 25-August 08 Member No.: 4317 |
Hello, I am another long-time lurker but new poster.
As far as I know the ASMO student project very likely has been canceled or frozen, but I guess that it might be difficult to get any official confirmation. The European counterpart - SSETI (in the past) and now 'pure' ESA Education Office ESMO - was many times delayed (due to many reasons, depending who you ask ). Now, it is scheduled to be launched in 2012. Personally, I rather think that this date will move to even more distant future. Unfortunately, in such projects the work is very often, if not always very slow. Many students come and go - and usually those who leave do not leave their knowledge and experience behind, leaving fresh new students as replacement, who often have to start from the beginning. Probably you might ask from where do I know such information - so let me write that for few past years I have been active in some student projects (in Europe) and from time to time, during some meetings or chats some other students from different projects informed me and others about developments in their projects. Regards Chris |
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Dec 29 2009, 11:22 PM
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#9
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Member Group: Members Posts: 172 Joined: 17-March 06 Member No.: 709 |
Artemis Update - It seems that the P1 Artemis lunar orbiter (aka Themis P1) has successfully performed Lunar Flyby #1 a few weeks ago on December 8, 2009. This sets it up for Lunar Flyby #2 on January 31, 2010. The other Themis/Artemis lunar orbiter, P2, will require only one lunar flyby, and that will occur on March 28, 2010. Artemis has a Twitter occount for frequent updates -
http://twitter.com/ARTEMIS_NASA In addition, here is the link to a very good summary of Themis and Artemis, including diagrams of the trajectories that P1 and P2 will take on their way to LOI for both probes in April 2011 - http://www.igpp.ucla.edu/public/THEMIS/SCI...ch_20080221.pdf A great mission for lunar science and trajectory analysts! Another Phil |
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Dec 30 2009, 05:28 AM
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#10
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Interplanetary Dumpster Diver Group: Admin Posts: 4404 Joined: 17-February 04 From: Powell, TN Member No.: 33 |
Here is another good source on this mission http://www.lpi.usra.edu/decadal/leag/KrishanKhuranav2.pdf
-------------------- |
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Jan 17 2010, 04:01 PM
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#11
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1729 Joined: 3-August 06 From: 43° 35' 53" N 1° 26' 35" E Member No.: 1004 |
Article about LADEE in this week's Aviation Week:
NASA To Apply Lessons Of Low-Cost Moon Mission |
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Jul 7 2010, 04:55 PM
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#12
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Member Group: Members Posts: 293 Joined: 29-August 06 From: Columbia, MD Member No.: 1083 |
Just heard a talk by Brian Morse, APL Program Manager for ILN/Robotic Lunar Lander. Basically the news is this...ILN is awaiting the decision and prioritization of the ongoing Decadal Survey. APL and MSFC are continuing technology development through the robotic lunar lander program. The recent announcement of the (still unfunded) Exploration Precursor Robotic Program could also see a lunar network or ISRU-type lander flying in the next 5 years.
The tall tent pole from a technology standpoint is getting the lander to keep operating and manage it's internal temperature during a 28 day long day/night cycle. So, the answer is some giant/heavy/expensive batteries or ASRGs. The weight of the batteries dictates larger/more expensive launch vehicles. Similarly, launching with ASRGs limits the launch vehicle to an Atlas 5 (the only nuclear-rated launch vehicle). That increases the cost of the mission. The Atlas 5 would actually have the capacity to launch 4 (!) ILN nodes at once. Falcon 9's would launch 2 of the battery powered nodes at once. |
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Sep 17 2010, 09:21 AM
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#13
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Member Group: Members Posts: 118 Joined: 18-November 07 Member No.: 3964 |
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Nov 2 2010, 04:19 PM
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#14
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Member Group: Members Posts: 753 Joined: 23-October 04 From: Greensboro, NC USA Member No.: 103 |
ARTEMIS update - both probes are now orbiting Earth-Moon Lagrange points per this article from NASA.
There's an excellent video linked in the article which gives a very clear illustration of what an orbit of an L1 or L2 Lagrange point looks like, both from the perspective of a fixed Earth-Sun baseline and then from a viewpoint centered on the Moon. -------------------- Jonathan Ward
Manning the LCC at http://www.apollolaunchcontrol.com |
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Nov 3 2010, 09:09 AM
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#15
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Member Group: Members Posts: 890 Joined: 18-November 08 Member No.: 4489 |
nice vid but what i would like to know is why they used the old historical Lunar Orbiter map at the end
time index 2:40 to 2:47 http://astrogeology.usgs.gov/Projects/Luna...wse/sr_simp.htm PS this map has been on my mind there was a discovery chan. show ,two days ago, on LRO( old prelaunch) that used this map from the `70's |
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