Archive for the ‘Space News’ Category
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June 8th, 2024
“Wait-a-minute”
Image credit: Barbara David
In classic “wait-a-minute” style, back in mid-April, NASA requested proposals from industry to do a double-take on the costly Mars Sample Return (MSR) initiative to return samples of the Red Planet in the 2030s.
NASA is now moving forward with 10 studies to examine more affordable and faster methods of bringing samples from Mars’ surface back to Earth.
Image credit: NASA
The MSR seven
As part of this re-look, NASA will award a firm-fixed-price contract for up to $1.5 million to conduct 90-day studies to seven industry proposers.
Additionally, the go-ahead has been given to NASA centers, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and Johns Hopkins’ Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) to also crank out MSR re-evaluation studies in the hopes of improving MSR’s price tag and schedule.
Mars sample return to Earth – a major and multi-billion dollar undertaking by NASA, the European Space Agency.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Alterations or enhancements
Once all the studies are in hand, NASA will assess them to consider alterations or enhancements to the Mars Sample Return architecture, tagged by independent assessment groups as perhaps costing upwards of $11 billion to carry out.
NASA has announced that the following companies and their proposals were selected from among those that responded to the April 15 request for help in re-shaping the MSR undertaking. They are:
Lockheed Martin, Littleton, Colorado: “Lockheed Martin Rapid Mission Design Studies for Mars Sample Return”
SpaceX, Hawthorne, California: “Enabling Mars Sample Return With Starship”
Aerojet Rocketdyne, Huntsville, Alabama: “A High-Performance Liquid Mars Ascent Vehicle, Using Highly Reliable and Mature Propulsion Technologies, to Improve Program Affordability and Schedule”
Blue Origin, Monrovia, California: “Leveraging Artemis for Mars Sample Return”
Quantum Space, Rockville, Maryland: “Quantum Anchor Leg Mars Sample Return Study”
Northrop Grumman, Elkton, Maryland: “High TRL [Technology Readiness Level] MAV [Mars Ascent Vehicle] Propulsion Trades and Concept Design for MSR Rapid Mission Design”
Whittinghill Aerospace, Camarillo, California: “A Rapid Design Study for the MSR Single Stage Mars Ascent Vehicle”
The Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV) is a major and costly component of NASA’s robotic Holy Grail mission, a sample return effort to haul to Earth Martian collectibles.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Dumpster fire
All of this activity was sparked last September when an independent review board (IRB) released its findings after taking a diligent and detailed look at the flagship MSR project.
The IRB was established by NASA to judge the technical requirements, cost and calendar plans of the task. It was a thorough sanity check on how things were going for MSR…and things were found not to be going well.
For more information, go to my Scientific American story – “NASA’s Troubled Mars Sample Mission Has Scientists Seeing Red – NASA’s Mars Sample Return program is the agency’s highest priority in planetary science, but projected multibillion-dollar overruns have some calling the plan a “dumpster fire”” – at:
Posted in 
Image credit: SpaceX/Inside Outer Space screengrab
SpaceX has issued details of the company’s Starship Flight #4.
Lifting off on June 6 from Starbase in Texas, Starship “went on to deliver maximum excitement,” explains the posting, “attempting to go farther than any previous test before and begin demonstrating capabilities central to return and reuse of Starship and Super Heavy.”
“The payload for this test was the data,” explains SpaceX.
One engine out. Image credit: SpaceX/Inside Outer Space screengrab
What was accomplished?
Here are the performance stats:
- The Super Heavy booster lifted off successfully and completed a full-duration ascent burn.
- Starship executed another successful hot-stage separation, powering down all but three of Super Heavy’s Raptor engines and successfully igniting the six second stage Raptor engines before separating the vehicles.
- Following separation, the Super Heavy booster successfully completed its flip maneuver, boostback burn to send it towards the splashdown zone, and jettison of the hot-stage adapter.
- The booster’s flight ended with a landing burn and soft splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico seven minutes and 24 seconds into the flight.
Image credit: SpaceX/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Controlled reentry
— Starship’s six second stage Raptor engines successfully powered the vehicle to space and placed it on the planned trajectory for coast.
— Starship made a controlled reentry, successfully making it through the phases of peak heating and max aerodynamic pressure and demonstrating the ability to control the vehicle using its flaps while descending through the atmosphere at hypersonic speeds.
— Starlink on Starship once again enabled real-time telemetry and live high-definition video throughout every phase of entry, with external cameras providing views all the way to the flight’s conclusion.
— Flight 4 ended with Starship igniting its three center Raptor engines and executing the first flip maneuver and landing burn since our suborbital campaign, followed by a soft splashdown of the ship in the Indian Ocean one hour and six minutes after launch.
Major strides
In summary form, SpaceX explains that the fourth flight of Starship “made major strides to bring us closer to a rapidly reusable future.”
Data accumulated by the flight will drive improvements to develop Starship into a fully reusable transportation system “designed to carry crew and cargo to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars and beyond,” SpaceX concludes.
Go to SpaceX Starship Flight Test #4 video at:
https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=starship-flight-4
China’s Chang’e-6 lander/ascender in far side sampling scenery. Image taken by deployed Wi-Fi-toting mini-rover.
Image credit: CNSA/CLEP
China’s Chang’e-6 Moon sampling mission is set to return to Earth, loaded with its cache of far side specimens.
According to the China National Space Administration (CNSA), the mission’s orbiter/returner will circle the Moon for a projected 14 days before departure to Earth.
The combination will make one to three orbital adjustments over a five day period.
Cruising into position around 3,000 miles (5,000 kilometers) above the Earth, the returner segment will separate from the orbiter and start the phase of re-entering the atmosphere and returning to Earth.
Chang’e-6 scooping operation on Moon’s far side.
Image credit: CNSA/CLEP
Chang’e-6 drilling into lunar far side landscape.
Image credit: CNSA/CLEP
Parachute landing
The returner, carrying lunar samples collected in the South Pole-Aitken (SPA) Basin, will touch down at a planned landing area at Siziwang Banner in north China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.
That re-entry is projected to take place on June 25 (Beijing Time), according to informed sources.
Parachuting into the area will mark the end of Chang’e-6’s 53-day, to the Moon and back sampling mission.
Far side scenery taken by Chang’e-6 lander/ascender.
Image credit: CNSA/CLEP
Taking the heat as it maneuvers ever-deeper into Earth’s atmosphere before parachute touchdown.
Image credit: CNSA/CCTV
Stable status
“At present, the overall status of the Chang’e-6 is very stable,” Hao Dagong, an engineer at the Beijing Aerospace Control Center told China Central Television (CCTV).
The orbiter-returner combination will separate from the ascender, undergo trans-Earth injection, enter Moon-Earth transfer orbit, Hao said, then re-enter the atmosphere with recovery teams retrieving the sample-loaded capsule.
As the orbiter-returner circuits the Moon, it signals the second time China has achieved a probe rendezvous and docking in lunar orbit. China’s Chang’e-5 mission performed this scenario back in December 2020.
Fresh samples from the Moon delivered by China’s Chang’e-5 return capsule.
Image credit: Xinhua News Video/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Chang’e-6 departed from China’s sprawling spaceport situated in south Hainan Province on May 3, assigned the task of snagging and bagging the first-ever lunar samples from the far side of the Moon.
Ascender rendezvous and docking with returner craft for transfer of lunar samples.
Image credit: CNAS/CCTV
China’s Chang’e-6 robotic mission to pluck samples from the Moon’s far side achieved another step in bringing the goods home to planet Earth, targeted for a June 25 parachute landing.
At 2:48 PM (Beijing Time) the mission’s ascender vehicle rendezvoused and docked with the Chang’e 6 orbit-return vehicle combination in lunar orbit.
The container carrying the first lunar far side samples were transferred from the ascent vehicle to the orbit-return vehicle by 3:24 PM.
The successful transfer process followed surface sampling, stowage, and ascent stage liftoff from the floor of the Apollo basin on Tuesday morning, and entering lunar orbit, during which time it made four orbital adjustments to enable rendezvous.
Holding claws
“There were two steps in the rendezvous and docking process. After the ascender took off from the far side of the moon, it made four orbital adjustments in the lunar orbit to enter the preset orbit. Then, the orbiter-returner combination caught up with and got closer to the ascender. Finally, the docking was completed. The biggest challenge therein was stability,” Lu Yuntong from the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation told China Central Television (CCTV).
Image credit: CNSA/CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Wang Qiong, deputy chief designer of the Chang’e-6 mission, said that the docking apparatus of the Chang’e-6 mission is capable of precisely capturing the sample container and transferring it to the orbiter-returner combination, with the three pairs of holding claws playing an important role in the process.
“A pair of holding claws equipped onto the orbiter firmly clasped a bar of the ascender, after which the two spacecrafts closely got together. During the process, the container carrying samples were transferred from the ascender into the returner capsule,” Wang told CCTV.
“The docking process went very well today with high precision because it docked at the right time. If we missed this opportunity, there would be a collision. We got one chance only,” Qiao Dezhi, a space scientist at the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, told CCTV.
Mini-rover images Chang’e-6 lander/ascender.
Image credit: CNSA/CLEP
Next step: Moon-Earth departure
When the ascender was about 30 miles (50 kilometers) in front of, and 6 miles (10 kilometers) above the orbiter-return vehicle combination, the combination gradually approached the ascent vehicle through short-range autonomous control, and captured it with clasping claws, similar to the successful docking and transfer procedures of the Chang’e 5 nearside surface samples in 2020.
The orbiter-return combination will later separate from the ascent vehicle and prepare to return to Earth at an appropriate and optimal trans-Earth injection time.
Following the Moon-Earth transfer burn and the trip home, the orbiter and ascent vehicle carrying the sample container is scheduled to separate.
Taking the heat as it maneuvers ever-deeper into Earth’s atmosphere before parachute touchdown.
Image credit: CNSA/CCTV
If all continues to go as planned, the sample return capsule is expected to parachute into Siziwang Banner (county) in north China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region around June 25.
Note: Special thanks to James Head of Brown University for this update.
Go to this video posted on “X”:
Mini-rover images Chang’e-6 lander/ascender.
Image credit: CNSA/CLEP
Early in the morning of June 2 (6:23 AM, Beijing Time), Chang’e-6 successfully landed on the southern mare plain of the Apollo basin interior, in the northeast interior of the far side South Pole-Aitken (SPA) Basin.
During the following two days, the lander undertook surface operations, including sampling (drilling and scooping), depositing and sealing the samples in the ascent vehicle, and scientific investigations using the experiment complement onboard the lander.
Chang’e-6 lander/ascender image from the Moon’s far side.
Image credit: CNSA/CLEP
In the early morning of June 4 (7:38 AM, Beijing Time), the Chang’e 6 lunar ascent vehicle lifted off from the floor of the Apollo basin with the samples sealed in the ascent stage, beginning the complex journey back to Earth.
Image credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Tomorrow (Beijing Time) as planned, the ascent craft will dock with the orbiter and transfer the samples to the orbiter, in preparation for the trans-Earth injection burn, and the journey home.
Information courtesy James Head, Brown University
Go to these informative videos that detail what China’s Chang’e-6 mission has accomplished to date:
Taking the fall. Space hardware dives into Earth’s atmosphere with some fragments making their way to the ground.
Image credit: ESA/D.Ducros
Last March a high-speed cylindrical object weighing nearly two pounds shot through the roof of a Naples, Florida homeowner, smashing through a ceiling and punching through a floor.
NASA later confirmed that the object was an item from the International Space Station – a small leftover from a discarded, multi-ton pallet let loose some three years earlier.
Image credit: WINK News/Inside Outer Space screengrab
That occurrence and the follow-on confirmation that the errant object was, indeed, an old ISS battery-related part, has spun up worrisome views regarding the escalation of human-made refuse plummeting to Earth in an uncontrolled manner.
SpaceX: more trunk trash
Even more recent, more human-made space debris leftovers have been found to hot-foot their way onto terra firma.
SpaceX Dragon trunk debris falls into North Carolina.
Image credit: WLOS TV staff
This latest incident in late May is within North Carolina in which objects of various sizes and weights are being tied to surviving fragments of the jettisoned “trunk” associated with the SpaceX Dragon Crew-7 mission.
For a view of my new SpaceNews story – “Uncontrolled reentry of space debris poses a real and growing threat” – go to:
https://spacenews.com/uncontrolled-reentry-of-space-debris-poses-a-real-and-growing-threat/
Image credit: SpaceX
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has approved a license authorization for SpaceX Starship Flight 4.
“SpaceX met all safety and other licensing requirements for this test flight,” explains an FAA statement.
SpaceX has been eying a June 6 liftoff of the next Starship test flight.
For SpaceX details regarding the test flight, go to:
https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=starship-flight-4
As part of a request for license modification, SpaceX proposed three scenarios involving the Starship entry that would not require an investigation in the event of the loss of the vehicle.
SpaceX/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Scenarios
The FAA approved the scenarios, but if a different anomaly occurs with the Starship vehicle an investigation may be warranted as well as if an anomaly occurs with the Super Heavy booster rocket.
In addition, the FAA approved the mission profile that included a controlled and uncontrolled entry of the Starship vehicle.
If SpaceX chooses to execute an uncontrolled entry, the FAA statement explains, the company must communicate that decision to the FAA prior to launch.
Image credit: SpaceX
“As such, the loss of the Starship vehicle would be considered a planned event and an investigation will not be required,” concludes the FAA statement.
For details about the modifications and licensing go to:
Chang’e-6 lander/ascender image from the Moon’s far side.
Image credit: CNSA/CLEP
China’s Chang’e-6 lunar lander mission has lobbed far side snag and stash specimens into orbit around the Moon. The lander served as a temporary “launching pad.”
A 3,000-newton engine worked for about six minutes, pushing the ascender with its cache of lunar materials into lunar orbit.
If all continues on schedule, Chang’e-6’s ascender craft will carry out an autonomous rendezvous and docking with the mission’s orbiter-returner on Friday. After orbiting the Moon for around 14 days, the orbiter-returner combination will shove off on a Moon-Earth transfer orbit.
Ascender rendezvous and docking with returner craft for transfer of lunar samples.
Image credit: CNAS/CCTV
Mini-rover
The Chang’e-6 lander-ascender combination, separated from the orbiter-returner combination on May 30, touched down in the South Pole-Aitken (SPA) Basin on June 2.
From a post-landing panoramic image, the landing area was shown to be very flat.
“Looking into the distance, we can see some mountains, which are the edges of circular craters in the Apollo Basin located beyond the lunar surface,” said Ren Xin, researcher of the National Astronomical Observatories.
During sampling, the spacecraft adopted two methods of lunar far side sampling, including using a drill to collect subsurface samples, which lasted for about three hours, and grabbing samples on the surface with a robotic arm.
Mini-rover images Chang’e-6 lander/ascender.
Image credit: CNSA/CLEP
While not highlighted by China media, a mini-rover was deployed from the lander/ascender, a wheeled Wi-Fi-capable companion that imaged the scene before the lunar specimens were rocketed off the Moon.
This capability was showcased during China’s Zhurong Mars rover mission in 2021. Early in the mission, the rover deployed a Wi-Fi device that captured via an image the Red Planet lander and Zhurong rover positioned side-by-side.
Chang’e-6 pre-launch look with wheeled rover (left) attached.
Image credit: CNSA/CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Challenge ahead
Duan Chenglin from the Beijing Aerospace Control Center told China Central Television (CCTV) that the upcoming rendezvous and docking in Moon orbit of the ascender and returner craft is challenging.
Returner craft lets loose the sample container for landing on Earth.
Image credit: CNSA/CCTV
“Rendezvous and docking processes for the space station are very different from those in lunar orbits,” Duan said. The rendezvous and docking of Chang’e-6’s ascender with the orbiter-returner combination in lunar orbit “will be subject to limited capabilities of ground system, short window period for entering the Moon-Earth transfer orbit, as well as limited energy and sunlight, so it must be completed within the planned time.”
Duan added that if the first rendezvous and docking fail, to reverse it for a second try will be highly likely to risk the missing of the window for returning from the moon to Earth, with the returner never being able to come back.”
Capsule begins atmospheric re-entry.
Image credit: CNSA/CCTV
Back to Earth
Given success of rendezvous and docking, the Chang’e-6 probe’s ascender will transfer the samples to the returner, which will then bring the samples back to Earth.
After one to three corrections in about five days, the combination will reach a position above the Earth, where the returner will separate from the orbiter and start the phase of re-entering the atmosphere and returning to Earth.
Taking the heat as capsule maneuvers ever-deeper into Earth’s atmosphere before parachute touchdown.
Image credit: CNSA/CCTV
A capsule carrying the far side specimens will touchdown at a landing area at Siziwang Banner in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.
Parachuting to Earth, that touchdown will mark the end of the Chang’e-6’s 53-day journey of flying to the Moon and back.
Go to this informative video at:
https://www.facebook.com/NewsContent.CCTVPLUS/videos/817958543594501
Puzzle pieces.
Image credit: Leonard David
New revelations have come to light regarding “Project” Moon Dust, long known by Freedom of Information investigators as a clandestine U.S. Air Force operation to retrieve leftovers associated with re-entered objects.
Over the decades, for example, hardware from Soviet Union space missions was recovered for intensive study by specialized teams, items collected by U.S. or U.S. allies under the name “Moon Dust.”
The newly-issued documents were made available by the “Government Attic” website, a site that posts electronic copies of Federal Government documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.
Example of recovered space clutter in Indonesia, identified as part of a Russian Soyuz A-2 rocket. Not from Moon Dust documents (shown as example of types of hardware that survive re-entry).
Image credit: Thomas Djamaluddin
Delicate issue
Posted June 3 on Government Attic as “Department of State (DOS) Communications Regarding Recovery of Deorbited Space Debris (Moon Dust), 1967-1972,” the released collection offers an eyeful.
The just declassified communiqués underscore that recovered space objects from non-U.S. launching states were considered a “delicate issue” and pieces recovered were of great interest, as they can be exploited to provide valuable information on inspection.
For example, there’s chasing down Soviet Union rocket bodies associated with Cosmos 208 in Nepal, recovering spheres two feet in diameter in Mexico, and Moon Dust individuals working with New Zealand officials to gather up fallen space clutter.
Signing of Outer Space Treaty.
Image credit: United Nations
U.S. mid-west fragments
In one message, there is pro/con deliberation about negotiations on the Outer Space Liability Convention at the United Nations that were in the final phase and what actions to take due to a fall of fragments from a Soviet satellite within the United States.
On August 28, 1970, a number of fragments from the Soviet satellite Cosmos 316 peppered a wide section of the U.S. mid-west – Oklahoma, Kansas, and Texas.
“The Department of State has physical custody of the Soviet space fragments, one document points out, “the largest of which is roughly a square, 4 ft by 4 ft, weighing 640 lbs.”
Additionally, “the Soviet Union was provided a full physical description of the fragments and invited to claim them if inspection confirmed Soviet origin. Soviet Embassy officers declined either to inspect or claim the fragments.”
The Soyuz 11 crew of Georgi T. Dobrovolski, left, Viktor I. Patsayev, and Vladislav N. Volkov in a Soyuz simulator. Image credit: courtesy of RKK Energia
In the once secret report, it explains that “if additional fragments are recovered which are suspected to have come from Cosmos 316, all of the fragments may be assembled and used for an appropriate time in further intelligence evaluations.”
Death of soviet cosmonauts
From an Intelligence Information Report under the Directorate of Intelligence, the declassified document discusses the 1971 death of Soyuz-11 cosmonauts “prior to reentry.”
This report explains that, “contrary to widespread popular belief,” the crew were dead before their vehicle reentered the Earth’s atmosphere. Electrocardiographic telemetry “indicated that the three cosmonaut’s hearts had stopped before the reentry procedure was begun.”
Cited in the report as the “fairly probable” cause for the accident was “some type of leakage from the spacecraft of which they were completely unaware.”
Furthermore, the deaths served to trigger the belated realization by Soviet space engineers, the report states, “that their pursuit of mission objectives has dangerously outstripped their design engineering.”
Rummaging through the government attic
As for governmentattic.org, it provides “electronic copies of thousands of interesting Federal Government documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. Fascinating historical documents, reports on items in the news, oddities and fun stuff and government bloopers, they’re all here. Think of browsing this site as rummaging through the Government’s Attic — hence our name,” the group’s website explains.
To cast your eyes on the “Department of State (DOS) Communications Regarding Recovery of Deorbited Space Debris (Moon Dust), 1967-1972” go to:
https://www.governmentattic.org/54docs/ProjMoondust1967-1972.pdf
Image credit: CNSA/CLEP
Image credit: CNSA/CLEP
Artwork depicts China’s Change’-6 lander/ascender on the Moon.
Image credit: CNSA
In a “groundbreaking” mission, China’s Chang’e-6 Moon lander wrapped up two days of drilling and scooping at its far side lunar landing spot.
The 8.35-metric-ton, multi-pronged Chang’e-6 mission involves an orbiter, a returner, a lander, and an ascender, built by the Beijing-based China Academy of Space Technology, a subsidiary of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC).
Given successful stowage of the lunar collectibles onboard the lander/ascender, the mission’s ascender rocketed off the lunar surface, headed for a rendezvous with the mission orbiter circling the Moon.
Prior to the ascent vehicle departure with its cache of collectibles, a small rover (with a wifi camera), traversed away from the lander, taking a photo of the lander + ascent vehicle combination.
If all goes well, a June 25 return capsule stuffed with the assortment of samples will parachute to Earth.
Image credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Sealed for sendoff
The Chang’e-6 probe touched down at roughly 06:23 (Beijing Time) Sunday in the South Pole-Aitken (SPA) Basin.
The Chang’e-6 spacecraft departed the southern Chinese island province of Hainan on May 3, starting a projected 53-day mission to collect and bring back samples from the Moon’s far side.
As planned, the lander/ascender used a robotic arm and a drill to collect surface and underground substances. They were then placed in a container that was sealed for sendoff into lunar orbit, slated for transfer into a returner craft for the trek to Earth.
Image credit: James Head
According to Li Chunlai, deputy chief designer of the Chang’e-6 mission, the lander/ascender combination touched down precisely at the designated area, a locale likely to be basalt-rich and of important scientific value in unraveling the Moon’s past.
Simulation lab
Jin Shengyi from the CASC explained to Chinese media outlets that the Chang’e-6 probe development team has built a simulation lab to ensure a smooth sampling process.
Artwork credit: CNSA/CCTV
A full-scale replica of the sampling area in view of the Chang’e-6 lander/ascender reportedly mimics rock distribution, and lunar soil conditions around the landing site. The simulated site here on Earth is geared to develop and verify sampling strategies and equipment control procedures.
Even with China’s Queqiao-2 relay satellite service, the far side sampling time of Chang’e-6 is reduced to about 14 hours, contrasted with the 22 hours used by its predecessor, China’s Chang’e-5 Moon sampling mission in the winter of 2020.
Image taken during 2020 mission of Chang’e-5 lunar sample project. Image credit: CNSA/CLEP
Chang’e-5 landed on the Moon’s near side and gathered 1,731 grams of samples, the first lunar substances obtained since NASA’s Apollo missions to the Moon by astronauts ended in December 1972.
China is the third nation, after the former Soviet Union and United States, to have brought back to Earth collected lunar specimens.
Autonomous, onboard intelligence
The sampling process utilized by Chang’e-6 involved autonomous, onboard intelligence and relyed on real-time data collected by lander/ascender sensors – thereby reducing Earth-Moon control interaction and instruction.
Soon after the Chang’e-6 touchdown, the craft’s solar panels and directional antennas unfolded, initial checks and setup were performed, followed by operation of lunar sampling hardware.
Image credit: CGTN/Inside Outer Space screengrab
European experiments
Meanwhile, also turned on were two European scientific experiments carried by the Chang’e-6 landing craft — a radon-measuring instrument from France’s national space agency and a dedicated negative ion instrument developed by the Swedish Institute of Space Physics with support from the European Space Agency.
The Detection of Outgassing RadoN (DORN) was developed by French scientists. It will detect radon isotopes and study the transmission and diffusion mechanisms of volatile compounds in the lunar environment.
Witnessing the progress of the Chang’e-6 mission in Beijing was Pierre-Yves Meslin, principal investigator of DORN from France. This first time measurement is expected to advise researchers on how radon might move from warm to cold regions of the Moon.
