Search the Community
Showing results for tags 'lunar'.
Found 15 results
-
COTS for the Moon, it apprears the balloon has gone up. Bridenstine didn't waste any time. Contract value between $25.000 and $2.5 billion (!!) There are several small lunar landers getting ready to fly, but Blue Origin's Blue Moon lander is said to be good for 4 metric tons of cargo and SpaceX's BFS spaceship will be a monster. Presolicitation, https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&tab=core&id=46b23a8f2c06da6ac08e1d1d2ae97d35&tab=documents&tabmode=list
-
Here's how to watch NASA's historic Artemis I mission [Update]
zikalify posted a topic in Front Page News
Here's how to watch NASA's historic Artemis I mission [Update] by Paul Hill Update September 3: The mission has been scrubbed. There could be chances to try for launch on the 5th and 6th of September, but after that it'll have to return to the Vehicle Assembly Building until October. In a statement about the launch failure, NASA said: "The launch director waived off today’s Artemis I launch attempt at approximately 11:17 a.m. EDT. Teams encountered a liquid hydrogen leak while loading the propellant into the core stage of the Space Launch System rocket. Multiple troubleshooting efforts to address the area of the leak by reseating a seal in the quick disconnect where liquid hydrogen is fed into the rocket did not fix the issue. Engineers are continuing to gather additional data." We will update this post as necessary and bump it to the top of the news if a launch is likely to go ahead. NASA is due to launch its Artemis I mission in a little while. Its new Space Launch System (SLS) rocket will take the Orion spacecraft to space before the latter begins its journey to the Moon for an orbit. Aboard Orion will be some mannequins wearing the new spacesuits and a bunch of sensors just to make sure the suits are adequate. While there are no people aboard this mission, it finally marks the beginning of NASA's path back to the Moon. In 2024, Artemis II will send astronauts on a lunar flyby and in 2025 astronauts will go down to the lunar surface. There are many more missions planned through to the mid-2030s that will see a moon base established and a space station be built in orbit around the Moon. NASA has multiple streams for the event today, There's the official stream which will keep an eye on the rocket and a dedicated Artemis I broadcast. Here's the NASA live stream: Below, you can find the dedicated NASA Artemis I stream: This mission has been delayed so many times to date, so keep your fingers and toes crosses that nothing goes wrong, and we finally see the long-awaited launch! -
TWIRL 76: SpaceX to launch South Korea's first lunar mission
zikalify posted a topic in Front Page News
TWIRL 76: SpaceX to launch South Korea's first lunar mission by Paul Hill We have an interesting set of launches this week. The two that stand out are the launch of South Korea’s Danuri satellite which represents its first lunar mission, and Blue Origin’s latest New Shepard tourist mission. We’ve also got launches from Rocket Lab and United Launch Alliance (ULA). Tuesday, August 2 The first mission of the week will be performed at 5 a.m. UTC by Rocket Lab in New Zealand. The company will launch one of its Electron rockets for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). Due to the sensitive nature of the payload, details about it are classified. The mission has the name ‘Antipodean Adventure’. While the payload is classified, this won’t stop Rocket Lab from streaming the launch on its website. Thursday, August 4 The last three launches of the week all take place today. The first one will blast off to space between 10:29 a.m. and 11:09 a.m. UTC from Cape Canaveral. ULA will be launching one of its Atlas V rockets carrying the U.S. military’s sixth Space Based Infrared System Geosynchronous satellite, also known as SBIRS GEO 6. The SBIRS GEO 6 will act as a missile early-warning detection system. The rocket will also be carrying the EZIO 5 and EZIO 6 CubeSats as secondary payloads. The mission will be streamed on ULA’s website. The second launch is Blue Origin’s Mission NS-22. A New Shepard rocket will take off from West Texas Suborbital Launch Site, carrying six tourists to the edge of space. These missions tend to be quite short, with passengers experiencing weightlessness before the capsule falls back to Earth on a parachute. The crew includes Dude Perfect co-founder Coby Cotton, Portuguese entrepreneur Mario Ferreira, British-American mountaineer Vanessa O’Brien, technology leader Clint Kelly III, Egyptian engineer Sara Sabry, and telecommunications executive Steve Young. The mission is due to launch at 1:30 p.m. UTC and will be streamed on Blue Origin’s website. The final launch of the day, and week, is the launch of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 carrying South Korea’s Danuri satellite. Danuri, also known as Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO) will be placed in an elliptical lunar orbit where it will look for landing sites on the Moon and map out the surface. It will also run a communications experiment based on disruption-tolerant network technology, use NASA’s ShadowCam to find frost or ice deposits, and look for seasons changes and terrain changes inside craters. Presumably, this launch will be streamed on SpaceX’s website and is due for launch at 11:08 p.m. UTC. Recap Last week, China’s Wentian module successfully docked with the Tiangong Space Station. This week, we got some footage of the crew entering the new module. Next up, we got the maiden flight of the Lijian-1 from China. Finally, a Long March-2D took Yaogan-35 satellites into orbit. That’s all we have this week, check back next time! -
NASA plans to launch Artemis I lunar test mission in February 2022
Chandrakant posted a topic in Front Page News
NASA plans to launch Artemis I lunar test mission in February 2022 by Chandrakant Isi Named after Apollo's twin sister Artemis, NASA's lunar mission is getting ready for its first uncrewed test flight. As per the American space agency, the Orion space capsule has been stacked up with the SLS rocket and is ready for pre-launch tests for the next few weeks. The process will include a health and status check of various systems and communication lines between the spacecraft and ground control. Moreover, there will be procedures to ensure the functionality of different systems including core stage and boosters. As a standard protocol, NASA will also run a countdown sequencing simulation. Wet Dress Rehearsal will be quite crucial for the mission. Before you get any ideas, 'wet' refers to the loading up of supercold liquid propellants into the rockets. The team at NASA will also practice its ability to scrub the launch. It is only after the successful completion of the wet dress rehearsal, the American space agency will reveal the actual launch date for the Artemis I test mission. For now, NASA is aiming to get things up and running for the February 2022 launch window. The Artemis mission will enable NASA to return to the Moon. The US had successfully landed its crewed Apollo 11 mission on Earth's natural satellite in 1969. It was followed by six more missions counting up to Apollo 17. All of which made a successful lunar landing save for the number 13, which had to return to the Earth due to malfunction in the Oxygen tank module. This time around, the idea is to build the infrastructure required for long-term missions including the base camp on the lunar surface. The US will also establish the Gateway in lunar orbit, which will serve as a communication hub and space lab. This will be crucial considering that the International Space Station (ISS) is likely to retire in 2024 with a possible life extension till the end of this decade. The expertise from the lunar base camp will come in handy for humanity's future plans of setting up human colonies on the red planet. -
Jeff Bezos gives NASA an offer it can't refuse to win the moon mission contract
Chandrakant posted a topic in Front Page News
Jeff Bezos gives NASA an offer it can't refuse to win the moon mission contract by Chandrakant Isi In Godfather-like fashion, billionaire Jeff Bezos has made NASA an offer it can't refuse. In a bid to secure a manned lunar lander mission for Blue Origin, its Founder who also happens to be the wealthiest man on the planet has offered to waive $2 billion of payments. For those not in the know, this is a reaction to NASA's decision to award a $2.9 billion lunar lander contract to Elon Musk's SpaceX. Blue Origin has already managed to put this program on hold by filing a complaint with the Government Accountability Office (GOA) claiming favorable treatment to SpaceX. In a letter to NASA's Administrator, Bill Nelson, Bezos emphasizes how "meaningful competition" is crucial to take the Americans back to the moon, perhaps making you wonder how he feels about Amazon's monopoly in e-commerce. Bezos highlights that in April, only SpaceX was given a chance to revise their pricing, which led to their selection. The billionaire called it a "mistake" but stated it is "not too late to remedy". As a solution, Bezos has offered to waive payments of up to $2 billion. Mind you, it is not like Amazon Buy Now, Pay Later scheme. As mentioned in the letter, it is an outright and permanent waiver of those payments. Blue Origin is willing to accept a fixed-price contract and will take care of any cost overruns. Bezos believes that his offer takes care of "NASA's near term budgetary issues". As a result, the space agency can now afford to go ahead with the "dual-source" strategy for the Artemis program. NASA and Bezos' rival billionaire Elon Musk, have not yet commented on this offer. It will be interesting to see if $2 billion are enough to influence a decision at the most prolific space agency in the world. -
Japan agrees to provide important Lunar Gateway components
zikalify posted a topic in Front Page News
Japan agrees to provide important Lunar Gateway components by Paul Hill NASA and the Government of Japan have come to an agreement over the Lunar Gateway that will see the east Asian nation provide capabilities for the Gateway’s International Habitation module (I-Hab). The I-Hab is a key component of the modular space station as it includes life support capabilities and additional space where astronauts can live and work during Artemis missions. According to the American space agency, JAXA’s planned contributions include I-Hab’s environmental control and life support system, batteries, thermal control and imagery components. Once developed, these parts will be integrated into the I-Hab module by the European Space Agency (ESA) which shows just how much of an international effort this new space station is. Under a previous agreement between JAXA and Northrop Grumman, Japan will supply the batteries that’ll be used in Gateway’s Habitation and Logistics Output (HALO) – the area of the station where astronauts will go first once arriving at Gateway. Japan has also decided to take a look at its HTV-X cargo resupply craft to see whether it can adapt it for use in Gateway logistics resupply missions. Commenting on today’s partnership, Gateway program manager at NASA’s Johnson Space Center Dan Hartman said: “The capabilities provided by Japan are critical to enabling the interior environment of the Gateway allowing our crews to live and work for longer durations. With the life support systems from Japan, longer duration missions for the Artemis crews can be accomplished with reduced demands on logistics resupply.” The Lunar Gateway, which is set to orbit the Moon, will begin launching in January 2024. Initially, the Power and Propulsion Element and the HALO modules will be launched and eventually will be joined many other modules. The I-Hab, which Japan is developing components for under today’s agreement is set for launch in 2026. -
NASA finds water on the Moon's sunlit surface by Paul Hill Image of the Moon via Wikipedia Using a flying observatory called Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), NASA has confirmed that there is water on the sunlit surface of the Moon in one of the largest craters visible from Earth named Clavius Crater. The water at this location is in concentrations of 100 to 412 parts per million or the same amount you’d find in a 12-ounce bottle of water. If you were to ask most people, they’d tell you that there’s no water in the desert but apparently there is. According to NASA, the Sahara desert has 100 times the amount of water than what SOFIA was able to find in the lunar soil. The agency said despite the amount being small, it now raises questions about how water can persist “on the harsh, airless lunar surface.” Discussing the findings, Casey Honniball, the lead author on the paper detailing the findings, said: “Without a thick atmosphere, water on the sunlit lunar surface should just be lost to space. Yet somehow we’re seeing it. Something is generating the water, and something must be trapping it there.” Now that we know that there’s water on the sunlit portion of the Moon, scientists want to answer two more questions: how is it getting there? And how is it stored? In terms of how the water gets there, NASA has a few theories. One suggests that micrometeorites are raining down on the lunar surface carrying small amounts of water that could be deposited on impact. Another suggestion is that the Sun’s solar wind delivers hydrogen to the lunar surface and then undergoes a chemical reaction with oxygen-bearing minerals in the soil to create hydroxyl. Radiation from the barrage of micrometeorites could then be transforming the hydroxyl into water. Regarding the storage of the water, NASA suggests that it could be trapped in tiny beadlike structures in the soil that are formed out of high heat created by micrometeorite impacts. Another possibility is that the water is hidden between grains of lunar soil and sheltered from the sunlight. SOFIA will continue its observation of the Moon in additional sunlight locations and during different lunar phases to learn more about the production, storage, and movement across the Moon. Understanding the nature of water on the Moon will be essential to future lunar missions including Artemis that will see the first woman and the next man land on the Moon in this decade.
-
.thumb.jpg.9fa3200c7b9fb5634218bfcdcd10bf91.jpg)
Nokia to build the first cellular network on the Moon
Usman Khan Lodhi posted a topic in Front Page News
Nokia to build the first cellular network on the Moon by Usman Khan Lodhi When NASA makes a return to the Moon by 2024, it wants its astronauts to have an efficient and reliable way to communicate with one another. To make that happen, the space agency is turning to Nokia for help and providing the Finnish company a $14.1 million funding to roll out 4G on the Moon. Nokia has today announced further details about the project, which will pave the way towards a sustainable human presence on the lunar surface. The firm noted that deploying the first LTE/4G communications system in space will be extremely vital for NASA's Artemis program, which seeks to establish a sustainable human presence on the moon by 2030. The announcement read: “The network will provide critical communication capabilities for many different data-transmission applications, including vital command and control functions, remote control of lunar rovers, real-time navigation and streaming of high definition video.” Nokia said that its solution will be "ultra-compact, low-power, space-hardened, end-to-end LTE," and will be deployed on the Moon in late 2022. The firm plans to integrate its wireless communications system on the lunar surface in partnership with Intuitive Machines, a Texas-based private spacecraft design firm. Once the delivery is made, the network will automatically configure itself and establish the first LTE communications system on the Moon, Nokia noted. -
SSTL announces Lunar Pathfinder comms satellite with a launch due in 2022
zikalify posted a topic in Front Page News
SSTL announces Lunar Pathfinder comms satellite with a launch due in 2022 by Paul Hill The UK-based firm, Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL), has announced that it’s beginning work on a lunar data-relay spacecraft called Lunar Pathfinder. The spacecraft is expected to launch in Q4 2022 and will offer affordable communications services to lunar missions via S-band and UHF links to the Moon’s surface and orbit, and an X-band link back to the Earth. The 280 kg spacecraft will assist missions in the polar region and on the far side of the moon. This will allow projects to forego developing their own relay comms and use the more affordable Lunar Pathfinder. According to SSTL, the 2022 launch means it will be able to assist NASA’s Artemis programme which seeks to put the first American woman and the next American man at the lunar south pole by 2024 and in orbit around the Moon by 2028. Commenting on the project, Phil Brownnett, SSTL’s Managing Director, said: “Lunar Pathfinder will be the first commercial service to address the need for data relay around the Moon, and will not only demonstrate an innovative business idea, but we fully expect it to also stimulate the emerging Lunar market. By pioneering a commercial solution and service delivery model in lunar orbit, SSTL and ESA are opening the door to providing services to the solar system, and contributing to the scientific progress of deep space exploration.” Aside from its Lunar Pathfinder project, SSTL said it has also been working on plans for a constellation of spacecraft that it hopes to insert into lunar orbit. This will provide enhanced communications, including navigation services, on the Moon. It hopes this technology will help with activities “from exploration to commercial exploitation and even tourism.” -
Steam reported to hold special Lunar New Year Sale this February
+MJK posted a topic in Front Page News
Steam reported to hold special Lunar New Year Sale this February by Muhammad Jarir Kanji Steam's incredible Winter Sale 2017 concluded earlier this month but Valve is reportedly already looking to continue the festivities with a new sale aimed at the Lunar New Year. The report comes via Steam Database, a third-party site that seems to have a good grasp over some of the internal happenings at Steam. Their Twitter account today credited Steam Greenlight's successor, Steam Direct, for the leak as the new program has made publishing games - and therefore accessing details like upcoming sales - incredibly easier for individuals. The next @steam_games sale is Lunar New Year Sale and will run from February 15th to 19th. Thanks to Steam Direct, it now takes less than 5 hours for that information to leak. — Steam Database (@SteamDB) January 23, 2018 The company had previously held a similar sale to celebrate the Chinese New Year in 2016 but, oddly, decided to skip last year. If SteamDB's information is correct, the digital distribution platform is looking to bring back the tradition - and hopefully, it'll stick around indefinitely this time. The sale will run for a four-day period starting February 15. Though it's unlikely the selection of discounts on offer will match those founds on more prominent sales like the Winter or Summer sale, there are bound to be more than a few gems to be had on the cheap, making it a wise idea to mark the date. Source: Steam Database (Twitter) via VG247 For more gaming news and reviews, follow us on Twitter at @NeowinGaming! -
China and Russia aim for the moon with new agreement by Paul H. The governments of Russia and China are expected to agree a deal in October which could see those countries send manned missions to the Moon for the first time. The agreement will see the countries perform joint space exploration from 2018 to 2022. The agreement will help push forward current Luna missions and could even get humans to the Moon again. According to the Chinese news outlet, CGTN, the agreement covers five areas: “The bilateral agreement will cover five areas including lunar and deep space exploration, developing special materials, collaboration in the area of satellite systems, Earth remote sensing, and space debris research.” The two countries already have some proposed manned Moon missions, however, funding for the projects hasn’t been clarified and the proposed launch dates are more than a decade out, 2028 and beyond, that they could wildly change over the coming years. Russia’s most ambitious stated goal is the completion of a robotic lunar base set to launch in 2037. The multi-year agreement is not the first space agreement between the two countries, but due to its length, it’ll allow for grander plans to be achieved. Russia’s space program has suffered from a lack of funding since the collapse of the Soviet Union, by working together with China, the US and Europe, it’ll be able to cut costs. Source: CGTN | Image via NASA
-
Source and more
-
Source and more
-
Source and more
-
Moon Water Discovery Hints at Mystery Source Deep Underground
Crisp posted a topic in Science News & Discussion
Source and more
