Archive for July, 2024
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July 31st, 2024
Image credit: Honeybee Robotics/Inside Outer Space screengrab
What does a parking lot in Altadena, California have to do with the Moon?
First of all, that area is in front of Honeybee Robotics.
Secondly, a sky-high test structure was recently erected to spotlight the group’s LUNARSABER, thankfully the truncated acronym for “Lunar Utility Navigation with Advanced Remote Sensing and Autonomous Beaming for Energy Redistribution.”
Image credit: Honeybee Robotics
Deployable mast
“LUNARSABER stands as a cornerstone for lunar infrastructure by providing key utility services at a fraction of the cost and accelerating the lunar economy for all humankind,” Honeybee’s Vishnu Sanigepalli told Inside Outer Space.
The deployable mast uses the Honeybee technology called DIABLO for Deployable Interlocking Actuated Bands for Linear Operations.
Proposed at over 100 meters tall, Honeybee’s LUNARSABER is a deployable structure that integrates solar power, power storage and transfer, communications, mesh network, PNT (Position, Navigation, and Timing), and surveillance into a single infrastructure.
Image credit: Honeybee Robotics/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Range of services
Honeybee Robotics, a Blue Origin company, was selected last year for DARPA’s 10-Year Lunar Architecture (LunA-10) Capability Study to develop and integrate its technology.
The idea is for LUNARSABER to stand head and shoulders above the lunar landscape.
This Moon structure can host payloads at its base for other commercial services to interface with the system. Also, payloads can be mounted at the top of the mast to perform a wide range of services.
Image credit: Honeybee Robotics/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Partnerships
“We’re looking forward to partnerships with both commercial and non-commercial customers to host payload and services that will help accelerate lunar infrastructure,” Sanigepalli said as principal investigator of LUNARSABER on LunA-10.
Honeybee Robotics captured LUNARSABER’s capabilities during a demonstration of a scaled prototype. Take a look at this informative video on the project at:
Posted in 
That mysterious Chinese space plane has been newly caught on camera by a satellite watcher that has snagged new imagery of the high-flying robotic vehicle.
China’s space plane, now circling Earth on its third flight, was lobbed into orbit on December 14, 2023 by a Long March 2F rocket.
Space watcher veteran, Felix Schöfbänker in Upper Austria took the imagery.
Equipment used
Schöfbänker made use of a telescope having a 14-inch mirror and assorted gear capable of following satellites that keeps them automatically in the center of a field of view, finessing the equipment with a bit of input and corrections, he told Inside Outer Space.
“I make these images by taking a video during the flyover and then stacking (averaging out) and sharpening the best frames,” Schöfbänker said.
Possible design of China’s space plane.
Source: Homem do Espaco/Twitter
What’s seen?
The two solar panels that can be seen at the end aren’t visible on any of the computer renderings available online, Schöfbänker advised. “I am not really sure if they are solar panels or some other features like an antenna or something of that nature.”
In terms of size, the satellite spotter measures the craft to be more or less 30 feet (10 meters) in length, which would make it longer than the American X-37B space plane operated by the U.S. Space Force.
“But this could also be a bit off, since the angle that the plane is illuminated could hide certain features,” Schöfbänker said.
X-37B space plane. Image credit: Boeing/Inside Outer Space screengrab
The 10 meters length would still fit inside the booster used to rocket it into space, Schöfbänker added. “I can’t say anything about the wingspan since they aren’t visible in my images. But previous launches had to make small cutouts for the wings to fit.”
Orbit changes
Schöfbänker noted that the Chinese space plane appears to be oriented with the nose facing the front of the flight path, like a normal plane. The vehicle recently lowered its orbit to roughly 217 miles (350 kilometers) above Earth.
What China is gleaning from the craft’s third flight is unknown. That situation is similar to what the currently flying U.S. Space Force X-37B is accomplishing after its launch on December 29, 2023 and now 216 days into its secretive mission.
A gif provided by Schöfbänker:
Image credit: Firefly
Blue Ghost, mission one, is now being prepared for launch to the Moon later this year under NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative.
Built by Firefly, a private company in Cedar Park, Texas, Blue Ghost is being readied for final, pre-launch, environmental testing.
Image credit: Firefly/Inside Outer Space screengrab
“We’re still on track for a fourth quarter launch,” Risa Schnautz, Firefly’s communications director told Inside Outer Space.
Firefly has three current task orders through the NASA CLPS program, totaling more than $230 million in awards for Blue Ghost missions to the Moon in 2024 and 2026.
The CLPS undertaking is part of the NASA Artemis program to “reboot” the Moon with expeditionary crews with the intent to place a long-term base on the Moon.
Image credit: Firefly/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Moon manifest
Firefly’s first Blue Ghost mission is outfitted with 10 scientific instruments and technology demonstrations.
The payloads on Blue Ghost Mission 1 are built to carry out several first-of-its-kind demonstrations, according to Firefly’s website, such as testing regolith sample collection, radiation tolerant computing, and mitigating the problem of pesky lunar dust.
Here’s the Blue Ghost, mission 1 manifest and payload providers:
Image credit: Firefly/Inside Outer Space screengrab
— Lunar Instrumentation for Subsurface Thermal Exploration with Rapidity (LISTER): Honeybee Robotics (Blue Origin)
— Lunar PlanetVac (LPV): Honeybee Robotics (Blue Origin)
— Next Generation Lunar Retroreflector (NGLR): University of Maryland
— Regolith Adherence Characterization (RAC): Aegis Aerospace
— Radiation Tolerant Computer (RadPC): Montana State University
— Electrodynamic Dust Shield (EDS): NASA Kennedy Space Center
— Lunar Environment heliospheric X-ray Imager (LEXI): Boston University; NASA Goddard Space Flight Center; Johns Hopkins University
— Lunar Magnetotelluric Sounder (LMS): Southwest Research Institute
— Lunar GNSS Receiver Experiment (LuGRE): Italian Space Agency (ASI); NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
— Stereo CAmera for Lunar Plume-Surface Studies (SCALPSS): NASA Langley Research Center
NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter’s (LRO) LROC mosaic image shows Mons Latreille within Mare Crisium.
Image credit: ASU/NASA GSFC
Landing zone
To be lofted via a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, Blue Ghost will spend roughly 45 days in transit to the Moon, targeted for lunar touchdown in Mare Crisium.
Payloads onboard Blue Ghost are to operate for a lunar day – that’s about 14 Earth days.
Blue Ghost’s selected landing zone is near a volcanic feature called Mons Latreille within Mare Crisium, in the northeast quadrant of the Moon’s near side.
That locale, although miles away, was also where the former Soviet Union’s Luna-24 landed, gathered up specimens, and rocketed them to Earth in 1976.
Luna-24 came to full stop at the northwestern rim of impact crater Lev, on the volcanic plains.
Firefly video
Given a successful spot landing, Blue Ghost-carried experiments are intended to gather data about the Moon’s topside covering of regolith, geophysical characteristics, and the interaction of solar wind and Earth’s magnetic field.
Firefly has posted an informative video on the upcoming mission, available on X at:
Lights out for NASA’s VIPER ice-hound?
Image credit: NASA
That recent tough call by NASA to cancel the space agency’s VIPER south pole Moon rover mission continues to stir up lunar exploration supporters.
NASA’s pronouncement on July 17 to kill the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) project has irked several thousand (4,000+ signatures and counting) advocates for the undertaking, with people signing an open letter to Congress, requesting lawmakers to “refuse to authorize” the NASA verdict.
Recent photo shows engineers testing the VIPER rover’s wheel movement and rotation in a clean room at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Image credit: NASA/Helen Arase Vargas
VIPER status
Last week, during the NASA Exploration Science Forum staged by NASA’s Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI), a VIPER status report was given.
Anthony Colaprete, lead VIPER scientist, reported the rover last week completed acoustic testing, marking the completion of launch environmental testing.
There’s a number of post-acoustic tests and baselining for thermal vacuum (TVAC) testing which completes the VIPER environmental test campaign, Colaprete reported. All rover elements have already been through TVAC testing at the component level so as to minimize risk of issues at the integrated system level testing, he added.
Artwork depicts NASA’s VIPER, on the prowl for water and other resources.
Image credit: NASA Ames/Daniel Rutter
So what now?
There appears to be broad agreement on seeking a constructive route forward for the rover and its team.
The south pole machinery was dedicated to — as NASA’s first mobile robotic mission to the Moon, directly analyze ice on the surface and subsurface of the Moon at varying depths and temperature conditions within four main soil environments.
VIPER-supplied data was slated to be used to create resource maps, helping scientists determine the location and concentration of ice on the Moon and the forms it’s in, such as ice crystals or molecules chemically bound to other materials.
A close-up view of the area that were to be explored by VIPER, showing a nominal traverse route and highlighting permanently shadowed regions that may contain water ice and other volatiles.
Credit: NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio/Ernie Wright
Open letter…still open for signatures
“The decision to cancel the mission was taken by NASA without giving the wider VIPER team or lunar exploration community an opportunity to propose cost-saving solutions or alternatives to the dismemberment or scrapping of the rover,” the open letter explains.
VIPER’s projected landing site, the Nobile Region of the Moon’s south pole.
The rover is under the wing of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) and was built to scout about on the Moon for 100 Earth days, covering 3 cycles of lunar day and night.
Similar in size to a golf cart, VIPER weighs 992 pounds (450 kilograms). A distance on the Moon goal for VIPER was 12 miles (20 kilometers), carrying 3 spectrometers and a 3.28-foot (1-meter) drill.
Meanwhile, the open letter can be viewed at:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeIUzsdEiT8cbt7YqYE1RdctvtMaflyh3bc2M9HnH0C0Wpzww/viewform
Go to my earlier story — “VIPER Bite Marks: NASA Moons a Lunar Rover” — at:
https://www.leonarddavid.com/viper-bite-marks-nasa-moons-a-lunar-rover/
Boeing Starliner attached to International Space Station.
Image credit: NASA
Boeing reports that the over-the-weekend “hot fire” testing of Starliner thrusters is complete.
“The Starliner team completed a docked hot fire test of the spacecraft’s Reaction Control System (RCS) thrusters Saturday afternoon, and monitored its helium system, providing additional data points for the Crew Flight Test’s return to Earth,” Boeing reports.
Flight controllers commanded the sequential firing of 27 RCS thrusters on the troubled spacecraft. The docked to the International Space Station hotfire sequence was safely executed. Both NASA and Boeing “were very happy with the results,” the Boeing posting adds.
Image Credit: Boeing
Real-time feedback
Flight test astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were inside Starliner Calypso giving the team on the ground real-time feedback during the test.
In preparation for the return home, the Boeing statement adds, Wilmore and Williams will participate in two undock-to-landing simulations next week.
As explained in the Boeing statement, the one-pulse firings were designed to confirm the performance of each thruster.
“Aft-facing thrusters were fired for 1.2 seconds and all others for .40 seconds. Between each firing, the team reviewed real-time data and all thrusters performed at peak thrust rating values, ranging from 97-102%.”
Boeing “Doghouse” unit containing thrusters.
Image credit: Boeing
Next up
In addition, the Boeing statement continues, the helium system also remained stable. “Additionally, an RCS oxidizer isolation valve that was not fully seated previously, was cycled several times during today’s testing and is now operating normally.”
Next up is a Flight Test Readiness Review with the data gathered to be reviewed and included in “return flight rationale,” Boeing notes. “While a landing date has not yet been set, opportunities are available throughout August.”
Image credit: Boeing
Image credit: Land landing of Starliner.
Image credit: Boeing
Image credit: Image credit: Kwa-Mbili Lodge/NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/Mars Guy
A vein-filled slab of rock reconnoitered by NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover at Jezero Crater was already important evidence of water activity.
“But now the team has revealed that it’s the strange spots in between the veins that make this the most important rock yet found in Jezero crater,” explains Mars Guy, also changing his own video and teaching spot to become Steve Ruff, an associate research professor and Arizona State University’s School Of Earth and Space Exploration.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Poster child
But examining the spots in labs back on Earth would be needed to definitively address the question of life on Mars being detected, Mars Guy concludes. “This is exactly the scenario that the Perseverance mission and Mars sample return was intended to address.”
“It’s just that no one imagined that a rock with organic matter and leopard spots would become the poster child for the entire endeavor,” Mars guy concludes.
Image credit: Mars Guy
Heady headline?
But remarks one viewer of this most recent episode of Mars Guy:
“Supposing they prove the spots are biological in origin, and we look back at this as potentially one of the greatest of all scientific discoveries, let it be known NASA went with the headline: ‘Scientists Find Intriguing Mars Rock.’”
Go to this new episode of Mars Guy at:
Credit: Roscosmos
A 23-page document between Russia and China that spells out details for creating an International Scientific Lunar Station has been ratified by Russia and has now entered into force.
As posted on Russia’s official publication of legal acts, the agreement is between Russia’s State Corporation for Space Activities, Roscosmos, and the Chinese National Space Administration. The agreement was ratified by Russian federal law on June 12 and entered into force on July 18.
Image courtesy U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) in its “2022 Challenges to Security in Space” report.
“The purpose of this Agreement is to create an organizational and legal basis for mutually beneficial cooperation between the Parties in specific areas related to the creation of the International Scientific Lunar Station,” the document explains, as converted by Google Translate.
Valid for 20 years
The intergovernmental agreement is valid for 20 years, to be automatically renewed for subsequent 5-year periods “unless either Party notifies the other Party in writing through diplomatic channels of its intention to terminate this Agreement at least one year before the expiration of the initial term or the expiration of any subsequent period of validity.”
The agreement defines an International Scientific Lunar Station as a “complex of research facilities created with the possible involvement of international partners on the surface and (or) in the orbit of the Moon, intended for multi-purpose research work, including the exploration and use of the Moon, lunar observations, fundamental research experiments and technology testing, with the possibility of long-term unmanned operation with the prospect of ensuring a human presence on the Moon.”
Wu Weiren, chief designer of China’s lunar exploration program.
Image credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Scientific fields
Cooperation in accordance with the agreement centers on such scientific fields as:
1) lunar topography, geomorphology and geological structure;
2) the fundamental physical properties of the Moon and its internal structure;
3) composition and chemical properties of lunar matter (materials and geochronology);
4) cislunar space;
5) astronomical observations from the surface of the Moon;
6) observation of the Earth from the surface of the Moon;
7) biological and medical experiments on the surface of the Moon;
8) use of lunar resources (under the surface) and (or) in lunar orbit.
The cooperation between the countries is to be done within the framework of a Russian-Chinese Joint Data Center for Lunar and Deep Space Research.
Chang’e-6 scooping operation on Moon’s far side.
Image credit: CNSA/CLEP
Three phase agenda
Phase 1 of the agenda involves planned national missions by both Russian and Chinese lunar missions and “verification of technology to ensure a safe, high-precision soft landing on the lunar surface.”
Phase 2 is to be carried out in two stages.
— establishment of a control center to ensure the delivery of bulk cargo and a safe, high-precision soft landing on the lunar surface
— comprehensive work to complete the creation of a multinational logistics system, the design and creation of orbital modules (equipment) and modules (equipment) located on the surface of the Moon for power supply, communications, provision of transport services. Also, research, study and possible use of resources present on the surface (below the surface) and/or orbit of the Moon, and other potentially common technologies.
Phase 3 is study and development of the Moon, verification of technologies, and assistance to international partners in landing a human on the Moon using the completed multicast satellite system.
Image credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Those samples rocketed from the Moon to Earth in 2020 by China’s Chang’e-5 lunar return mission keep on giving new insights about resource extraction.
Researchers from the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and scholars from several Chinese universities, discovered ULM-1 (Unknown Lunar Mineral-1), a mineral crystal found to be enriched with water molecules and ammonium in the Chang’e-5 lunar samples.
Image credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Brought to Earth in December 2020, Chang’e-5’s cache of roughly 1,731 grams (61.1 oz) of lunar samples has been found to contain water molecules. The discovery of a hydrated mineral, (NH4)MgCl3·6H2O, in returned lunar soil samples contains water molecules that weigh approximately 41 percent of the total mass.
Chang’e-5’s landing and lob-to-Earth site was Northern Oceanus Procellarum, near a huge volcanic complex, Mons Rümker, located in the northwest lunar near side.
Map of Rümker region, target of Chang’E-5 sample return mission. Credit: Y. Qian, et al.
The research findings have been published online in the academic journal Nature Astronomy.
Preserved mineral
In an interview with China Central Television (CCTV), Jin Shifeng, associate researcher, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, explained that Chang’e-5 landed at a relatively high latitude on the Moon where the temperature dropped, so this mineral was able to be preserved.
Photo taking during Chang’e-5 surface sampling.
Credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
“Like the ice we see in daily life, these substances are very volatile,” Jin said. “We found that the hydrated mineral decomposed at a relatively high temperature of about 100 degrees Celsius on Earth, which is why it can be preserved in such a harsh environment on the Moon for billions of years.”
First direct detection
According to CCTV, the researchers said “this discovery signifies the first direct detection of molecular water within the lunar regolith, shedding light on an actual form of water molecules and ammonium on the Moon’s surface.”
Chang’e-5 return capsule holding lunar specimens.
Credit: National Astronomical Observatories, CAS
The origin and chemical form of lunar water had remained elusive, CCTV adds, “despite extensive laboratory research on lunar samples collected by NASA’s Apollo mission dating from the 1960s and 1970s.”
The mineral’s structure and composition bear a striking resemblance to a mineral found near volcanoes on Earth. Terrestrial contamination or the Chang’e-5’s lander exhaust has been ruled out as the origin of this hydrate, according to the study.
The researchers said the finding opens up new possibilities for the future development and utilization of lunar water resources.
Lunar crop fertilizer
Chen Xiaolong, a researcher at the CAS Institute of Physics, also told CCTV: “We know ammonium is a nitrogen fertilizer. We use ammonium bicarbonate on Earth as a kind of nitrogen fertilizer. In addition, this mineral contains a small amount of potassium, which is a kind of potash fertilizers. This discovery means there is a good chance for humans to survive and grow crops on the moon in the future.”
Wu Weiren, chief designer of China’s lunar exploration program.
Image credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
According to the paper – “Evidence of a hydrated mineral enriched in water and ammonium molecules in the Chang’e-5 lunar sample” — the presence of ammonium indicates “a more complex lunar degassing history and highlights its potential as a resource for lunar habitation.”
Long-term lunar station
The findings also suggest that water molecules can persist in sunlit areas of the Moon as hydrated salts, providing crucial constraints on the “fugacity” of water and ammonia vapor in lunar volcanic gases,” the paper notes. A definition of fugacity is measuring the tendency of a component of a liquid mixture to escape, or vaporize, from the mixture.
Utilizing on-the-spot resources on the Moon is to play a major role in establishing a long-term lunar station. China is eyeing the establishment of the basic model of an international lunar research station by 2035.
To access the Nature Astronomy paper, go to: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-024-02306-8
Image credit: ThinkOrbital/XTEND Design
It takes Olympic-size imagineers to extend and expand the sports envelope into outer space – so enter ThinkOrbital and XTEND Design, an architecture and design company.
“The Olympics, reimagined for the cosmos!” – that’s the view from ThinkOrbital, a “picture this” moment in space and time.
Image credit: ThinkOrbital/XTEND Design
“Athletes from around the world competing not just in cities, but in the vast expanse of space and even on the surface of the Moon! Our ThinkPlatform serves as the arena for the most awesome sporting events ever imagined,” Boulder, Colorado-based ThinkOrbital posts on X.
Image credit: ThinkOrbital/XTEND Design
Gravity-defying
“With the huge scale of the ThinkPlatform, we’re expanding the boundaries of what’s possible, creating extraordinary infrastructure for the new space economy, in-space manufacturing, military missions and gravity-defying sports! Imagine the spirit of the Olympic Games, set against the stunning backdrop of Earth and the stars.”
Image credit: ThinkOrbital/XTEND Design
As noted, the group’s “Director of Architecture,” Tom Rousek, head of XTEND Design and a partner company based in Prague and London, previously collaborated on building the infrastructure of the Olympic games in Rio de Janeiro and the Football world championship.
Let the games not only begin…but soar to new heights!
Artist’s concept of ThinkOrbital’s ThinkPlatform in low Earth orbit.
Image credit: ThinkOrbital/XTEND Design
Lights out for NASA’s VIPER ice-hound?
Image credit: NASA
That NASA decision to cancel the VIPER south pole Moon rover continues to stir up lunar exploration advocates.
NASA’s call to kill the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) project has irked roughly 2,500 people that have now signed an open letter to Congress, requesting lawmakers to “refuse to authorize” the NASA verdict.
There appears to be broad agreement on seeking a constructive route forward for the rover and its team.
The open letter can be viewed at:
https://forms.gle/bRzoLN5P66Ge2vzN9
Go to this Capitol Hill video at:
https://youtu.be/Z7ZVmrOuKQg?si=KLrJcFsD8EcGBq4r
Go to my earlier story — “VIPER Bite Marks: NASA Moons a Lunar Rover” — at:
https://www.leonarddavid.com/viper-bite-marks-nasa-moons-a-lunar-rover/
