Astrobotic PM-1 mission, CLPS mission with NASA and commercial payloads Options

[Phil Stooke]

I am starting a new thread for this mission which should fly this year.

Phil

[Thorsten Denk]

Peregrine will be the payload of the maiden flight of ULA's Vulcan rocket.
So the date will depend on when the rocket is ready (assuming the lander is completed first).


Thorsten

[Phil Stooke]

https://twitter.com/SpcPlcyOnline/status/1600228326198677534

This tweet shows the PM1 mission landing site near the Gruithuisen domes. It had been targeted at Lacus Mortis since the GLXP days, over a decade ago. Interesting!

The lander is now in the final testing phase before shipping to the launch site. That is a few months away yet, probably. Spacecraft and launcher have been trading places as the pacing item for this mission for years. Right now it looks like the launcher is pretty much ready, but it's never certain to the outside world.

Phil

[Bill Harris]

Have we got any sites outlining or detailing the mission or the equipment?

[mcaplinger]

Have we got any sites outlining or detailing the mission or the equipment?

Not a lot of info AFAIK. https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/spacecraft/...on?id=PEREGRN-1 and https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/spacecraft/...aftId=PEREGRN-1 has a summary of the spacecraft and instruments. I presume the lander itself has some kind of camera but the payload doesn't appear to.

[edit: https://www.astrobotic.com/lunar-delivery/manifest/ has some information about non-NASA payloads. Note that it still gives Lacus Mortis as the landing site.]

[Phil Stooke]

https://blogs.nasa.gov/clps/2023/02/02/new-...robotic-flight/

The new site is made official in this NASA CLPS blog post. Not specifically identified, however, but it's on the mare near the domes, not on top of a dome as the future CLPS lander will be.

It has been named "Sinus Viscositatis" (Sticky bay) probably in reference to the viscous lavas which built the nearby domes.

https://astrogeology.usgs.gov/news/nomencla...us-viscositatis

Phil

[Phil Stooke]

This is the landing site for Astrobotic PM1 in Sinus Viscositatis. The site was specified in a Planetary Science Advisory Committee presentation recently.

Presentation: https://www.lpi.usra.edu/pac/presentations/...earns-Noble.pdf

Phil

[Thorsten Denk]

Launch is now foreseen for Christmas Eve (24-dec)!
https://spacenews.com/ula-sets-christmas-ev...vulcan-centaur/

Thorsten

[Phil Stooke]

https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/202...ess-kit-508.pdf

Press kit for the Astrobotic Peregrine Mission 1 launch.

Phil

[kymani76]

My version of Phil's landing map above, color coded with elevation. There is about 3000 m difference in height between highest and lowest points in the selected area.
The region was also studied in Apollo era, green landing ellipses showing sites selected on the base of Lunar Orbiter 5 photography (of course nothing ever landed there in the end).

[Phil Stooke]

Great map, thanks. I had only seen some of the smaller Apollo sites in the past. Where did you find these? I would love to see the source.

Phil

[kymani76]

Thank you Phil. The source might be very familiar to you since is you who wrote the book.
Figures 149 & 162 with a bit of artistic license. Smaller ellipses are really r=1.5 km circles at this latitude, the three real ellipses are standard Apollo ellipses 7.9 x 5.3 km.
For the context here is the area in question framed by Lunar Orbiter site V-45.1 photo footprint.

[Phil Stooke]

Ah, yes, so long since I did that, I only remembered the second figure.

Phil

[Thorsten Denk]

According to this TwiX
https://twitter.com/SpaceflightNow/status/1...942846130606349
landing will be on January 25.

Thorsten

[Thorsten Denk]

According to this TwiX from Tory Bruno
https://twitter.com/torybruno/status/1733907494030688486
the launch is postponed to the 08 of January.
This means no triple landing mid January.

Thorsten