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
The lander will carry a magnetometer, and landing site discussions have suggested landing at a magnetic anomaly. Early talk about this suggested landing at the well-known Reiner Gamma swirl and magnetic anomaly in Oceanus Procellarum, probably the best known such feature on the Moon. This was illustrated in a Youtube video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRJ5HsgHhxQ
Subsequent work changed the target. Areas within about 20 degrees of the limb were off limits to avoid communication problems, and areas within about --- degrees of the equator were rejected for thermal reasons (to avoid the hottest temperatures at lunar noon). Within the northern and southern zones remaining, topographically safe sites were selected, avoiding regions with particularly low or high albedo to facilitate use of the laser altimeter. Those sites were compared with maps of magnetic anomalies and three potential sites were selected. This process is described in a 2017 LPSC abstract and poster:
LPSC abstract, 2017:
https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2017/pdf/1914.pdf
associated poster:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321587644_Landing_site_selection_for_the_SpaceIL_mission_to_the_Moon
(I spoke to Grossman at the meeting).
The favoured site was near Berzelius crater. I will show a map later.
Phil
This illustration shows the sites suggested for SpaceIL in the abstract and poster mentioned above.
Interesting. Kinda makes me wonder if they're actually interested in finding ferrous metal deposits, presumably left by iron-nickel impactors.
SpaceIL has been running a lander name competition - I didn't know about it, but it looks like it ran on their Facebook page and they got lots of suggestions, then made a shortlist and are now asking the public to vote on names from the shortlist.
https://twitter.com/teamspaceil?lang=en
http://www.spaceil.com/
Phil
A very nice update on SpaceIL at the Planetary Society:
http://www.planetary.org/blogs/jason-davis/spaceil-lander-feature.html
In particular it contains details of the landing site, and it is one I had not seen mentioned before. The previous site information which I posted above was from an LPSC presentation, but this is different - the NW edge of Mare Serenitatis. In the earlier work mare areas were ruled out as not suitable for the use of their laser altimeter (too dark, reducing the reflected signal). Back to the (map) drawing board! (or as I call it, the kitchen table).
Phil
EDIT: Oops, here is an earlier statement:
https://www.israel21c.org/israeli-space-team-still-shooting-for-the-moon/
I had seen it but had foolishly discounted it because of the earlier prohibition on dark mare surfaces.
Follow-on to the naming story - SpaceIL has just tweeted their name for the lander, which had been called Sparrow since the very beginning. Now it has a new name, Beresheet, meaning 'in the beginning' (or 'Genesis').
Phil
This is the new SpaceIL landing area. Launch now set for February 2019 on a rideshare Falcon 9.
Phil
You are referring to the scale of the map, and as you say, at this scale we don't see small hazards. But we do see large hazards and they are nearly absent from this area. No part of the Moon is really smooth.
Phil
To refresh news from SpaceIL
http://www.moondaily.com/reports/Israeli_spacecraft_gets_special_passenger_before_moon_journey_999.html
Already very soon, perhaps in two months for the launch.
Launch of SpaceIL's Beresheet Lunar Lander next Thursday (Friday UTC)!
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/02/18/middleeast/israel-spacecraft-beresheet-launch-intl/index.html
Landing on April 11, this seems less then one day from local sunrise. Interesting!
Thorsten
Somewhere (I don't find it anymore )
I read that April 11 is the date of LOI,
followed by another week of orbiting the Moon.
This would mean landing around local noon,
what makes more sense...
Thorsten
there is a good recap of the mission on the Nature website:
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00634-8
SpaceIL has successfully separated from the Falcon 9 upper stage.
This LPSC abstract:
http://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2019/pdf/2290.pdf
provides more detailed information on the landing site.
Phil
On this page https://live.spaceil.com/ there is a simulation of the present position of the probe.
If I calculated well, the LOI is late on April 4 (UTC) and the landing on April 12 at 05:16:17 UTC.
Is there somewhere a more detailed timeline of the mission?
Thorsten
News from today, the SpaceIL has failed with the starship tracer during a maneuver to direct the ship to the lunar surface.
For more details (in Spanish) https://www.milenio.com/ciencia-y-salud/sonda-israeli-beresheet-falla-viaje-luna
Engineers analyze the problem, but for now, the ship is still working properly and it is going to complete its second Earth's orbit.
Looks like the maneuver was redone and went fine, apoapse is now 131,000 KM: https://twitter.com/TeamSpaceIL/status/1101222662444072973
Beresheet has conducted its fourth engine firing, a 60-sec burn, which is the final one before entering lunar orbit on 4 April. Landing due 11 April.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-spacecraft-performs-final-maneuver-before-moon-landing-bid/
Now Beresheet is reaching the fourth apogee earth orbit. The next orbit will be the final ones?
I think it will stay in this Earth orbit, its final one, until its apogee of 4th April coincides with the arrival of the Moon at that point.
It will then fire the engine again on that date and transition into its first lunar orbit.
The spaceship: Beresheet is about two days away to be inserted into the gravity of the moon. Its orbit looks in a good way to be captured by the moon on this Thursday, April 4.
This is the landing area. The 'Aharonson et al. 2019' reference is their LPSC abstract. The enlarged image, an LRO wide-angle mosaic, shows the area of the three sites. They show up as slightly darker areas of the mare surface.
Phil
The Bereshet was already captured by the Moon's gravity
The time stamp is from CDT
A couple of pics from the far side available on IL's Facebook page
https://www.facebook.com/SpaceIL
I can never get bored of pictures of the moon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMdUcchBYRA
Some great live telemetry (though narration mostly in Hebrew)!
Any idea when/if LRO will be imaging the landing site?
Looks like the main engine failed, and they lost contact soon after. Seems like a a hard impact based on the last telemetry.
Space is hard folks....
Controlled landing unssucessful, main engine failure, fantastic effort from a non govenmental enterprise.
From https://twitter.com/EladRatson/status/1116427960033136640/photo/1 tweet.
Just wondering if Phil Stooke will identify the craters...
Thorsten
Well done to them - as I understand it this was far more a mission about promoting STEM education, PR, and inspiring people than it was about science. They've achieved 99% of what they hoped for just by making it into lunar orbit, so well done - even a hard lunar landing is a huge achievement.
That said, I'm seriously hoping that 'inspiring people' part means we can look forward to some new (hopefully not 150 meters/sec) private landing attempts in the not too distant future......
Yeah, Phil will definitely identify the craters!
That IMU issue and premature engine cutoff reminds me of Schiaparelli's impact (in trajectory if not in exact cause). Hopefully LRO can take a look during this lunar day or the next.
My hats off to the team; an incredible achievement, and apparently they still win the million dollars for the X-Prize contest (no other team even got to launch!)
The crater should be Hypatia A.
looking North East into Mare Tranquilitatis.
Still over 1000km from the landing point.
(Credits for identification go to @Henning81 from the German astronomie.de)
Thorsten
Here's the first image, reprojected a bit to help identify it ...
And the second. As was said already, it's Hypatia at 4 south, 22 east. Looking northeast from one of the four side-mounted cameras which would have taken the surface panorama.
I have to say, it somewhat alarmed me to see that photo and identify it as the spur of highlands south of the Apollo 11 landing site. It's the feature I use as a finder to zero in on that location. I'm sure I don't know the entire Moon that well, but that's one spot that I do.
On April 5, Space News reported that the lander fired its main engine for six minutes, slowing the spacecraft by about 1,000 kilometers per hour.
https://spacenews.com/spaceil-lander-enters-lunar-orbit/
These numbers work out to 0.77 meters per second squared acceleration, which is less than half of lunar surface gravity. Landing from a low lunar orbit needs about half of the spacecraft to be propellant, so after burning that off, the deceleration capability would still be less than lunar surface gravity. So if the reported numbers correctly represent full thrust from the main engine, there would not have been enough thrust to land.
Does anyone know the correct numbers for the orbit insertion burn last week, or is it true that there simply was not enough thrust?
Otherwise, what did I miss in my calculation? A million meters per hour in 6 minutes is 278 m/s in 360 s, or 0.77 m/s^2.
any idea whether the expected magnetometer data to be collected during orbits and descent have been obtained?
News today:
Leonard David reports LRO's LOLA laser will attempt to get a reflection from the ball-shaped reflector, if it survived the crash.
http://www.leonarddavid.com/did-nasa-experiment-survive-on-failed-israel-moon-lander/
No word yet on if any magnetometer results were transmitted.
Kahn will begin a Beresheet 2 mission right away. Flight in 2 or 3 years.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/spaceil-chief-beresheet-2-starts-tomorrow-well-put-our-flag-on-the-moon/
Phil
Hypatia A
Here is a LRO QuickMap link to match the Beresheet photo:
http://bit.ly/2P984hh
And attached is the correctly orientated Beresheet photo.
Beresheet's last photo...
My correctly orientated and enhanced version of Beresheet's last published selfie photo is attached. The large crater seen in the distance (top and to the left of the flag) is Burg.
Here is a LRO QuickMap 3D link for the photo:
http://bit.ly/2P5MQkj
[attachment=44600:Bereshee...QuickMap.jpg]LRO QuickMap 2D and 3D screen captures, and QuickMap links for the screen captures...BERESHEET FLIGHT PATH FROM SELFIE TO PLANNED LANDING SITE (2D):
This is NOT the correct flight path. I assumed that the selfie photo shown live was taken either just before or during descent:
http://bit.ly/2PbqspxBERESHEET FLIGHT PATH FROM SELFIE TO PLANNED LANDING SITE (3D):
This is NOT the correct flight path. I assumed that the selfie photo shown live was taken either just before or during descent:
http://bit.ly/2P7DIvw
The terrain from Beresheet's last selfie photo and the intended landing site...
This is not the correct flight path for the descent.
"https://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/bd34il/hi_my_name_is_ben_nathaniel_i_work_on_the_team_of/"
Reddit has this 'ask me anything' with a spaceIL team member. Among other things it confirms that the Hypatia image was taken 4 hours before the landing attempt (2 orbits earlier). I suspect that the Lacus Mortis image was taken on that orbit or the next. I don't think it can be from the descent, so I don't think a path can be mapped from the image location to the landing site. The time of image release is not indicative of when it was taken. The Reddit does say that there is another image not yet released, possibly from the actual descent. It also appears that there is some magnetometer data taken and probably on the ground.
Phil
Just two questions:
Was the (final) orbit perfectly polar, meaning inclination 90°? Or somewhat less?
And: Was the spacecraft flying south->north or north->south when at the near side?
I haven't read anything about this until now...
Thorsten
See the LRO presentation at LEAG last year linked near the bottom of this page:
https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/leag2018/program/Agenda_Recordings.pdf
(you need Adobe Connect to view it, as unfortunately LEAG only archived the video presentation rather than the PDF of the slides. I would prefer both)
The discussion illustrates the geometry of LRO observations of the actual landing with one modelled date in April. Bottom line, no direct observation possible, but the Beresheet orbit is shown as nearly polar and north to south on approach.
Phil
You are right! I had mis-remembered that presentation. I was thinking it showed the Beresheet trajectory as well. I am sure I saw it somewhere but now I can't recall where it was. Serves me right for not checking the video before posting. Sorry about that.
Phil
There is a new "final picture" from Beresheet!
https://twitter.com/saetur/status/1118516159626784769
Thorsten
From their Twitter feed: "Here are the findings of the preliminary investigation of #Beresheet’s landing maneuver: It appears that during the landing process a command was entered that led to a chain reaction, which caused the main engine to switch off and prevented it from being reactivated."
Final report in a few weeks.
http://www.lroc.asu.edu/posts/1101
Yes indeed! Here's a finder map for the crash site.
Seems there will be no Beresheet-2 on the Moon.
http://www.parabolicarc.com/2019/06/26/crashed-spaceil-wont-return-moon-beresheet-2/
Thorsten
It turns out this crash may have added some tardigrades to the Moon.
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/life-unbounded/tardigrades-were-already-on-the-moon/
There has been a lot of chatter about tardigrades surviving UV radiation and vacuum, but I am not at all sure about them surviving the temperature extremes.
Phil
From what I read they can, in their hibernated ptotective state, survive lows of - 200 celcius and highs of +145. It's not clear if they were in that state during the crash, or how their tolerance holds up under the assault of the combined factors of the lunar surface. Even in the best case for them, they might stay viable for a while in some buried-by-the-impact nook with lower than average (for that lattitude) temperature swings and some shelter from other factors, but eventually the lunar conditions will get them, as the cannot leave their protective state without dying. I got the temperature tolerance infofrom here' https://www.livescience.com/57985-tardigrade-facts.html. Are webutting up against rule 1.3 here?
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-israeli-lunar-lander-spilled-tardigrades-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-the-toughest-animals-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.
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.
It's not my field so I cannot vouch for it, but from what was said by this source.... https://amp.businessinsider.com/tardigrades-on-moon-spacecraft-beresheet-likely-still-alive-2019-89-8
"Tardigrades in dry state can survive pressures up to 74,000 times the pressure we experience at sea level, so the [crash] impact should not be a problem for them," evolutionary zoologist Roberto Guidetti told Business Insider.
As for the vehicle... the retro reflector experiment, a small simple chunk of solid material, is thought to have perhaps survived. So I imagine that other components that are also small and basically solid chunks of material, could have survived. So not the vehicle, but identifiable components of it, perhaps, based on my layman reading of what is being said by engineers on the subject.
I don't have the time or the desire to investigate tardigrade survival, but I get a sense that there is a bit of tardigrade worship going on around this story, and I am not referring to UMSF here but in the wider media. People are taking it rather for granted that they can survive mind-boggling temperature extremes. All I have done so far is look at the Wikipedia page on tardigrades, and it says that the wee critters can survive temperatures close to absolute zero or up to about 150 C, with citations I have not followed up on. However, the caveat is that they are apparently shown to survive these extremes for 'a few minutes'. The lunar night is not 1 K, but it is a lot longer than a few minutes, and the day would get hotter than 150 C for long periods. I don't think the radiation story is as clear-cut as is sometimes claimed either, particularly if we bring in cosmic rays. Mark me down as skeptical that our little friends have much chance of surviving prolonged exposure to the lunar environment.
Phil
Near absolute zero, aren't a few minutes and a billion years about the same thing? Extreme cold is the cessation of change, so it seems like anything that would survive (remain viable) a few minutes of it (if the cold is allowed to penetrate all the way through) would survive an arbitrary duration of it.
It seems like it's the freezing and the unfreezing that would do the harm, not the being-at a low temperature.
PS: Though maybe cosmic ray strikes accumulating for a long time, which are not verboten at low temperatures, would fiddle with biology catastrophically.
This is soooo not my area of expertise, but a wee bit of googleing suggests that the lunar regolith has impressive insulating properties, and within half a meter of the surface the temperature is fairly constant at roughly -130 deg C to -150 deg c (eg, here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0094576514004160) even at noon and midnight. Given that something hitting at approx 1km/sec will either smash to bits if it hits stone, or deeply bury if it hits deep, more yielding, regolith (and the lunar surface has little that isn't one or t' other)…. I'd (very tentatively) suggest that the much worshipped tardigrades are either slam dunk dead or in a situation where the effects of low temperature and radiation dmage accumulation on their survival are more likely relevant than the effects of high temperature.
Might be time to stop beating a dead tardigrade here. (Well...lots of 'em).
I've just started teacher training (physics), and part of it is to teach general science - so we have to get some training in biology. We just did the segment on using microscopes to examine algae and protozoa - we found a tardigrade in our sample. Looking at it it's hard to imagine it's relative made that journey (dead or alive). Not really relevant, but it was very cool and gives me a cool connection to show students how different fields of science can be connected.
The LPSC 2020 abstracts are available now (Jan. 31), and one concerns Beresheet. Its magnetometer was used through about half an orbit (perhaps more, but a half-orbit arc is shown), over the Earth-facing side of the Moon prior to the landing attempt. I think the abstract is saying that the data are compromised by the magnetic field of the spacecraft and will not be useful.
Phil
https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2020/pdf/1267.pdf
So even if landing was successful, there would not have been useful science regarding the swirls? Talk about sour grapes....
Powered by Invision Power Board (http://www.invisionboard.com)
© Invision Power Services (http://www.invisionpower.com)