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NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now carrying out Sol 2959 tasks.

A recent drive by the wheeled robot of roughly 167 feet (51 meters) placed it in front of good outcrop to study, reports Lauren Edgar, a planetary geologist at USGS Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona.

Curiosity’s plan involved a “touch-and-go” – an opportunity to do short duration contact science before getting back on the road, Edgar adds. The rover was to acquire Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) and Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) observations of the target “Edinburrie” to systematically characterize bedrock as the robot transitions between stratigraphic units.

Drive to the southeast

Then Curiosity is to stow its robotic arm, Edgar explains, and have a short science block which contains Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) and Mastcam observations of a nodular bedrock target named “Bruggs” and a Mastcam tau to monitor dust in the atmosphere.

Curiosity will then continue making progress to the southeast with a drive of roughly 98 feet (30 meters), Edgar adds, towards a bright blocky area seen on the horizon,” Edgar reports. After the drive the rover will acquire imaging to help with context and targeting in an upcoming plan.

 

 

Also planned is another autonomously selected ChemCam Autonomous Exploration for Gathering Increased Science (AEGIS) target, and a ChemCam calibration activity. And last but not least, scientists will take a standard Mars Descent Imager (MARDI) photo to keep track of the changing terrain beneath the rover, Edgar concludes.

Following its December 1^st lunar landing, China’s Chang’e-5 robotic probe has collected a cargo of Moon samples, the China National Space Administration (CNSA) announced Wednesday.

The lander-ascender combination of Chang’e-5 finished the tasks of Moon sample drilling and packaging at 4:53 am Wednesday utilizing two methods of sampling, including using drills and a mechanical arm to gather specimens.

About 2 kilograms of samples are expected to be collected and sealed in a container in what scientists have described as a long “sausage-like package.”

Chang’e 5 is expected to work for about two days in a region to the north of Mons Rümker, a mountain overlooking a vast lunar mare called Oceanus Procellarum, or the Ocean of Storms, on the western edge of the Moon’s near side.

Positional adjustment

When the lander-ascender reached an altitude of 1.6 miles (2.5 kilometers) it conducted a rapid positional adjustment and continued approaching the lunar surface.

During the engine-assisted process, cameras on the lander-ascender took pictures of the landing site and transmitted them to computers to identify possible hazards on the surface such as large rocks so the craft could maneuver to avoid them.

The lander-ascender suspended its descent when it was about 328 feet (100 meters) from the Moon and hovered for a short time to carry out accurate detection of obstacles before continuing to descend at a slower, steady speed.

Next phase

After the collection and packing operations are completed, a 3,000-newton-thrust engine on the ascender will lift the hardware carrying the specimens to rendezvous and dock with the reentry module. It will transfer the lunar samples to the module.

At the proper time, the returner will then separate from the orbiter and carry the collectibles back to Earth, landing under parachute in north China’s Inner Mongolia.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To relive the Chang’e-5 mission to date, view this collection of videos at:

https://youtu.be/Py5cndfk3Jw

https://youtu.be/VS9zr6MrCiM

https://youtu.be/C5Bg0Xpz-ek

Also, go to: Simulation facilities applied to prepare for Chang’e-5 mission on Moon

China’s Chang’e-5 spacecraft successfully landed on the near side of the Moon late Tuesday and sent back images, the China National Space Administration (CNSA) announced.

According to China news groups, the spacecraft landed at the preselected landing area near 51.8 degrees west longitude and 43.1 degrees north latitude, citing a CNSA statement.

Chang’e-5 reportedly touched down on the north of the Mons Rumker in Oceanus Procellarum, also known as the Ocean of Storms, on the near side of the Moon.

Status checks

Under ground-control, the lander carried out a series of status checks and settings, preparing for around 48 hours of work on the surface of the Moon.

If all goes according to plan, the lander craft will stash about 2 kilograms of lunar samples and seal them in a container.

Following this specimen-stashing, the Chang’e-5’s ascender will take off and dock with the orbiter-returner combination in Moon orbit.

After the samples are transferred to the returner, the ascender will separate from the orbiter-returner.

The returner is then to transfer the lunar collectibles back to Earth, landing at Siziwang Banner in north China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

Kudos

The successful landing of Chang’e-5 was underscored by several U.S. space leaders.

NASA’s Thomas Zurbuchen, Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate noted post-landing: “Congratulations to China on the successful landing of Chang’e 5. This is no easy task. When the samples collected on the Moon are returned to Earth, we hope everyone will benefit from being able to study this precious cargo that could advance the international science community.”

Similarly, Clive Neal, a lunar scientist from Notre Dame said: “Congratulations to our friends and colleagues in China on what has been achieved so far. We all look forward to seeing the first samples returned from the Moon in 44 years. These will represent the first lunar samples returned in the 21st century – and I hope they will not be the last!”

 

Go to landing video at New China TV:

https://youtu.be/PsDX5eZcmks

China’s Chang’e-5 lunar mission — the country’s first attempt to retrieve samples automatically from an extraterrestrial body – is ready for a landing.

The Chang’e-5 probe’s lander and ascender separated from its orbiter and returner at 4:40 a.m. Beijing time on Monday, according to the China National Space Administration (CNSA) on the same day.

Sealed deal

Getting down and dirty on the lunar surface, then collect Moon samples for return to Earth, is a complex affair.

“We have never done a whole process of taking and sealing samples,” said Peng Jing, deputy chief designer of the Chang’e-5 probe system of China Academy of Space Technology, also a scientist with China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC).

Peng told China Central Television (CCTV) this aspect of the work mainly depends on several complicated structures including drilling, robotically scooping up rocks and regolith on the lunar surface, and then place specimens in a high vacuum sealing device.

“If the air enters the sealed device during this process or during the samples’ transportation, it might pollute the samples,” Peng said.

Lunar liftoff

Another tricky part of the Chang’e-5 mission is the liftoff from the Moon of the ascender.

“The main difficulty is that when we first land on the Moon, we would not know how the lander performs beforehand. Besides, the most crucial part during the launch is the fact that the targeted direction needs to be really precise. Only when we have especially designed such a direction and the ascender has entered the target orbit, can it be able to rendezvous with the orbiter-returner combination and conduct further flying processes,” Peng said.

Autonomous operations

The ascender will autonomously dock with the orbiter-returner combination and poses another tough challenge.

“We need to precisely anticipate the location and speed of the two spacecraft flying at the lunar orbit. Because the probes don’t match in size, our ascender weighs just around 300 to 400 kilograms during docking, while the combination weighs nearly 2,000 kilograms. Any error could knock off the smaller spacecraft, and that would make the docking job much more difficult than before,” Peng said. He added that the docking has a rather high requirement on accuracy, with an error range less than five centimeters.

If all goes according to plan, a successful Chang’e-5 mission would parachute back to Earth roughly 4 pounds (2 kilograms) of lunar collectibles, landing in Siziwang Banner in Inner Mongolia, north China.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Go to this CCTV video detailing the Chang’e-5 mission at:

https://youtu.be/0iMY8SVXmBQ

 

 

 

Dotting the moon’s harsh landscape are steep-walled holes known as pits. Also tagged as “skylights,” these features may lead to far-reaching, sub-surface lava tubes that were shaped billions of years ago by a then geologically lively moon.

 

New technologies are being harnessed that can allow exploration of skylights, lava tubes and caverns on the moon. Underground caves on the moon could double as comfortable domiciles for future expeditionary crews.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Go to my new Space.com story at:

Moon pit diver: This tiny rover could explore the lunar underworld

https://www.space.com/tiny-moon-rover-pitranger-explore-lunar-underworld

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover is now performing Sol 2956 tasks.

New imagery from the robot shows its surroundings and ongoing duties.

 

China’s Chang’e-5 lunar sample return mission has braked itself into Moon orbit on Saturday, one small robotic step to land, collect, and then deliver back to Earth lunar samples.

According to the China National Space Administration (CNSA) after the Moon probe had flown about 112 hours from Earth, an engine on the probe ignited when it was 400 kilometers away from the surface of the Moon and shut down after a burn of 17 minutes.

The orbit period of the craft – comprising an orbiter, a lander, an ascender, and a returner — is roughly eight hours.

After orbiting the Moon three times, which takes about one day, the Chang’e-5 will start braking a second time to enter lunar orbit with a perilune (low point above the Moon) of 200 kilometers, explained Meng Zhanfeng, design director of the Chang’e-5 probe in an interview with China’s China Central Television (CCTV).

Busy time

Afterward, the Chang’e-5 will face its busiest time.

At a designated time, Chang’e-5’s lander-ascender combination will separate from the orbiter-returner combination. Some China space insiders are suggesting a possible landing time of 4:30 AM, November 30 (Beijing Time).

While the orbiter-returner combination continues traveling along the orbit and prepares for a later docking, the lander-ascender combination will implement a soft landing on the near side of the Moon and carry out automatic sampling as planned.

Important tasks

“The sampling and preparation for take-off will be carried out within 48 hours after landing on the Moon,” said Liu Jiangang, chief dispatcher of the Chang’e-5 mission Beijing base.

“After taking off, the lander-ascender combination will conduct four remote-control operations to reach a position for docking, then it will dock with the orbiter-returner to transfer the samples. There will be dozens of important tasks that need to be done within a week,” Liu told CCTV.

 

The growing interest in extractable resources on the Moon may have a problem: there ain’t enough to go around.

Toss in for good measure the lack of international policies or agreements to decide “who gets what from where.”

A team of researchers believe tensions, overcrowding, and quick exhaustion of resources to be one possible future for lunar mining projects.

These views are fleshed out in a paper recently published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A.

Room for conflict

“A lot of people think of space as a place of peace and harmony between nations. The problem is there’s no law to regulate who gets to use the resources, and there are a significant number of space agencies and others in the private sector that aim to land on the Moon within the next five years,” said Martin Elvis, astronomer at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian and the lead author on the paper, “Concentrated lunar resources: imminent implications for governance and justice.”

“We looked at all the maps of the Moon we could find and found that not very many places had resources of interest, and those that did were very small. That creates a lot of room for conflict over certain resources,” Elvis adds in a Center for Astrophysics press statement.

 

Robust protection?

On one hand, while treaties do exist — like the 1967 Outer Space Treaty—prohibiting national appropriation—and the 2020 Artemis Accords—reaffirming the duty to coordinate and notify — neither is meant for robust protection, the researchers contend.

Tony Milligan, a Senior Researcher with the Cosmological Visionaries project at King’s College London, and a co-author on the paper said the biggest problem is that everyone is targeting the same sites and resources: states, private companies, everyone. “But they are limited sites and resources. We don’t have a second moon to move on to. This is all we have to work with,” he adds.

Local measures

Alanna Krolikowski, assistant professor of science and technology policy at Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T) is also a co-author on the paper. In her view a framework for success already exists and, paired with good old-fashioned business sense, may set policy on the right path.

“While a comprehensive international legal regime to manage space resources remains a distant prospect, important conceptual foundations already exist and we can start implementing, or at least deliberating, concrete, local measures to address anticipated problems at specific sites today,” Krolikowski said.

 

Scant resource locations

The researchers make the case that there is a risk that resource locations on the Moon will turn out to be more scant than currently believed.

“We need to go back and map resource hot spots in better resolution. Right now, we only have a few miles at best. If the resources are all contained in a smaller area, the problem will only get worse,” said Elvis. “If we can map the smallest spaces, that will inform policymaking, allow for info-sharing and help everyone to play nice together so we can avoid conflict.”

To access the paper – “Concentrated lunar resources: imminent implications for governance and justice,” (One contribution of 16 to a discussion meeting issue “Astronomy from the Moon: the next decades”) go to:

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsta.2019.0563

 

China’s Chang’e-5 mission remains on track for dispatching its lunar lander/ascender to descend within the northwest region of Oceanus Procellarum, also known as the Ocean of Storms. The craft is to land near Mons Rümker, a volcanic complex in the northern region of Oceanus Procellarum. 

Within 48 hours, a robotic arm of the lander-ascender will be extended to scoop up rocks and regolith on the Moon’s surface and a drill will bore into the ground.

“We plan to sample 15 times and collect a total of two kilograms of lunar soil,” said Liu Jiangang, chief dispatcher of Chang’e-5 mission Beijing base in a recent interview with

China Central Television (CCTV).

“In fact, the entire stay on the lunar surface, including sampling, scientific explorations, image formation and the preparation for the take-off, is only 48 hours. The time planned for the sampling alone will be about 20 hours,” Liu said.

Back to Earth

The ascender will depart the lunar surface with its specimens then dock with the orbiter-returner for transfer of the samples. This will be followed by the returner heading back to Earth when the geometric relationship between Earth and the Moon is suitable.

The returner, with the samples on board, will then reenter the atmosphere and land at Siziwang Banner in north China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in mid-December.

“In the process of returning, we will make six landing forecasts at different times to grasp the returning situation in real time to ensure the smooth recovery,” said Liu.

Uncertainties

Chang’e-5’s sampling duties are full of uncertainties, according to Peng Jing, deputy chief designer of the Chang’e-5 probe from the China Academy of Space Technology (CAST) under the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation.

“We are not sure whether the landing site is made of hard rock or loose soil, so we have developed sampling instruments for different scenarios,” Peng said in a Xinhua news agency story. “We developed two sampling methods, including drilling underground and collecting samples from the lunar surface, to increase the chance of acquiring more diverse samples.”

The packaging and sealing of the lunar collectibles also required an elaborate design to prevent leakage and contamination. Special care has been taken to avoid contaminating the lunar samples and limiting their scientific value.

Furthermore, the takeoff from the Moon of the ascender will also be a difficult task. Peng said the lander will act as the “launching pad” of the ascender. But the lander might not be horizontal and stable, possibly landing on a slope or complex terrain. “The spacecraft needs to conduct autonomous positioning and attitude determination during takeoff,” Peng told Xinhua.

Sampling system

China’s Chang’e-5 mission carries a Surface Sampling and Packing System developed by researchers at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU).

The system includes two samplers that can withstand 200 °C for collecting samples of lunar regolith in loose and sticky form, two heat-resistant near-field cameras for vision guidance during sample acquisition, and a packaging and sealing system for sealing the samples in a container, according to a PolyU statement.

Following lunar sample acquisition, a robot arm will, through vision guidance, lift the PolyU designed and made container and place it into the Chang’e-5 ascender. The ascender then heads off into lunar orbit, docks with the orbiter and transfers the sample container to the return vehicle for its journey back to Earth. During the rendezvous and docking, there is only a five-centimeter margin of error when controlling the two spacecraft.

The PolyU Surface Sampling and Packing System team is under the leadership of Yung Kai-leung. Readying the hardware was an effort that took from 2011-2017.

Professor Yung said: “The return of samples from the Moon is technically complex. It takes more than six prototype productions through various stages of space qualification procedures in order to complete the project, not to mention the pre-production research, system design, discussions and meetings in collaboration with the China Academy of Space Technology.”

In addition to the PolyU-provided system itself, a high-precision high-resolution 3D mapping and geomorphologic capability was developed by Professor Bo Wu from PolyU’s Department of Land Surveying and Geo-Informatics. Characterization of the Chang’e-5 mission’s touchdown terrain will be vital in selecting the final landing site.

PolyU researchers have an enviable track record, also developing a “Camera Pointing System” for Chang’e-3 in 2013 and for Chang’e-4’s farside landing in 2019. In addition, they developed a Mars Camera for the now en route Tianwen-1 in 2020. The “Surface Sampling and Packing System” will be used for the Chang’e-6 mission as well.

For a newly-released overview, go to this CCTV video at:

https://youtu.be/eITH7IwH4IE

Wu Weiren, the chief design engineer of China’s lunar project, said his country plans to build a prototype for a lunar scientific research station.

The prototype, which will consist of multiple detectors operating in lunar orbit and on the lunar surface, would carry out scientific and technological research on the Moon, as well as verify technologies for lunar resource exploration and utilization.

Speaking at the Wenchang International Aviation & Aerospace Forum, Wu said that, with the planned prototype, Chinese scientists will seek cooperative counterparts to build an international lunar scientific research station. “It will be likely located on the southern end of the Moon,” he said, according to China’s Xinhua news service and China Global Television Network (CGTN) reports posted today.

Space maneuvers

Meanwhile, the en route Chang’e-5 lunar probe successfully carried out its second orbital correction at 22:06 on Wednesday, according to the China National Space Administration (CNSA). The spacecraft made its first trajectory correction maneuver on Tuesday.

During the latest maneuver, the probe’s two 150 Newton engines worked for six seconds.

Reportedly, all systems of the probe are in good condition.

 

Chang’e-5 was sent moonward atop a Long March-5 Y5 carrier rocket, blasting off early on Tuesday morning, November 24, from the Wenchang Space Launch Center located in South China’s Hainan Province.

 

 

Chang’e-5’s lander/ascender is targeted for a touchdown in a large lava plain known as Oceanus Procellarum, or “Ocean of Storms” – a region in the Moon’s northwest corner and visible to the naked eye from Earth. During its 2-day “layover” on the Moon, the plan calls for collecting roughly 4.4 pounds (2 kilograms) of lunar specimens for return to Earth.

With its lunar collectibles onboard, the ascender will take off and dock with the orbiter-returner in lunar orbit. Following transfer of the samples to the returner, the ascender will separate from the orbiter-returner.

The sample-carrying capsule will reenter the Earth’s atmosphere and use a speed-reducing skip maneuver, then land under parachute at the Siziwang Banner in north China’s Inner Mongolia.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Go to New China TV video at:

https://youtu.be/cg3JcgVL_MM

Also go to this CGTN video at:

https://youtu.be/vSdPX8EIT3A