Hiya, Jim.

No, this thing wouldn't fly on a CLV -- the stick isn't big enough for it. Remember, this is an unmanned version of the LSAM. It will need to fly on the Shuttle-derived heavy lift booster that will, in the manned flight profile, launch the LSAM and TLI stage. In these unmanned landings, they'll just go ahead and fire the TLI stage without waiting for a CEV to come up and man the thing.

That's why these unmanned landings will have such a cargo surplus -- they'll be flying, alone, with all the post-LEO delta-V available to manned mission, but without the additional mass of a lunar CEV and crew.

-the other Doug

Then this is not going to fly before the LSAM, because it fly on the first two missions of the CaLV

Yep -- if Bruce's information is correct, then this is the unmanned LSAM concept. It makes a great deal of sense; if you're going to develop an infrastructure, you ought to take as much advantage as possible of economics of scale. Use the same design over and over.

With that specification for the lander mass, I can't imagine anything else that could get it onto the Moon other than the CaLV.

-the other Doug

I don't see happening until the LSAM contractor is selected and its design completed.

If you check out the slides that Bruce has thoughtfully posted, especially the link that I've
included above, then you will notice that it appears that NASA is planning to launch RLEP-2
with an EELV. In particular, check out the 15th image of a slide, at
(http://www.digitalspace.com/presentations/leag-ssr-2005/rlep2/DSC09736.JPG)

The image is a bit fuzzy, but it does appear that launch is accomplished using an EELV.
If that is true, then RLEP-2 can launch at any time, without waiting for the development
of the CLV or the CaLV. in addition, if you browse through the slides, you will notice that
the RLEP-2 is big, but it is NOT an unmanned version of the LSAM, even though it does
provide a testbed for the RL-10 on a lunar lkanding mission. Therefore, the RLEP-2
does NOT have to wait for the development of the LSAM.

Another Phil

As I said before, use of an RL-10 will cause headaches for whomever flys it. More than an RTG.

Perhaps the vehicle is already built, as the Blue Origin sub-orbital hopper is said to be based on the flown DC-X design. Just remove the aeroshell! Remember too that one of the new NASA challenges is for a lunar landing analogue vehicle.

DC-X Propellants: Liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen. Propulsion: Four RL-10A5 rocket engines, each generating 6,100 kgf thrust. Each engine throttleable from 30% to 100%. Each gimbals +/-8 degrees. Reaction Controls: Four 440-lb thrust gaseous oxygen, gaseous hydrogen thrusters

See the URL below for absolutely no information whatsoever on Blue Origin:

http://www.blueorigin.com/index.html

Bob Shaw

Maybe so, but there still is no vehicle able to launch it

What it's supposed to be -- according to Mark Borkowski's talk ( http://www.digitalspace.com/presentations/...kowski-rlep.mp3 ) -- is a vehicle which can later be used, with little modification, as an emergency cargo carrier for any VSE crew that gets stranded on the Moon for a long period of time due to a stand-down of the manned VSE systems. That is, it is -- as he said -- " a lunar equivalent of the Russian Progress cargo carrier", capable of landing as much as 3.5 metric tons of payload on the Moon. Since RLEP-2's official payload is only about a ton, there are currently plans to request additional payloads on it provided by private companies -- as well as consideration of having it carry some equipment to the Moon in advance for the first manned expedition to Shakleton Crater.

HOWEVER; I'm also hearing fuzzy rumors that the current RLEP-2 project is in serious trouble -- which I'll hold off on until I have some details.

If there's an impactor mission using the Raytheon proposal, then it may take elements of their previously (allegedly successful) kinetic energy kill vehicle. I've cobbled together a graphic using elements from the Raytheon company site to give an idea of the vehicle - it's got an interesting take on attitude control/translation with rocket nozzles set, I presume, around the vehicle's CG.

Bob Shaw

Is posting that you are hearing a rumor the program is in trouble "holding off on it?"

No, it's just "holding off" on saying so flat-out until I have more confirmation and more details. I already got burned once yesterday, after all (although in that case, it was the result of concluding, logically I think, that when Ames called their proposal a "satellite", they meant a lunar orbiter and not a lunar impactor. Turns out they weren't that logical, and they REALLY needed a cutesy acronym like "CROSS"...)

In response to Bob Shaw: I DO have solid confirmation now that Cowing's right in saying that the rejected Goddard proposal -- with which Raytheon was associated -- was a hopper-lander, not an impactor. But it did use some of Raytheon's EKV technology. (I believe there's actually been something on the Web recently about this concept, if I can find it again; it wasn't called "Lunar Explorer" then.)

Bruce:

I suppose that the EKV technology, although intended to say 'helloCRUNCH' to incoming MIRVs was actually quite transferable to a Lunar hopper; it'd be nice to think that the legacy of DC-X may yet play a role, with the shade of Pete Conrad at the helm... ...it'd help with the precision landing requirement!

Bob Shaw

Cowing now confirms that RLEP-2 is in very serious trouble, precisely because the mission has been allowed to metastasize to grotesque proportions.
http://www.nasawatch.com/archives/2006/04/...changes_at.html :

"Mark Borkowski, director of NASA's Robotic Lunar Exploration Program (RLEP), apparently left NASA HQ last week. More personnel changes in RLEP lie ahead including the possible departure of Borkowski's Deputy John Baker. Meanwhile, reliable sources report that RLEP2 costs have continued to rise from the target range of $400 to $750 million to well over a $1 billion ($1.2 billion or more). Some talk of outright cancellation has been heard."

My Inside Source has not only been repeating that story for months, but naming the person he says was always at the heart of the mistake --who, according to him, is not even honestly mistaken, but involved in a deliberate flim-flam to bolster his personal career, and using his personal ties to Griffin to further that effort. Not wanting to lay myself open to a libel suit quite yet, I'll withhold the name for now -- but my Source says that he was actually trying to persuade Griffin to raise RLEP-2 to such gargantuan dimensions that the mission would, by itself, cost $4 billion.


My Source also says that the alternative plan for RLEP-2 has involved a somewhat more involved version of Goddard/Raytheon's little "Lunar Explorer" hopper unsuccessfully proposed as the piggyback craft for LRO -- and, indeed, judging from the alternative "point design" lander described in Borkowski's earlier slides on RLEP-2 ( http://www.digitalspace.com/presentations/...p2/DSC09739.JPG ), this seems to be true. If they fly RLEP-2 at all now, this is the more probable mission design. Given the extent to which Bush's lunar program is already being screwed up, though, who knows whether it will fly at all?

Bruce:

The mission design as shown in the slide at the URL below strikes me as being among the most perverse possible. Two landers is just strange, strange, strange! All the economies of scale work *against* this concept, which requires multiple unique duplicates of functionally identical technologies.

http://www.digitalspace.com/presentations/...p2/DSC09739.JPG

Bob Shaw

Many more presentations:

http://www.digitalspace.com/presentations/...ssr-2005/rlep2/

Rodolfo

I was just telling my pal:

"I can think of a way to make it even more cost-effective. It really makes more sense to use a separate Earth-orbiting satellite with artificial gravity to study the effects of prolonged 1/6 G and lunar-level radiation (which can be simulated) on Earth organisms -- especially since you can spin such a satellite at different rates to determine what level of G-force really IS necessary to keep Earth critters healthy.

"But if you remove that from the experiments on RLEP-2, then, instead of having to have two separate soft-landers, you can just make the mission out of a comsat injected into polar lunar orbit, plus the Hopper itself -- which would land on the sunlit rim (making photographic and scanning-lidar maps of the landing site), then hippity-hop down into the shadowed part of the crater (using the same scanning lidar to make safe landings), using (as I presume is already the plan) a neutron spectrometer and/or ground-penetrating radar to locate possible ice layers, and then drilling them up and running them through the RESTORE package [which has already been officially selected for RLEP-2, and which would analyze both the ice and -- to some extent -- the rock in the samples, and then actually try to process the ice to generate hydrogen and oxygen: http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/leag2005/.../01_sanders.pdf , pg. 19-21]."

Even in its current form, though, the Goddard/APL design is far preferable to Marshall's selected design. That, admittedly, is somewhat like saying that chicken pox is preferable to gonorrhea.

One of the charts seems to indicate a mid-2008 launch date for RLEP-2. Is that anywhere near feasible?

Actually, it's LRO (and its piggyback) that will be launched in October 2008. RLEP-2 -- even before its latest trouble -- wasn't set till 2011.

One thing that I strangely haven't seen mentioned as a planned object of study for the RLEP-2 lander, which would nevertheless seem to be extremely urgent -- not only for manned landers, but for unmanned ones -- is the dust problem, which seems to be right up there with radiation as the most devilish aspect of lunar exploration. The dust that's already known to be electrostatically levitated 10 km or more above the lunar surface is even being suggested as a serious problem for lunar-based astronomical observations!

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2005/pdf/2277.pdf

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2005/pdf/1899.pdf

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2005/pdf/1343.pdf

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2006/pdf/2217.pdf

...and there are already some proposals for ways to try to deal with it:

http://www.agu.org/cgi-bin/SFgate/SFgate?&...t;P41A-01"

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2005/pdf/1812.pdf

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2005/pdf/1422.pdf

Would it not be wise to have RLEP-2 study both the extent of the problem and test such possible alleviation techniques?

Isn't it about time that RLEP-2 receive a proper name? After all, RLEP-1 has
been known as the LRO for quite some time now.

My suggestion is Surveyor 8.

Is there any more news concerning the progress of RLEP-2? According to the
following link, the Phase A Kickoff should have occurred in March. Did I miss that
or is RLEP-2 in stealth mode now? Also, it seems that an SDR, a Systems
Requirment Review is scheduled for August.

http://spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=18895


Also, in the above article, it appears that JHU/APL will be designing the
RLEP-2 Lunar Lander. Can anyone confirm that NASA has approved
JHU/APL's role in RLEP-2?


Another Phil

I've got some genuinely reliable and wholly unambiguous inside info on this (not like the somewhat ambiguous stuff on which I recently made a disastrously mistaken interpretation where the LCROSS lunar impactor mission was concerned). But I'm not yet free to talk about the details. Suffice it to say that RLEP-2 is getting scaled WAY, WAY back to a rationally-sized spacecraft (without any major science downsizing), and that there is also some reconsideration of its science goals besides its hunt for polar ice -- with increased emphasis on lunar dust problems being, as I had hoped, a new high-ranked goal.

I heard it was going to be Delta II class. But I think it will have the same problem as LRO did flying on a spinning 3rd stage

I haven't heard anything about returning it to a Delta 2 launch -- but I can safely say that it will be MUCH smaller than that gargantuan thing they were talking about previously. Interesting possibility: if -- as I presume -- they launch it on an EELV, will there be enough extra payload capacity to carry two of these landers on the same booster?

Depends on $. How many solids will it take? Two LRO's could not fly on a standard Medium EELV. It would have to be one of the Intermediate versions

Let me repeat that the fact that RLEP-2 will be much smaller in size does not mean that its science payload will be cut -- at all. The original design was intended to be the first test of an unmanned cargo lander capable of landing fully 3.5 tons of cargo on the Moon's surface -- and since the total officially planned science payload weighs at most about a ton, they had enormous excess capacity which they were frantically trying to find something to fill.

PhilHorzempa said: "My suggestion is Surveyor 8." for a new name for RLEP-2.

I can't agree. I think a new design ought to get a new name. Repeating the old name is misleading. But I don't feel there's any urgency.


Phil

Back to LRO. I never understood the "problem" caused by the Delta II spinning third stage. Many spacecraft with lots of liquid propellant (Near, MGS, MCO, Odyssey, Messenger) launched with this stage with no problem. And the delta V to enter lunar orbit is about the same (1,000 m/s) than entering orbit arround Mars.

I guess the switch to EELV has been because of mass issues and/or political reasons (away from Delta II, more EELV launches).

Analyst

The spacecraft you mention all used bipropellant systems. LRO uses a monoprop system with significantly less specific impulse, so it needs more fuel for a given delta-v.

I asked the same question you did, but apparently the tankage involved was outside the experience base of previously-designed antislosh baffles. Probably could have been solved, but it was a development risk.

Thanks, sounds valid. On the other hand, Messenger does have a lot more delta V than 1,000 m/s, so a monoprop system using Messenger's tanks should give at least 1,000 m/s. They had trouble developing these tanks, but it has been done.

This brings me to another question: Why do never spacecraft (MRO, LRO) use monoprop systems? Biprop systems are working (see my post above) and are well understood and much more efficient. Is the reduced risk and complexity really worth the cost of a bigger launcher (Delta II vs. EELV) and/or less payload?

Analyst

The Delta II is already "bought". Now another user has to be found. No conspirancy here, NASA would rather keep missions on Delta II because it causes an artificial cost cap for the mission



The trades actually were in favor of monoprop for MRO. Other than MOI, a biprop, would not be needed. The benefits of simplification of the prop system and elimination of dual hardware was greater than the inefficienies of a monoprop.

I'll agree there, though perhaps 'Prospector', which was the name of the final planned component of the Ranger/Surveyor/Lunar Orbiter series of probes.

Very cool. Something sci-fi writers rarely seem to get, that kinetic-energy really is a very good way to dump energy into something. When people are busy shooting at each other in space someday, they will likely be firing bullets, not ray guns.

Oh please, Don - human beings would NEVER take their aggressions and
other primate behaviors into space.

Is there a sarcasm/irony face available?

FYI - It has already happened at least once. Salyut 3 had a self-defense
gun which it test fired. You can see it here:

http://www.russianspaceweb.com/almaz_ops2.html

I believe both Russia and the United States have developed anti-satellite satellites. Sven Grahn has a nice page about the Soviet Polyot experiments here: ASAT

When I was at Caltech around 1980, Seasat malfunctioned shortly after launch. There were many interesting rumors circulating about this satellite, from graudate students associated with JPL. One was that the military was able to Fourier-analyze the Seasat data to detect the wakes of nuclear submarines. The other was that the Soviet Union knew that and destroyed the satellite with ground-based laser while it passed over their territory. Just rumors of course...

That first rumor about Seasat's early demise got around a lot -- I remember seeing it somewhere in the science literature at the time.

It's certainly more plausible than the second rumor; if the Russkies had shot up Seasat, then the US could just have sent up a replacement -- and if the Russkies had shot that one down too, we would have been in Cuban Missile Crisis territory again in jig time.

I agree. I think they could have done it, they pretty much wrote the book on lasers and phase-conjugate optics, but I don't believe they would have done something that overt.

I would not be surprised if there was some negociation about the technology. One side being able to see submarines could be interpreted as strategically unstable. Nuclear submarines are a major deterant to first strike.

Oh wow, my 100th post. I'm not a Junior anymore. :-)

I recall reading some Congressional hearings transcripts on this. Basically, the testimony was that subs could not be detected by the Seasat SAR. Some ocean images were shown of where there were supposedly US subs. Of course, there was nothing that stood out visually. But nothing was said on signal processing the data to look at it in different ways, e.g., frequency domain analysis as mentioned above.

That said, however, the technology goes both ways. The US would have had more to lose than the Soviets from a space-based sensor capability that would render the oceans transparent. Unless, of course, there is a lag to one side acquiring the technology and the other side actually uses its technological advantage while it has it. Which happily never took place.

Who needs fancy and expensive laser weapons to wipe out
space satellites? Just send up a bucket of rocks and pebbles
and let them loose at 18,000 MPH.

Here is a drawing of the original Prospector robotic lunar rover:

http://utenti.lycos.it/paoloulivi/prospect.jpg

Here is the recent news, from NASAWatch, about changes in NASA's
unmanned Moon program. NASA has decided to pull management
responsibilty of this program from Ames and is awarding it to Marshall
(MSFC).

http://www.nasawatch.com/archives/2006/05/...yanks.html#more



Also, if you follow the link to Horowitz' letter, you will see that the program
name has been changed from RLEP to LPRP, the Lunar Precursor and
Robotic Program.

According to NASAWatch, this all came about because of political pressure
from Sen. Shelby of Alabama, home of the MSFC. NASAWatch decries this
political maneuvering, and I agree, up to a point.

As I see it, NASA and its budget are part of the world of politics, whether we
like it or not. NASA runs on money and those funds are provided by politicians.
Politicians will always look to help their constituents.

This brings us to the crux of this political game. Where are the Senators
from California when it comes to space? As far as I can tell, they are missing in
action. Has anyone ever seen Sen. Feinstein or Sen. Boxer at JPL for a Mars
landing or for the arrival of Cassini at Saturn? Those spacecraft are often controlled
and made at JPL in California. If Ames is getting projects pulled from it, then
it is up to Senators Boxer and Feinstein to make their objections known. I predict
we will not hear a peep from either Senator.

Therefore, if Sen. Shelby takes an interest in NASA and influences some of its
decisions, then hooray for him. He is a strong supporter of proper funding for
NASA and takes an interest in its success.

In strong contrast, the Senators from California don't even seem to know that NASA
exists.


Another Phil

This wouldn't be true if Sen. Shelby's demands also involved retaining RLEP-2 at its former gargantuan size -- which, thank God, they apparently don't. (Horowitz is simultaneously demanding that RLEP-2's total cost be cut to a maximum of $300 million.)

As for RLEP-2, I don't know enough to judge whether small or large is
preferred for this lunar lander.

Let me be a devil's advocate and ask why is the concept for a Gargantuan
RLEP-2 a bad idea?

Is it strictly cost? To me, using the RLEP-2 (or perhaps, it will now be called
LPRP-2) as an unmanned testbed for the LSAM might be a good path to pursue.
This would allow the evaluation of the RL-10 rocket engine and perhaps reduce
the risk and cost of the LSAM.

In addition, having a Gargantuan RLEP-2 unmanned lander would allow the
landing of a large scientific payload on the Moon. I imagine that once such an
unmanned lunar lander is developed, it could be used not only as a cargo carrier
for manned missions, but also as a strictly scientific probe that could study regions
of the Moon that won't be visited by people for some time.

If NASA also develops a large unmanned Rover, based on Apollo's LRV, then
the scientific utility of such an unmanned lander will be that much better.


Another Phil

Not at a cost of $2 billion or more, which was what the Godzilla version of RLEP-2 was coming to. NASA barely has enough money left to keep the VSE going even with the current drastic cuts in the space science program, thanks to Shuttle/Station.

See, this is what I read in the original detailed descriptions of the Return-the-the-Moon portion of the VSE. That the final unmanned phase, prior to manned landings, would include unmanned landings of the LSAM descent stage with a variety of exploration tools subbing for the ascent stage. These tools were intended to be used both in an unmanned mode and later to support manned operations. This mega-RLEP-2 concept would have to wait for the development of the CaLV, of course. It couldn't have been launched on anything smaller.

However, the most recent version of the "Gargantuan RLEP-2" seems to have been smaller, would not use the LSAM descent stage, and yet would have been serious overkill for the relatively simple unmanned tasks planned prior to manned operations. So, I can agree readily that, for the cost, such an overkill approach made little sense. If they were going to actually flight-test LSAM hardware, that would be one thing. But since that wasn't the plan, it makes more sense to scope this back to a less expensive lander.

Of course, I am of the opinion that the CEV/CLV is the only thing that's eventually going to get built before funding for VSE runs out once and for all. But if we can use the strawman of the VSE to get a few unmanned landers doing some decent science on the lunar surface again, I'll not complain.

-the other Doug

Any use of RL-10 before the CaLV would have hugh costs. No other launch vehicle has the capability to handle H2/O2 spacecraft




LSAM only has 1-2 missions before it is used for manned landings. Those same missions are the first use of the CLaV. Those 1-2 missions, which are manned, are to check out the LSAM. There is no unmanned use of the LSAM before this.

They also better come up with a better acronym for the manned lunar
landing vehicle. LEM and then LM were both easy to remember and
even catchy in the Apollo days.

This will matter when it comes to selling the project more than some
people might think.

Is anyone here working on LRO or know someone who does?


GMV To Provide Planning Software For Lunar Mission

Rockville, MD (SPX) Jun 19, 2006

GMV Space Systems Inc., a satellite ground segment software company, announced Sunday that its FlexPlan software has been selected to provide the mission planning and scheduling system for NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft.

http://www.moondaily.com/reports/GMV_To_Pr...ce_Orbiter.html

The Workshop on Lunar Crater Observing and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) Site Selection
October 16–17, 2006
NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California
First Announcement

Just a question, I can't seem to find any info that the LRO will be eqipped with cameras for imaging the lunar surface in the visible light range, just like Clementine did (R,G,. I am very excited it will produce a very precise elevation map, but we're not going to see a new, much more detailed (true colour) map of the whole moon?! Did I miss this, or is this true?

What do you experts estimate how long it will take until the elevation data will become "publicly" available, like they are for mars and Earth now?

Thanks for any feedback!