Just read this interesting article about LRO
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/28apr_lro.htm
If they follow through with it, it will be really cool. I just hope this doesn't turn into a dead end that siphons money from the real space program and then never flies.
Judging from what I've read:
(1) There will indeed be an Announcement of Opportunity put out for the proposed 2009-10 lunar lander later this year.
(2) Judging from some of the background documents for the first meeting of the Lunar Strategic Roadmap Committee ( http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/apio/pdf/moon/05_leag_debrief_taylor.pdf ), it has been decided pretty firmly that this lander will investigate southern polar ice. The chief remaining question seems to be how ambitious it should be.
That would relate strangely to New Frontiers.
Well, you know, Bush has already blindfolded himself once, taken a stick, and aimed at a much larger pinata that really is about 5000 miles away -- namely, Iraq. He was just doing it again here (and at least the Space Pinata isn't filled with bees).
At the first Mars Strategic Roadmap Committee meeting (which I attended), Sean O'Keefe showed up at the very start and blew menacingly through his mustache that the members were under no circumstances to actually question any of the official space goals that the Great Leader had stated in his official Initiative description -- including that manned return to the Moon. Their job was only to recommend how the Great Leader's goals could be achieved most economically. Nevertheless, by the third and last day of the meeting the members were in open rebellion; a whole series of them (including Sally Ride) said flatly that the Great Leader had better make up his damn mind whether he was really serious about initiating a manned Mars program in the fairly near future, because the manned lunar program was not only unnecessary for it but a serious bleed-off of resources from it.
Now, of course, new NASA Administrator Griffin has already started radically shaking up the entire manned program again -- including totally cancelling all of the Strategic Roadmapping Committees that dealt in any way with the design of the manned space program (plus the one on Nuclear Systems, which includes Project Prometheus). I don't yet know what he's up to; but I would hope that -- since Griffin, unlike O'Keefe, actually knows something about space technology and science -- we may be about to see a radical revision of the manned space program, both the current Shuttle/Station fiasco and the design of what will follow it. Hope springs eternal.
New article on LRO:
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/11jul_lroc.htm
LROC site up:
http://www.msss.com/lro/lroc/index.html
Ominous indication tonight that LRO may be about to be cancelled due to lack of funds: http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=18090 .
Griffin has already thrown the Prometheus nuclear-electric propulsion project to the wolves for the same reason: http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=398580&category=BUSINESS&BCCode=HOME&newsdate=9/14/2005 . God knows how much more will have to be thrown from the sleigh thanks to NASA's continuing fiscal travails, culminating in at least $1.1 billion in short-term post-Katrina costs. You're gonna have to decide whether you want a manned or an unmanned space program, guys; there isn't enough money for both.
Stop the presses! No sooner did I write that than I got two E-mail messages from insiders claiming that they have every reason to think LRO is still on, and that what that message actually indicates is just that NASA may be eliminating outside competitive contracts for its propulsion system and picking single-source procurement of an existing system to save time.
Somebody said, yesterday -?on another thread?- that Lockmart was turning all propulsion hardware for the partially completed and now terminated hubble deorbit vehicle over to LRO, I think.
Things are starting to move on the Lunar Lander, which will follow LRO in 2010. As Bruce hinted, its main target is polar ice.
http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2005/sep/HQ_05289_Lunar_Lander_Team_Selected.html
EDIT: October 6.
A few more details on the proposed lander: the project is aiming unofficially for Shackleton crater, and it may have some kind of surface explorer, possibly a hopper. (Terrain too tough for a rover.)
http://www.newscientistspace.com/article/dn8102-robot-lander-will-scout-out-the-moon.html
Decent http://www.thespacereview.com/article/478/1 this week, giving a good overview of the various unmanned lunar missions currently planned. LRO, Chang’e-1, Chandrayaan-1, SELENE, etc and various follow ons.
James
http://www.al.com/news/huntsvilletimes/index.ssf?/base/news/1136196918128980
http://www.al.com/printer/printer.ssf?/base/news/1136196918128980.xml&coll=1
Marshall hopes lunar lander makes return trips
Scientist says probe isn't seen as 'one-shot effort'
Monday, January 02, 2006
By SHELBY G. SPIRES
Times Aerospace Writer, shelbys@htimes.com
Before America sends astronauts back to the moon, NASA scientists want to
find minerals and water that could help sustain life on the lunar surface.
About 10 people at Marshall Space Flight Center and another 40 at NASA sites
around the country are developing what NASA engineers believe will be a
complex, unmanned lunar lander that will serve as a test run for a manned
lunar lander.
The probe isn't considered a "one-shot effort like the unmanned lunar
efforts in the past," said John Horack, the program manager.
When Apollo astronauts were headed to the moon in the 1960s, NASA launched
several probes to orbit and land on the moon. This time, NASA wants to put
as much as possible into basically two probes: the Lunar Reconnaissance
Orbiter and Marshall's lunar lander.
The rest at the above links.
An interesting tidbit from the "In Orbit" section of the January 9, 2006, issue of Aviation Week & Space Technology:
http://www.aviationnow.com/avnow/news/channel_awst_story.jsp?id=news/012306p1.xml
By Frank Morring, Jr.
Aviation Week & Space Technology
01/22/2006 09:18:54 PM
Alex, your posts are very useful... Thanks.
Phil
"Trailing cables"? They're kidding, right? It reminds me of that old joke about the $50,000 electric car: $10,000 for the car and $40,000 for the cord.
The first time they try it, will they have to use training cables?
Phil
A new article from space.com
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter: Searching For A 'New Moon'
LRO is the first of the Robotic Lunar Exploration Program missions. After a planned launch by late fall 2008, LRO will take four days to make its way to the Moon and then orbit that chunk of "magnificent desolation" for nominally one year.
Now being competitively sought is a co-manifested "secondary" payload on the LRO launch. One idea floating about is ejecting some type of hardware from LRO to demonstrate a "first look" at the polar regions from the Moon's surface.
It will circle around the poles. This mean it is capable to map all Moon surfaces.
"LRO, in all respects, is a unique and challenging planetary mission," Jim Watzin, Planetary Division Chief for the Flight Programs and Projects Directorate at Goddard Space Flight Center explained to SPACE.com. For example, LRO will fly within 31 miles (50 kilometers) of the lunar surface for at least one year in order to conduct a comprehensive and detailed mapping mission. That's a feat that has never before been attempted, he noted.
So low and the Moon's magnetic surface is very unstable due to the asymmetry of the lunar gravitational field. Why there is uninform gravitational field of Moon? Due to Marias lavas? Will it use Ion propulsion to maintain the Moon's orbit?
Take note. For you "Apollo landings were a hoax" believers LROC's sightseeing abilities should set the record straight.
Hope to see again the buried and dirty Apollos' pictures...Not only to American but Soviet landing sities on the Moon.
LRO will give extra special attention to the relatively unexplored polar regions on the Moon.
Unresolved is the issue of polar volatiles as a resource—especially water-ice. The hunt for water-ice on the cold Moon is a hot-button topic. Among a bevy of sensors, LRO is outfitted with equipment to chip away at the ice-on-the-Moon matter.
That is good enough since the previous pictures from South pole is not able to show in detail on the bottom of craters near to South Pole such as Shackleton and its neigboors which are iluminated for the 80% of the lunar day. The other interesting and worth to take pictures is the Peary Crater from the North Pole.
If present, water-ice would be a nifty resource. It could be processed into oxygen, water, and rocket fuel for use by future lunar explorers. Still, whether that icy material is truly tucked away at the Moon's poles is arguable.
Perhaps, these Moon ices would be a good Whisky brinds for astronauts to relax the stressfull (I think so) 3-4 days Moon's trip.
"There's clearly something going on at the lunar poles that we don't fully understand," said David Paige, a space researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles. He's the lead scientist on LRO's Diviner Lunar Radiometer Experiment. It will chart the temperature of the entire lunar surface at roughly 985 feet (300 meter) horizontal scales to identify cold-traps and potential ice deposits.
I have heard that the lowest Moon temperature is recorded in the South Pole Aitken Basis where is located the crater Shackleton with perhaps -230 degree of centigrade. That is so cold as Pluto since that low temperature is due to the continuous shadows in the south polar craters cause the floors of these formations to maintain a temperature. The night moon in middle latitudes usually lowers to around minus 145-150 degree of centigrade.
Much more to read at http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/060207_lro_technology.html
Rodolfo
The irregularities in the gravitational field are (simply put) caused by the excess mass of those mare lavas. They filled holes in a surface that had isostatically adjusted after the basin impacts, but then became too rigid to adjust again after the lava filled the depressions.
LRO will use regular chemical thrusters to maintain its low orbit.
It will map the whole moon at low resolution, but only select areas at high resolution.
And it will try to image landing and impact sites. But it will not necessarily get all of them because we don't know where they all are with sufficient accuracy to hit them with the high resolution images. For instance Lunokhod 1 is uncertain by at least 5 km, Luna 9 by probably 40 km. Apollo landing sites will be no problem. of course.
Phil
Alex, you can't really say that Clementine 'resolved' the Apollo sampling sites - which in effect are only as big as the scoop or the rock which was picked up. What you can say is that we know which Clementine UVVIS pixel the sampling site is in. So the multispectral characteristics of that pixel can be described and searched for elsewhere.
My LPSC abstract (print-only, as I can't be there - look at the moon section under 'print-only) discusses this topic.
Here's an example. This is the Luna 24 landing area. If L24 was 10 km off its predicted location it could lie on the higher albedo unit at lower left or on Fahrenheit ejecta, or on a mare ridge (though that's not likely to differ chemically from its surroundings). THe grid is 0.25 degrees. The image is from the Apollo 15 panoramic camera.
Phil:
At least with the later Apollo flights and the Soviet rovers there's the prospect of seeing an albedo difference resulting from the passage of the vehicle, which may lead to some accurate LRO camera pointing (obviously not really a problem with regard to Apollo sites, which are well known, but potentially a method of finding the Lunokhods). After all, look at MGS and the MER tracks - I doubt if a mere forty years of space weathering will have wiped out the tracks on the Moon!
Bob Shaw
It might *just* be possible, Bob, but the tracks will not really have much if any albedo difference - Apollo disturbed soil was only darker near the LM, where the descent engine exhaust brightened the surface and any disturbance exposed darker material again (probably a texture difference rather than true albedo). LRV tracks far from the LM were not darker.
Much more useful for the Lunokhods will be the pattern of larger craters along the route. We don't know exactly where Lk1 is, but Soviet maps of the route show the pattern of craters nearby. That will be visible in LRO images if they happen to fall in the right area. Lk2 should be easier to find as we know its location relative to nearby craters fairly well. It will still be barely resolved, though.
Phil
No. That information, which is repeated on many websites, is exactly the opposite of the truth. Lk2's reflector can still be used. Lk1 has not been used since early in the mission. There is a new attempt being made this year to reacquire Lk1 with improved equipment, and a new prediction of its location (made my me). I have presented evidence that Lk1 is about 5 km west of the position usually quoted, and that point will be searched later this year. But we don't know if Lk1 is actually in a suitable orientation to give a reflection.
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2005/pdf/1194.pdf
(the abstract mentions a 2004 attempt which was in fact not made).
Phil
One final point, often not appreciated. The laser would give a lat-long position (you can't see the spot illuminated by the beam). We still need to know the location relative to local features like craters. Since lunar maps still contain many positional inaccuracies, the laser would still leave us uncertain by several km, but it would narrow the search in images.
Phil
http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/moonboom.htm
The Ohio State University Research News
February 8, 2006
Reference:
Impact-induced mass flow effects on lunar shape and the elevation dependence of nearside maria with longitude
Laramie V. Potts and Ralph R.B. von Frese
Physics of The Earth and Planetary Interiors 153, 165-174 (2005).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pepi.2005.06.013
Very interesting article: Kaboom! Ancient impacts scarred Moon to its core, may have created "Man in the Moon".
I have copied the two last paragraphs:
von Frese said a lunar base would be needed before scientists can more completely answer these questions.
Potts agreed. "Once we have more rock samples and soil samples, we will have a lot more to go on. Nothing is better than having a person on the ground," he said.
Now, the Moon is still a misterious world astro sphere and it must be visited again very soon!
Rodolfo
In fact, Bob, the footprints and wheel tracks near the LMs were not at all darker than the general soil at the landing sites. The LM DPS exhaust would sweep the top layer of dust grains from the regolith during landing, resulting in a temporary brightening of the soil around the LMs. "Darkened" footprints and wheel tracks were simply *restoring* the soil's natural albedo within the splash of brightened soil.
There is some question, I guess, as to whether or not the local soil brightening around the LMs still exists. I don't believe any of the Clementine or SMART-1 or Lunar Prospector images were able to answer that question -- though Phil probably knows the answer to that better than I do.
-the other Doug
There are no lunar prospector images! And the others are not detailed enough to resolve tracks. We'll have to wait for LRO.
The sampling site thing is just a different way of looking at it - in effect they are saying what I did, that they identify a pixel or group of pixels containing the sample site (the 'station'). But it can still contain more than one type of surface. For instance at Apollo 14 Station C on the rim of Cone crater the crew sampled soil and rocks. One UVVIS pixel contains lots of soil and quite a few rocks. None of the individual samples are resolved - rocks with different compositions, from different depths maybe, are all averaged in one pixel. I think we're saying the same.
Phil
If this is any help, Lunar Orbiter 3 was able to image Surveyor 1. In magnified views, you could even see the lander projecting its shadow across the lunar surface.
http://history.nasa.gov/SP-168/section2b.htm#96
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/imgcat/html/object_page/lo3_h194_1.html
http://www.astrosurf.com/lunascan/Surveyor1.htm
On Apollo 12 , Dick Gordon -- from lunar orbit -- saw not only the LM but the Surveyor clearly through the CSM's navigation telescope.
Gordon saw both the LM and Surveyor with his eye, yes. They didn't really show up in the 16mm film frames, was my point.
-the other Doug
Dolores Beasley
Headquarters, Washington
Phone: (202) 358-1753
Nancy Neal Jones
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Phone: (301) 286-0039
Feb. 17, 2006
RELEASE: 06-065
NASA'S Lunar Orbiter Team Passes Preliminary Design Review
NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter team recently passed its Preliminary Design Review heralding the start of the mission confirmation process.
The first in a series of robotic missions to the moon, the lunar orbiter is scheduled for launch in October 2008. It will carry six science instruments and a technology demonstration. The mission goal is to develop new approaches and technologies to support human space exploration to Mars and other destinations.
The preliminary design review concluded Feb. 9. The results of the review, on-going assessments of project cost and schedule will support a confirmation review this spring.
The confirmation review represents NASA's formal decision for authorizing additional work and will set the project's cost estimate. The mission's Critical Design Review is scheduled for fall. It will represent the completion of detailed system design, the transition to assembly and integration of the mission elements.
For information about NASA's Exploration Systems Mission Directorate on the Web, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/exploration
For information about NASA and agency programs on the Web, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/home
This Article URL:
http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2006/feb/HQ_06065_lunar_orbiter.html
[size=2]Does anyone have recent info on the RLEP-2 unmanned lunar lander?
From what I can make out, APL was awarded the contract to design a Lunar
Lander System a few months ago, with launch planned for January 2011. However,
I haven't found a written or visual description of what might be planned for this
lander.
The LRO is RLEP-1, but it appears that the RLEP-2 lander doesn't have
a spacecraft name. How about calling it Surveyor 8? Do we want to start a
separate thread for this mission?
RLEP-2 will be a brand new spacecraft, so they will want a brand new name. I think it's still a bit early for any hard news about the vehicle, and (more in my line) any future landing sites. I imagine we will be seeing landings at one or both poles, since they are clearly high priorities, but I hope we will see missions to other locations as well. I would like to see a rover mission to D-Caldera (AKA Ina) among other places.
Phil
NASA has made it clear that it will land at a polar site to check out the ice deposits -- but the initial grotesquely ambitious plan to land a huge spacecraft based in many respects on the planned CEV lunar lander at the permanently illuminated edge of a crater, and then drive a rover down for dozens of km across the permanently dark interior of the crater to look for ice, has been quietly dumped in the last few months. The plan now is to send down a relatively small lander directly into the darkened area -- and then either dispatch a rover for local studies, or actually have the entire lander use its remaining fuel to hop from place to place on the suface for that surface.
I'm working off memories; it would take me a while to dig up the references, and frankly I don't feel like doing it tonight.
I've dug up some more on this. It turns out I was wrong; they HAVE decided to go for MSFC's huge, hulking lunar lander that will weigh 10,000 kg on launch and 4500 on landing and be able to carry up to 3500 kg payload -- the reason being that they hope to used the same lander design later on as an unmanned resupply lander for human expeditions, "a lunar equivalent of the Russian Progress vehicle". And it will use an RL-10 engine with a 1:10 throttle range. The mission cost is projected at about $750 million.
There's still quite a lot of flexibility in the details -- but the landing site, at least, seems to have been pretty firmly settled on: a 1 x 5 km eternally sunlit spot on the rim of Shackleton Crater near the south pole, which is about as rugged as the Apollo 16 landing site. The crater itself, whose permanently dark slopes seem to run to a maximum of about 30-35 degrees, will likely be explored by a rover dispatched from the lander and based generally on the Apollo rover design, which seems capable of handling such slopes -- although it's possible that a propulsive hopper may be substituted. The rover will use RTGs to recharge batteries for peak loads (although it's possible that the RTGs will recharge fuel cells instead, since there's a desire to use this mission to test as much of the manned-landing paraphernalia as possible), and it will navigate in the dark using high-resolution lidar, as we thought. Its main function will be not only to look for water ice and other frozen volatiles in the soil, but to actually test the ability to extract them from the soil and turn the water into usable H2 and O2.
Meanwhile, the main lander -- which will use a descent camera and scanning lidar to create a very detailed map of its landing area for possible later use by manned crews -- will also run some experiments having to do with the general mechanical consistency and overall composition of the local soil, and it will also carry the first navigation beacon for the guidance of later manned crews to the same spot. It will also likely carry some biological experiments to test the effects of prolonged 1/6 G (and lunar-level radiation) on living things -- and, since all this will still leave it and the rover with a huge unused payload capability, they will likely carry some experiments paid for by commercial businesses, and maybe even a little equipment such as solar arrays for the later use of manned expeditions. Finally, the decision has been made to have the craft release a comsat/navsat into a 2000-km polar orbit before landing to allow constant contact of both the lander and the rover with Earth -- and that excess payload capacity could allow it to carry as many as 3 additional such satellites to complete the network needed for manned expeditions.
Where'd I find all this out? Well, partly from RLEP-2's very preliminary official webpage ( http://sms.msfc.nasa.gov/vp40.html ), Aviation Week's November article ( http://www.aviationnow.com/avnow/news/channel_aerospacedaily_story.jsp?id=news/LUNA11155.xml ), and Doug Cooke's december letter announcing the initial choices made about the mission ( http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=18919 ) -- but mostly from the very helpful DigitalSpace page on the October LEAG-SSR Conference ( http://www.digitalspace.com/presentations/leag-ssr-2005/ ), and its links both to Mark Borkowski and Paul Spudis' talks on the mission ( http://www.digitalspace.com/presentations/leag-ssr-2005/voice/mark-borkowski-rlep.mp3 ; http://www.digitalspace.com/presentations/leag-ssr-2005/voice/paul-spudis-rlep-qa.mp3 ), and to some of their slides ( http://www.digitalspace.com/presentations/leag-ssr-2005/rlep2/index.html ). Unfortunately, there's no slide of the rover's strawman payload -- but one abstract at this year's STAIF conference mentions in passing that the "RESOLVE" package has been already selected as one of RLEP-2's experiments (which must be on the rover), and there's a nice description of that included in http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/leag2005/presentations/wed_am/01_sanders.pdf (pg. 19-21).
And that's all I've been able to dig up so far. How much of this -- if any -- will actually fly, God knows; but they do seem to have a firm idea at this point of what they want to do at an absolute minimum.
Thanks for this, Bruce. Very nice.
The landing area would be in the region I illustrated in this post:
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?act=Attach&type=post&id=640
(the big black circle is Shackleton crater).
Phil
Hiya, Jim.
No, this thing wouldn't fly on a CLV -- the stick isn't big enough for it. Remember, this is an unmanned version of the LSAM. It will need to fly on the Shuttle-derived heavy lift booster that will, in the manned flight profile, launch the LSAM and TLI stage. In these unmanned landings, they'll just go ahead and fire the TLI stage without waiting for a CEV to come up and man the thing.
That's why these unmanned landings will have such a cargo surplus -- they'll be flying, alone, with all the post-LEO delta-V available to manned mission, but without the additional mass of a lunar CEV and crew.
-the other Doug
Then this is not going to fly before the LSAM, because it fly on the first two missions of the CaLV
Yep -- if Bruce's information is correct, then this is the unmanned LSAM concept. It makes a great deal of sense; if you're going to develop an infrastructure, you ought to take as much advantage as possible of economics of scale. Use the same design over and over.
With that specification for the lander mass, I can't imagine anything else that could get it onto the Moon other than the CaLV.
-the other Doug
I don't see happening until the LSAM contractor is selected and its design completed.
Perhaps the vehicle is already built, as the Blue Origin sub-orbital hopper is said to be based on the flown DC-X design. Just remove the aeroshell! Remember too that one of the new NASA challenges is for a lunar landing analogue vehicle.
DC-X Propellants: Liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen. Propulsion: Four RL-10A5 rocket engines, each generating 6,100 kgf thrust. Each engine throttleable from 30% to 100%. Each gimbals +/-8 degrees. Reaction Controls: Four 440-lb thrust gaseous oxygen, gaseous hydrogen thrusters
See the URL below for absolutely no information whatsoever on Blue Origin:
http://www.blueorigin.com/index.html
Bob Shaw
Maybe so, but there still is no vehicle able to launch it
What it's supposed to be -- according to Mark Borkowski's talk ( http://www.digitalspace.com/presentations/leag-ssr-2005/voice/mark-borkowski-rlep.mp3 ) -- is a vehicle which can later be used, with little modification, as an emergency cargo carrier for any VSE crew that gets stranded on the Moon for a long period of time due to a stand-down of the manned VSE systems. That is, it is -- as he said -- " a lunar equivalent of the Russian Progress cargo carrier", capable of landing as much as 3.5 metric tons of payload on the Moon. Since RLEP-2's official payload is only about a ton, there are currently plans to request additional payloads on it provided by private companies -- as well as consideration of having it carry some equipment to the Moon in advance for the first manned expedition to Shakleton Crater.
HOWEVER; I'm also hearing fuzzy rumors that the current RLEP-2 project is in serious trouble -- which I'll hold off on until I have some details.
If there's an impactor mission using the Raytheon proposal, then it may take elements of their previously (allegedly successful) kinetic energy kill vehicle. I've cobbled together a graphic using elements from the Raytheon company site to give an idea of the vehicle - it's got an interesting take on attitude control/translation with rocket nozzles set, I presume, around the vehicle's CG.
Bob Shaw
No, it's just "holding off" on saying so flat-out until I have more confirmation and more details. I already got burned once yesterday, after all (although in that case, it was the result of concluding, logically I think, that when Ames called their proposal a "satellite", they meant a lunar orbiter and not a lunar impactor. Turns out they weren't that logical, and they REALLY needed a cutesy acronym like "CROSS"...)
In response to Bob Shaw: I DO have solid confirmation now that Cowing's right in saying that the rejected Goddard proposal -- with which Raytheon was associated -- was a hopper-lander, not an impactor. But it did use some of Raytheon's EKV technology. (I believe there's actually been something on the Web recently about this concept, if I can find it again; it wasn't called "Lunar Explorer" then.)
Bruce:
I suppose that the EKV technology, although intended to say 'helloCRUNCH' to incoming MIRVs was actually quite transferable to a Lunar hopper; it'd be nice to think that the legacy of DC-X may yet play a role, with the shade of Pete Conrad at the helm... ...it'd help with the precision landing requirement!
Bob Shaw
Cowing now confirms that RLEP-2 is in very serious trouble, precisely because the mission has been allowed to metastasize to grotesque proportions.
http://www.nasawatch.com/archives/2006/04/rlep_changes_at.html :
"Mark Borkowski, director of NASA's Robotic Lunar Exploration Program (RLEP), apparently left NASA HQ last week. More personnel changes in RLEP lie ahead including the possible departure of Borkowski's Deputy John Baker. Meanwhile, reliable sources report that RLEP2 costs have continued to rise from the target range of $400 to $750 million to well over a $1 billion ($1.2 billion or more). Some talk of outright cancellation has been heard."
My Inside Source has not only been repeating that story for months, but naming the person he says was always at the heart of the mistake --who, according to him, is not even honestly mistaken, but involved in a deliberate flim-flam to bolster his personal career, and using his personal ties to Griffin to further that effort. Not wanting to lay myself open to a libel suit quite yet, I'll withhold the name for now -- but my Source says that he was actually trying to persuade Griffin to raise RLEP-2 to such gargantuan dimensions that the mission would, by itself, cost $4 billion.
My Source also says that the alternative plan for RLEP-2 has involved a somewhat more involved version of Goddard/Raytheon's little "Lunar Explorer" hopper unsuccessfully proposed as the piggyback craft for LRO -- and, indeed, judging from the alternative "point design" lander described in Borkowski's earlier slides on RLEP-2 ( http://www.digitalspace.com/presentations/leag-ssr-2005/rlep2/DSC09739.JPG ), this seems to be true. If they fly RLEP-2 at all now, this is the more probable mission design. Given the extent to which Bush's lunar program is already being screwed up, though, who knows whether it will fly at all?
Bruce:
The mission design as shown in the slide at the URL below strikes me as being among the most perverse possible. Two landers is just strange, strange, strange! All the economies of scale work *against* this concept, which requires multiple unique duplicates of functionally identical technologies.
http://www.digitalspace.com/presentations/leag-ssr-2005/rlep2/DSC09739.JPG
Bob Shaw
Many more presentations:
http://www.digitalspace.com/presentations/leag-ssr-2005/rlep2/
Rodolfo
Actually, it's LRO (and its piggyback) that will be launched in October 2008. RLEP-2 -- even before its latest trouble -- wasn't set till 2011.
One thing that I strangely haven't seen mentioned as a planned object of study for the RLEP-2 lander, which would nevertheless seem to be extremely urgent -- not only for manned landers, but for unmanned ones -- is the dust problem, which seems to be right up there with radiation as the most devilish aspect of lunar exploration. The dust that's already known to be electrostatically levitated 10 km or more above the lunar surface is even being suggested as a serious problem for lunar-based astronomical observations!
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2005/pdf/2277.pdf
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2005/pdf/1899.pdf
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2005/pdf/1343.pdf
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2006/pdf/2217.pdf
...and there are already some proposals for ways to try to deal with it:
http://www.agu.org/cgi-bin/SFgate/SFgate?&listenv=table&multiple=1&range=1&directget=1&application=sm06&database=%2Fdata%2Fepubs%2Fwais%2Findexes%2Fsm06%2Fsm06&maxhits=200&="P41A-01"
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2005/pdf/1812.pdf
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2005/pdf/1422.pdf
Would it not be wise to have RLEP-2 study both the extent of the problem and test such possible alleviation techniques?
Isn't it about time that RLEP-2 receive a proper name? After all, RLEP-1 has
been known as the LRO for quite some time now.
My suggestion is Surveyor 8.
Is there any more news concerning the progress of RLEP-2? According to the
following link, the Phase A Kickoff should have occurred in March. Did I miss that
or is RLEP-2 in stealth mode now? Also, it seems that an SDR, a Systems
Requirment Review is scheduled for August.
http://spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=18895
Also, in the above article, it appears that JHU/APL will be designing the
RLEP-2 Lunar Lander. Can anyone confirm that NASA has approved
JHU/APL's role in RLEP-2?
Another Phil
I've got some genuinely reliable and wholly unambiguous inside info on this (not like the somewhat ambiguous stuff on which I recently made a disastrously mistaken interpretation where the LCROSS lunar impactor mission was concerned). But I'm not yet free to talk about the details. Suffice it to say that RLEP-2 is getting scaled WAY, WAY back to a rationally-sized spacecraft (without any major science downsizing), and that there is also some reconsideration of its science goals besides its hunt for polar ice -- with increased emphasis on lunar dust problems being, as I had hoped, a new high-ranked goal.
Let me repeat that the fact that RLEP-2 will be much smaller in size does not mean that its science payload will be cut -- at all. The original design was intended to be the first test of an unmanned cargo lander capable of landing fully 3.5 tons of cargo on the Moon's surface -- and since the total officially planned science payload weighs at most about a ton, they had enormous excess capacity which they were frantically trying to find something to fill.
PhilHorzempa said: "My suggestion is Surveyor 8." for a new name for RLEP-2.
I can't agree. I think a new design ought to get a new name. Repeating the old name is misleading. But I don't feel there's any urgency.
Phil
Back to LRO. I never understood the "problem" caused by the Delta II spinning third stage. Many spacecraft with lots of liquid propellant (Near, MGS, MCO, Odyssey, Messenger) launched with this stage with no problem. And the delta V to enter lunar orbit is about the same (1,000 m/s) than entering orbit arround Mars.
I guess the switch to EELV has been because of mass issues and/or political reasons (away from Delta II, more EELV launches).
Analyst
Thanks, sounds valid. On the other hand, Messenger does have a lot more delta V than 1,000 m/s, so a monoprop system using Messenger's tanks should give at least 1,000 m/s. They had trouble developing these tanks, but it has been done.
This brings me to another question: Why do never spacecraft (MRO, LRO) use monoprop systems? Biprop systems are working (see my post above) and are well understood and much more efficient. Is the reduced risk and complexity really worth the cost of a bigger launcher (Delta II vs. EELV) and/or less payload?
Analyst
That first rumor about Seasat's early demise got around a lot -- I remember seeing it somewhere in the science literature at the time.
It's certainly more plausible than the second rumor; if the Russkies had shot up Seasat, then the US could just have sent up a replacement -- and if the Russkies had shot that one down too, we would have been in Cuban Missile Crisis territory again in jig time.
I recall reading some Congressional hearings transcripts on this. Basically, the testimony was that subs could not be detected by the Seasat SAR. Some ocean images were shown of where there were supposedly US subs. Of course, there was nothing that stood out visually. But nothing was said on signal processing the data to look at it in different ways, e.g., frequency domain analysis as mentioned above.
That said, however, the technology goes both ways. The US would have had more to lose than the Soviets from a space-based sensor capability that would render the oceans transparent. Unless, of course, there is a lag to one side acquiring the technology and the other side actually uses its technological advantage while it has it. Which happily never took place.
Who needs fancy and expensive laser weapons to wipe out
space satellites? Just send up a bucket of rocks and pebbles
and let them loose at 18,000 MPH.
Here is the recent news, from NASAWatch, about changes in NASA's
unmanned Moon program. NASA has decided to pull management
responsibilty of this program from Ames and is awarding it to Marshall
(MSFC).
http://www.nasawatch.com/archives/2006/05/horowittz_yanks.html#more
Also, if you follow the link to Horowitz' letter, you will see that the program
name has been changed from RLEP to LPRP, the Lunar Precursor and
Robotic Program.
According to NASAWatch, this all came about because of political pressure
from Sen. Shelby of Alabama, home of the MSFC. NASAWatch decries this
political maneuvering, and I agree, up to a point.
As I see it, NASA and its budget are part of the world of politics, whether we
like it or not. NASA runs on money and those funds are provided by politicians.
Politicians will always look to help their constituents.
This brings us to the crux of this political game. Where are the Senators
from California when it comes to space? As far as I can tell, they are missing in
action. Has anyone ever seen Sen. Feinstein or Sen. Boxer at JPL for a Mars
landing or for the arrival of Cassini at Saturn? Those spacecraft are often controlled
and made at JPL in California. If Ames is getting projects pulled from it, then
it is up to Senators Boxer and Feinstein to make their objections known. I predict
we will not hear a peep from either Senator.
Therefore, if Sen. Shelby takes an interest in NASA and influences some of its
decisions, then hooray for him. He is a strong supporter of proper funding for
NASA and takes an interest in its success.
In strong contrast, the Senators from California don't even seem to know that NASA
exists.
Another Phil
This wouldn't be true if Sen. Shelby's demands also involved retaining RLEP-2 at its former gargantuan size -- which, thank God, they apparently don't. (Horowitz is simultaneously demanding that RLEP-2's total cost be cut to a maximum of $300 million.)
As for RLEP-2, I don't know enough to judge whether small or large is
preferred for this lunar lander.
Let me be a devil's advocate and ask why is the concept for a Gargantuan
RLEP-2 a bad idea?
Is it strictly cost? To me, using the RLEP-2 (or perhaps, it will now be called
LPRP-2) as an unmanned testbed for the LSAM might be a good path to pursue.
This would allow the evaluation of the RL-10 rocket engine and perhaps reduce
the risk and cost of the LSAM.
In addition, having a Gargantuan RLEP-2 unmanned lander would allow the
landing of a large scientific payload on the Moon. I imagine that once such an
unmanned lunar lander is developed, it could be used not only as a cargo carrier
for manned missions, but also as a strictly scientific probe that could study regions
of the Moon that won't be visited by people for some time.
If NASA also develops a large unmanned Rover, based on Apollo's LRV, then
the scientific utility of such an unmanned lander will be that much better.
Another Phil
Not at a cost of $2 billion or more, which was what the Godzilla version of RLEP-2 was coming to. NASA barely has enough money left to keep the VSE going even with the current drastic cuts in the space science program, thanks to Shuttle/Station.
They also better come up with a better acronym for the manned lunar
landing vehicle. LEM and then LM were both easy to remember and
even catchy in the Apollo days.
This will matter when it comes to selling the project more than some
people might think.
Is anyone here working on LRO or know someone who does?
GMV To Provide Planning Software For Lunar Mission
Rockville, MD (SPX) Jun 19, 2006
GMV Space Systems Inc., a satellite ground segment software company, announced Sunday that its FlexPlan software has been selected to provide the mission planning and scheduling system for NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft.
http://www.moondaily.com/reports/GMV_To_Provide_Mission_Planning_Software_For_Lunar_Reconnaissance_Orbiter.html
The Workshop on Lunar Crater Observing and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) Site Selection
October 16–17, 2006
NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lcross2006/lcross2006.1st.shtml
Just a question, I can't seem to find any info that the LRO will be eqipped with cameras for imaging the lunar surface in the visible light range, just like Clementine did (R,G,. I am very excited it will produce a very precise elevation map, but we're not going to see a new, much more detailed (true colour) map of the whole moon?! Did I miss this, or is this true?
What do you experts estimate how long it will take until the elevation data will become "publicly" available, like they are for mars and Earth now?
Thanks for any feedback!
LRO will use derivatives of the CTX on MRO to do approx 50cm/pixel panchromatic imaging of the surface - and then a derivative of MARCI on MRO to do 500m/pixel @ 7 different wavelengths.
http://www.msss.com/lro/lroc/index.html
I'd have thought we'd see data going online in the usual fashion, 6 or maybe 3 months chunks - 6 months later.
Doug
LRO's high resolution camera will only provide spot coverage, like MOC at Mars, especially designed for landing site certification. The global resolution will be about 100 m/pixel, I believe, but at lower sun angles than Clementine. That will be similar to Lunar Orbiter 4 nearside coverage, but better than farside coverage. It might not be better than SMART-1.
Phil
Thanks Doug and Phil for your replies!
I am just wondering if in the future, thanks to LRO, we will get a hi-resolution true colour map of the moon along with a precise elevation map, just as they are available for Earth (-> Blue Marble) and Mars today, enabling us to render the moon in 3d applictions with a high degree of accuracy? If LRO is going to map the surface at lower sun angles than Clementine, probably with shadows casting that would be a disadvantage for such a task though...
If most or all the planned orbiters fly successfully, between them we should have a pretty good combination of images to assemble plenty of high quality digital maps.
If people want a good map with oblique lighting but not too many shadows, the new USGS mosaic of Lunar Orbiter images should be the first one available - not ready yet but it won't be too long. It can be patched here and there with Clementine. As for true colour, just set the image mode to grayscale instead of RGB and you have it! The level of elevation resolution and accuracy you want will come from stereo, probably, rather than altimetry, and that would take a fairly long time to put together. Altimetry will be quicker but lower resolution, but it's necessary as a base for the stereo mapping.
Phil
Thanks Phil. I remember to have read that the LRO will be equipped with a laser altimeter for elevation mapping as well, wouldn't that be sufficient to create an elevation map?
Phil, do you really consider the lunar surface just shades of grey, c'mon... there are colours present, even if they're subtle...
If Phil thinks the Moon is greyscale - it means his publisher saves a fortune on printing costs
Seriously - yes - there are some very subtle colours on the moon - but not so much as one would notice with the naked eye really.
Doug
[attachment=7296:attachment]
You can convert the measured spectral reflectivity of planets into CIE XYZ, and from there into gamma-corrected sRGB 24-bit colors. In my "planetary paint-chip" image above, I adjusted the Y values to be proportional to the albedos of the objects.
Will LRO be able to detect the orange regolith exposed by Apollo 17 in Taurus-Littrow?
http://www.psrd.hawaii.edu/Feb97/MoonVolcanics.html
http://www.dslreports.com/speak/slideshow/16822681?c=1057567&ret=L2ZvcnVtL3JlbWFyaywxNjgyMjY4MQ%3D%3D
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,16822681~days=9999~start=40
This image is a mosaic of 15 separate and slightly overlapping 8.2 megapixel images from my Canon EOS-20D (unmodified), taken in Raw mode and converted and stitched together in Photoshop CS2. As you can see from the EXIF data, the exposures were each 1/5 second at ISO 100.
Though the moon is generally made of gray, dusty material it is very bright, photographically, since it is bathed in sunlight.
I mounted my 20D to my Meade LX200 GPS UHTC 10" Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope via my 2x Televue Powermate (a focal length doubler, similar to a teleconverter, which also serves to mate my camera to the 2" telescope eyepiece tube). Effective focal length was 5000mm f/20.
Looking through the viewfinder I swept across the surface in a zig-zag fashion, trying for about 1/3 overlap between frames. I triggered the shutter with my TC80-N3 remote timer/controller. I did the stitching by hand in Photoshop.
Since it is tremendously downsized from the original mosaic, which was almost 40 megapixels, and was taken at the camera's most noise-free setting (ISO 100), the data is very accurate, and thus I was able to strongly increase the saturation via Photoshop's Image - Adjust - Hue/Saturation function.
Somebody send this guy an invite to UMSF that is truely a stunning image and an impressive bit of processing.
wowsh the moon.....
The abstracts are interesting... for not being very interesting!
One gets the impression that the meeting has not attracted a lot of interest. Of course, the opportunity to select from a large pool of sites is really not there. It's a far cry from the vast array of choice for MSL or MER. The Arecibo DEM modelling really only gives about 5 good crater floor candidates for holding ice, and two are better than the others for being potentially visible to earth-based radar (pre and post impact imaging) and line of sight viewing. So those two sites are suggested (southern Shoemaker, and south of Malapert). What other choices are there?
Two interesting asides... the chance for about 4 m/pixel radar imaging from Goldstone is tantalizing... and in the Print-only section Jack Green is still promoting his volcanic views. Check out Don Wilhelms' "To a Rocky Moon" to see the beginnings of that story, 40+ years ago!
PS - in my view... the probability that useful quantities of ice exist at the poles is small...
Phil
Gorgeous super-saturated moon images!
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Successfully Completes Critical Design Review
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2006/lro_cdr.html
http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2007/feb/HQ_0721_LCROSS.html
RELEASE: 07-21
February 2, 2007
From the February 12, 2007, issue of Aviation Week & Space Technology:
Bush Budget Analysis
Lunar Robots May Cover NASA Budget Shortfall
Aviation Week & Space Technology
02/12/2007, page 32
Frank Morring, Jr.
Washington
Pending Senate action makes NASA budget academic. Lunar robots already targeted.
QUOTERobots that NASA plans to send as early scouts for humans on the Moon could wind up as the "bill payer" for International Space Station resupply costs after the space shuttle retires. The need will be particularly acute during a space-access gap that may be extended by proposed cuts in the agency's Fiscal 2007 spending.
Spaceflight managers must find some $900 million in station-supply savings through Fiscal 2011, the first year after the shuttle's planned September 2010 standdown. If they can't, funding for robotic lunar-precursor missions will be tapped to make up the difference, says Administrator Michael Griffin.
[...]
Griffin says protecting development of [Orion and Ares I] will be the top priority as NASA prepares its Fiscal 2007 operating plan (AW&ST Jan. 15, p. 418). Beyond that, the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate places high value on mapping the Moon for future explorers starting with the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), set for launch next year. The Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite that will ride piggyback on LRO to an impact at the Moon's south pole may reveal water ice or other volatiles there (AW&ST Apr. 17, 2006, p. 26).
For those who haven't seen them, there are some really interesting presentations at the http://lunar.gsfc.nasa.gov/missions/library.html. Be sure to check out some of the http://lunar.gsfc.nasa.gov/missions/library-pswg.html.
EDIT: See also the http://planetary.org/programs/planetary_report.html of The Planetary Report.
Check out the LRO's new Assembly Update of April 24, 2007 -
http://lunar.gsfc.nasa.gov/042407.html
On that page, there is a link to a Hardware Gallery of images.
The first signs that the LRO is coming to life!
Another Phil
Kewl! You just don't know how much I'm looking forward to seeing what LRO comes up with. I have a deep and abiding interest in selenology. Comes from having been 13 years old in the summer of 1969, I think... *grin*...
Thanks for the link, Phil!
-the other Doug
A new LRO-related paper:
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Overview: The Instrument Suite and Mission Status
Gordon Chin et al.
Space Sci. Rev., In Press, 2007
DOI 10.1007/s11214-007-9153-y
Published online May 4, 2007
http://www.springerlink.com/content/lw31778w2w42x802/fulltext.pdf
LRO Participating Scientist Opportunity Announced (http://lro.gsfc.nasa.gov/library/LRO-6-07-PS.pdf)
June 2007
Goddard have unveiled a new antenna farm at White Sands that will support LRO:
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2007/ka-band.html
The antennas use glue instead of bolts! The future of the DSN?
$20m for 3 new 18m dishes - but assuming a scaling of the third dish costing half as much as the second which cost half as much as the first ish... perhaps only $3m each for future dishes
250 sq m
70m dish is about 15,400
61 dishes - call it $200m for a 70m class array...maybe. With HUGE flexibility.
Doug
I can't wait to see these arrays come online. They have so many advantages over the large dishes for deep-space communication. You can choose how big an aperture you need to support a communications session and just use some of the dishes, reserving the rest for a simultaneous communications session with a different spacecraft. You can always have some fraction of them offline for routine maintenance without affecting communications schedules. If they're built to a common design, they'll be cheaper to maintain.
A question: three 18-meter dishes is equivalent to one dish of what size? Does it scale directly to the area, so that the three-dish array is equivalent to one 31-meter dish?
--Emily
I assume it scales with area, but there's probably a proviso regarding losses when combining the antennae - I'm not sure how much that is though.
http://trs-new.jpl.nasa.gov/dspace/bitstream/2014/37555/1/05-0738.pdf
http://trs-new.jpl.nasa.gov/dspace/bitstream/2014/39704/1/06-2024.pdf
Some help - but not definitive on how well it actually scales.
Doug
NASA's Lunar Orbiter Mission Could Slip
http://www.space.com/news/071212-nasa-moon-plans.html
Aghgh - I hate headlines that use something that MIGHT happen, as fact.
Doug
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter:
http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2004/dec/HQ_04407_lunar_orbiter.html
The angular resolution of LROC imager will be about 50 cm/pixel (dependent on the final orbit of course). With this resolution it will definitely be possible to spot the Apollo hardware such as Lunar Module descent stages and the 3 Rovers."
I want to commend the LRO team for keeping us up-to-date on the assembly of the LRO.
Check out the website at http://lunar.gsfc.nasa.gov
for a very extensive photo record as LRO is being built up.
I do want to predict,, however, that LRO's launch date will probably slip to March 2009 from
its current scheduled lift-off in October 2008. I base this on where LRO is in its ATLO sequence.
It has not yet been completely assembled and it has several milestones to cross before
launch, including shake tests, thermal-vac, software tests, transport to the Cape, fueling,
more testing, then transport to the pad. You will note on Kepler's website that it is near
completion of assembly, with a scheduled launch in February 2009.
Another Phil
Kepler is a very different sort of vehicle. I would be more inclined to compare the LRO ATLO schedule with something like MRO or a member of the EOS system.
Doug
In the spirit of things expanding to consume the resources available for them, we can note that lunar missions have no launch window, so an incremental slip is just an incremental slip, unlike the terrible delays that Messenger ended up with. That takes a lot of pressure off... bringing with it both good consequences and potentially bad.
LRO launch delayed to NET Nov. 24
(source: http://lro.gsfc.nasa.gov/launch.html)
available launch windows are presented here: http://spaceflightnow.com/atlas/av020/080421windows.html
In case you've access to AW&ST Frank Morring JR blog, here is the link : http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/blogs/space/index.jsp?plckController=Blog&plckBlogPage=BlogViewPost&newspaperUserId=04ce340e-4b63-4d23-9695-d49ab661f385&plckPostId=Blog%3a04ce340e-4b63-4d23-9695-d49ab661f385Post%3a2541ef0c-5137-49d0-af73-126dad79a6f3&plckScript=blogScript&plckElementId=blogDest
It's said that there are thinking to change the targeted crater (Shakleton) as follow : "Dan Andrews, NASA's LCROSS project manager at Ames Research Center, said today that the mission science team has decided to target an older crater to get the best possible data. While Shackleton is almost exactly on the lunar south pole, craters slightly to the north also have permanently dark floors and are within rage of LCROSS. Prime candidates are Shoemaker Crater and Faustini Crater, just to the east of Shoemaker."
BTW (and OT), I bought Shackleton's book (l'Odyssée de l'Endurance) last week and I target to read it anyway
Emily has reported this information on her blog with more details
This is oldish news to people who have been following the mission in detail. A site selection update was given at the LCROSS Astronomer Workshop held at NASA Ames Research Center on 29 February 2008, by Tony Colaprete. Shackleton wasn't on the list - they don't know its interior properties well enough yet. The target crater varies week by week depending on the libration and illumination conditions. Colaprete gave a table of targets for different launch dates up to Christmas. If the launch is delayed beyond that, as seems possible, a new list will emerge.
Phil
Twitter's on for LRO : http://twitter.com/LRO_NASA
As is lcross web site : http://lcross_nasa/
(hopefully soon, I've got an error message today)
I was reading up on this mission and have a few questions:
1) Some of the instruments, e.g., LAMP (or LAVA LAMP, haha) will be used to identify any water ice in the "permanently shadowed" parts of polar craters. But with the Earth at least, the pole is said to have migrated quite a bit. Is the Moon conversely so locked in synchrony that its own pole can't wander appreciably? Seems like even if transient, it might not take too long to burn off any ice.
2) I was wondering what the first "earthrise" opportunity might be for LRO postcard purposes. According to the available SPICE kernels the initial orbit comes in around longitude 90 over the south pole and so from the point of view of earth circles without eclipse initially until it eventually precesses around or whatever.
3) The launch has been delayed by a month. Is there any possibility this mission might be cancelled? I.e., has NASA (read: US Congress) ever cancelled a mission where the spacecraft had essentially been built?
briefly:
1 - yes
2 - don't know
3 - no
Phil
3 pt. 2 - they did cancel Mars Surveyor 2001 Lander, but there's no reason to do the same with LRO.
The shuttle program uses that phraseology. "NET" = "no earlier than." So take that for what it's worth, but I don't think there's anything worrisome about it.
It is official. http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/space/08/14/moon.mission.delayed.ap/index.html
Just to make things more interesting for overall launch scheduling/coordination (like they need to be made more so ), I've been hearing vague things about some sort of newly-discovered problem with Deltas that might have a ripple effect on everybody. Anybody more in the know have any info?
According to this http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/space/bls/missions/index.html page, they've had sixty-six consecutive successful launches, so it can't be anything too serious.
I was at the NASA Lunar Science Conference at Ames Research Center in sunny Mountain View last month, and got an update on LCROSS. The LRO-LCROSS launch is postponed, as already noted, but the implication for LCROSS is that the earliest possible impact date is now in mid-May. Because of the viewing and illumination conditions at that time, the north pole is favored for the impact. The attached image shows five candidate sites, labelled A to E.
The background image is a radar map showing predicted volatile concentrations (based on illumination analysis of topography) as white spots. Earth is at the top, and sites B, C and E surround the old wreck of a crater, Peary.
Phil
http://lunar.gsfc.nasa.gov/hardware/20081030.html
Vacuum testing...
Next NASA Moon Mission Completes Major Milestone
NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, has successfully completed thermal vacuum testing, which simulates the extreme hot, cold and airless conditions of space LRO will experience after launch. This milestone concludes the orbiter's environmental test program at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
LRO will be shipped to NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida in early 2009 to be prepared for its April 24 launch aboard an Atlas V rocket. Accompanying the spacecraft will be the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, a mission that will impact the moon's surface in its search for water ice.
Launch NET 7 May according to NASAWATCH.COM
LRO has shipped and NASA hasn't posted many images, only a video. I'm still kind of ignorant about handling video on the Web -- anybody know how to embed this video, or if it's possible to do? I hate linking to videos, I'd rather have the embedded player.
http://anon.nasa-global.edgesuite.net/anon.nasa-global/ccvideos/GSFC_20080210_LROShipsOut.asx
--Emily
Thanks for the tip. Where'd the photo come from? I didn't find it on either of the LRO websites or the Kennedy media archive.
--Emily
http://mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov/search.cfm
Then I just typed "lunar reconnaissance orbiter" in the search field and found six nice pics of the arrival, to my surprise. KSC media usually does a nice job of sorting the mission stuff with a separate highlight field, but I think it's a bit early yet...
Guess I just didn't work hard enough! Thanks. There are now 15 images up, including several showing the spacecraft more unwrapped with various technical doohickeys attached. Here's http://lunar.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/lro/2006sc-tn.jpg identifying instruments from the LRO website.
--Emily
The LRO photo category if you want to bookmark:
http://mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov/search.cfm?cat=201
The date of April 24 remains "official" for now but the ELV status report NASA issued yesterday says that while no formal request to delay to the May window (April 24, 25 and then no launch dates till May 7) has been made yet, discussions are in work as to whether April 24 is still a possibility. There is another Atlas 5 slated to go first, already delayed several times to March 9 and now looking at a delay of a few more days itself. They normally need close to 60 days turnaround time so I would be surprised if they keep April.
Glad to see LCROSS and LRO in Florida now. Hopefully, they'll make the April launch...not that being delayed 2 weeks to May 7 is a bummer
jamescanvin, you asked about the U.S. launching a lunar mission per year. It looks like it will be an average of one per year. GRAIL (which consists of two spacecraft) and LADEE will all launch together in 2011. Soon after that, NASA plans to launch lunar network spacecraft, which could be quite a large number of small landers (some from NASA, some from other nations). So, an average of one spacecraft per year could be maintained, though actual launches would not be every year.
I understand that LRO launch is now NET June 2nd. THere's a nice video about LCROSS here:
http://www.kqed.org/quest/television/nasa-ames-rocket-to-the-moon
Phil
New and final, hope, launch date.
May 15, 2009 Update
NASA decided to move the LRO/LCROSS from a June 2 window to a June 17 window so as to allow the LCROSS team additional time to mitigate a potential thrust disturbance associated with the Atlas V Centaur fill/drain valves.
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/launch/index.html
A bit of LCROSS impact site updating is in order. The chance of launch date finally pushed the impact back to the south pole. The choice of pole matters because of libration - you want to impact at the pole which is librated towards Earth for the ground-based observers. The original launch last fall with impact very early this year favored the south. The delay into this spring favored the north. Even a June 2 launch still worked best for the north. But June 17th tips the balance back to the south again.
The exact target isn't chosen yet and won't be until the last minute, specifically to allow some early LRO observations to factor into the decision. There will be a meeting to discuss candidates before the choice is made. Shackleton crater is unlikely, though. My guess is Shoemaker or Faustini.
Any UMSFers planning to try to observe the impacts?
Phil
Re: Observing the LCROSS event...the impact is expected to be upto 10 times more energetic than Lunar Prospector which went down in July 1999, so scopes in the 10 - 12-inch range should turn up some nice views.
There's a very good article by R. Leno and R. Evans in Selenology Today ( http://digidownload.libero.it/glrgroup/selenologytoday9.pdf p 32 - 58 PDF file ~ 10Mb) for preparing for such impacts, as well as an extensive article in No 13 of that same publication by K.A. Fisher aimed particularly at observing amateurs -- giving practical advice and guide to the planning approach (see -- http://digidownload.libero.it/glrgroup/selenologytoday13.pdf PDF file ~ 7 Mb).
John
http://www.moonposter.ie
I'd guess Phil would like to comment on this Ranger 8 picture: http://www.moonviews.com/archives/2009/06/loirp_releases_lunar_orbiter_r.html
as it's written that this is "related" to LCROSS, I took the liberty to post it here.
I am currently using the NASA open source cFS/cFE software (which was originally written for LRO) to write some software for a satellite:
https://github.com/nasa/cFS
The availability of around 20% of the software from LRO and other missions is interesting to space enthusiasts such as myself. I am running this software at home on a Pentium 4 running Debian Linux.
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