SpaceIL lunar lander mission - 2019 |
SpaceIL lunar lander mission - 2019 |
Sep 13 2018, 06:21 AM
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Solar System Cartographer Group: Members Posts: 10227 Joined: 5-April 05 From: Canada Member No.: 227 |
I'm setting this up in preparation for the launch of SpaceIL's lunar mission, probably early next year. They have arranged a rideshare with Spaceflight Industries on a Falcon 9 launch early in 2019. Earlier they were saying launch in December, land on the Moon in February, so now I assume the landing might be delayed until March. This mission was originally going to be part of the Google Lunar X Prize, but that of course is now gone. It might be rekindled with a different sponsor (though I doubt it).
SpaceIL is the first of the GLXP teams to actually make it to a launch. For what it's worth, I expect Astrobotic to fly as well, and I think Team Indus and PTScientists may also get off the ground. I'm hearing things about Moon Express which cause me to doubt its chances. More on landing sites shortly. Phil -------------------- ... because the Solar System ain't gonna map itself.
Also to be found posting similar content on https://mastodon.social/@PhilStooke Maps for download (free PDF: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/comm...Cartography.pdf NOTE: everything created by me which I post on UMSF is considered to be in the public domain (NOT CC, public domain) |
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Aug 11 2019, 04:45 PM
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#2
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Member Group: Members Posts: 401 Joined: 5-January 07 From: Manchester England Member No.: 1563 |
Ok, hang on: The tardigrades are.in their 'safed' hibernating state, and are not exposed to the lunar environmen, but sealed in layers of epoxy resin, sandwiched between layers of nickel, in an object about the size of a coin. The object is itself expected to have survived impact mostly intact. That bodes much better for their odds of long term survival and eventual recovery: A Wired article on the subject https://www.wired.com/story/a-crashed-israe...s-on-the-moon/:
I can increase the reporyed range of temperature tolerance too, down to pretty much absolute zero, according to this bbc report: http://www.bbc.co.uk/earth/story/20150313-...nimals-on-earth Interestingly, in this state, tardigrafes do metabolise albeit at 0.01% their normal rate, and so might be argued to be 'alive' on the lunar surface. But I will say that, if I had to find an extant living thing on the lunar surface today, my 'least hugely unlikely' choice would still be to look in the mini greenhouse on the Chang'e 4 lander, assuming it still has pressure - I would bet some extremophile capable of handling the temperature swings (which would be somewhat moderated by the measures taken to keep the lander functioning) might have snuck in and be surviving off the remains of the dead plants. Ok, sorry for the lurch off topic, I'll leave it thete as a faintly amusing thought. -------------------- |
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Aug 11 2019, 05:01 PM
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#3
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2530 Joined: 20-April 05 Member No.: 321 |
It seems like a decent future mission would be to go grab these and return them to Earth and establish that they remained viable on the Moon. They won't really have been exposed to the full lunar environment (certainly no UV getting through to them) so the odds are good.
From the telemetry, this was more of a hard landing than an impact so the craft is maybe fairly intact. Of course, it'd be far easier to have a future return craft carry its own tardigrades (etc?) and eliminate the complicated hardware. Of course, part two: The interplanetary space between the Earth and the Moon already has basically the same environment as the Moon. Landing on the lunar surface only changes the thermal + radiative factors a bit. |
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Aug 11 2019, 07:45 PM
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#4
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Member Group: Members Posts: 127 Joined: 3-September 12 From: Almeria, SE Spain Member No.: 6632 |
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