Lunar Landings News and Discussions

[weatheriscool]

China's Chang’e-6 Lander Is Almost Ready to Sample Far Side of the Moon
This is a follow-up to 2020's Chang’e-5, which returned samples from the Earth-facing side of the Moon.
By Ryan Whitwam January 12, 2024
https://www.extremetech.com/science/chi ... f-the-moon

After decades of neglect, humanity is again shooting for the Moon—NASA hopes to return humans to the lunar surface in a few years, and numerous countries have ramped up efforts to land robotic explorers, with surprisingly limited success. China's Chang’e missions have been a bright spot, with Chang’e-5 bringing back the first samples of lunar soil in decades. Now, the China National Space Administration (CNSA) says the follow-up Chang’e-6 has arrived at the launch site for final testing before it heads off to collect samples from the far side of the Moon.

Chang’e-5 reached the lunar surface in 2020, an event that we might not have sufficiently appreciated at the time. In the intervening years, we've seen both public and private Moon landers crash into Earth's satellite, including Russia's Luna-25 and the US Peregrine lander from Astrobotic. Chang’e-5 successfully collected 1.7 kilograms of dust from the Moon and sent it back to Earth. Chang’e-6 will perform a similar operation on the far side of the Moon (above), which has only been visited a handful of times and from which we have no samples.

[caltrek]

Nasa Peregrine 1: US lander will not make it to moon’s surface due to fuel leak

...

https://www.theguardian.com/science/202 ... -fuel-leak

More on that:

Five Small Robots Developed in Mexico Deployed to Deep Space on First Ever Moon Mission
by Regina Sienra
January 12, 2024

Introduction:

(My Modern Met) The world has been paying close attention to the launch of Astrobotic's Peregrine moon lander, aimed to be the first private lunar mission to touch down successfully on the Moon. Unfortunately, a propulsion issue caused a significant propellant leak. As a result, Peregrine will not achieve a soft landing on the Moon, according to NASA. But not all hope is lost for the projects on board. Peregrine happens to be carrying Colmena, Mexico's first-ever Moon mission. And despite the setbacks, the project has already achieved several wins.

The Colmena mission consists of five autonomous micro-robots, which measure just 4 inches in diameter and weigh 2 ounces each. Colmena, which means “beehive” in Spanish, references the worker bee's process, indicating that these tiny devices are ready to work as a team. Developed by the Laboratory of Special Instruments (LINX) at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), the project launched back in 2015, when it was first pitched to Astrobiotic and selected alongside 19 other projects from NASA, as well as the UK, Japan, and Germany. Fast forward nine years, and with the aid of 250 students who helped create the robots, the mission has finally been brought to life.

The key to their success is size. Gustavo Medina, Colmena mission leader and head of LINX, told El País that devices this small have never been operated in space. This was what caught Astrobotic's attention and may be a game changer in the future. “Instead of sending a large machine to extract a mineral, which costs a lot and if it breaks down everything is lost, we can send 100,000 tiny robots; and if one dies, nothing happens,” he explains. “The project can resist. That's the philosophy.”

The robots are enclosed in what Medina describes as a “cookie package,” which would later work as a catapult. Since there's nothing to offload the robots, the catapult would throw them 30 to 50 feet away from the lander—enough to escape the shade of the lander to get their solar panels to work and getting coordinates from where their pals landed, so they can get to work.

Read more here: https://mymodernmet.com/colmena-unam-m ... -lander/

[firestar464]

Ailing Peregrine Moon Lander Is on Course to Crash into Earth

https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... nto-earth/
https://archive.is/fuWlf

The title is misleading, as the article ends up stating that it'll burn up in the atmosphere.

[raklian]

[weatheriscool]

Japan's 'Moon Sniper' Set for Wild Lunar Landing Friday
The SLIM lander team at JAXA will have to suffer through '20 minutes of terror' while they wait to see if the probe survives.
By Ryan Whitwam January 18, 2024
https://www.extremetech.com/science/jap ... ing-friday

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is hoping to end the pattern of failed lunar landings this week. The agency's SLIM mission has reached lunar orbit and is preparing for its descent on Friday morning. This spacecraft will test a new landing system, which could drop the lander with unparalleled precision—and hopefully in one piece.

SLIM (Smart Lander for Investigating Moon) is headed for Shioli crater, which is believed to be a relatively new feature on the Moon. Previous orbital observations suggest there is ejecta from the impact strewn around the rim, and it may contain olivine and other minerals from the Moon's crust. SLIM hopes to get close enough to this debris to conduct analysis, something that other landers would not be able to do safely.

[wjfox]

LIVE: Japan's 'Moon Sniper' attempting to land on lunar surface

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/science ... t-68019846

– If successful, it would make Japan only the fifth country to land on the Moon after the US, the former Soviet Union, China and India

[wjfox]

1m ago
17.17 GMT

Japanese probe landed on moon but not generating solar power, space agency says

The Slim spacecraft landed on the moon and is communicating with earth but is not generating electricity via its solar panels, a Japanese space agency official says.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/liv ... ws-updates

[raklian]

1m ago
17.17 GMT

Japanese probe landed on moon but not generating solar power, space agency says

The Slim spacecraft landed on the moon and is communicating with earth but is not generating electricity via its solar panels, a Japanese space agency official says.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/liv ... ws-updates

Makes us appreciate how we managed to pull off the Apollo Moon landings.

[weatheriscool]

Laser instrument on NASA's LRO successfully pings Indian moon lander
https://phys.org/news/2024-01-laser-ins ... fully.html
by Lonnie Shekhtman, NASA

For the first time at the moon, a laser beam was transmitted and reflected between an orbiting NASA spacecraft and an Oreo-sized device on ISRO's (Indian Space Research Organization) Vikram lander on the lunar surface. The successful experiment opens the door to a new style of precisely locating targets on the moon's surface.

At 3 p.m. EST on Dec. 12, 2023, NASA's LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter) pointed its laser altimeter instrument toward Vikram. The lander was 62 miles, or 100 kilometers, away from LRO, near Manzinus crater in the moon's south pole region, when LRO transmitted laser pulses toward it. After the orbiter registered light that had bounced back from a tiny NASA retroreflector aboard Vikram, NASA scientists knew their technique had finally worked.

Sending laser pulses toward an object and measuring how long it takes the light to bounce back is a commonly used way to track the locations of Earth-orbiting satellites from the ground. But using the technique in reverse—to send laser pulses from a moving spacecraft to a stationary one to determine its precise location—has many applications at the moon, scientists say.

"We've showed that we can locate our retroreflector on the surface from the moon's orbit," said Xiaoli Sun, who led the team at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, that developed the retroreflector on Vikram as part of a partnership between NASA and ISRO. "The next step is to improve the technique so that it can become routine for missions that want to use these retroreflectors in the future."

[wjfox]

Japan hopes sunlight can save stricken Slim Moon lander

47 minutes ago

Japan may yet manage to salvage its Moon lander, the country's space agency Jaxa says - if sunlight hits it in the right place.

The Slim spacecraft was turned off just three hours after its historic lunar touchdown on Saturday to save power.

Engineers had realised its solar cells were pointing west, away from the Sun, and could not generate electricity.

But the mission team is now hopeful the situation could improve as lighting conditions shift.

"If sunlight hits the Moon from the west in the future, we believe there's a possibility of power generation, and we're currently preparing for restoration," the Jaxa statement read.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-68055186



Credit: JAXA

[wjfox]

Japan's 'Moon Sniper' made successful 'pin-point' landing, says space agency

Japan's "Moon Sniper" craft landed around 55 metres (180 feet) from its target, the country's space agency said Thursday as it released the first images from the mission.

Issued on: 25/01/2024 - 07:53

The unmanned Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM), dubbed the "Moon Sniper" for its pin-point technology, had the goal of touching down within 100 metres (330 feet) of a specific landing spot.

That is much more precise than the usual landing zone of several kilometres.

"SLIM succeeded in a pin-point soft landing... the landing point is confirmed to be 55 metres away from the target point," space agency JAXA said.

Saturday's soft lunar landing made Japan only the fifth nation to achieve the feat, after the United States, Soviet Union, China and India.

https://www.france24.com/en/asia-pacifi ... ace-agency

[weatheriscool]

Japan's moon lander comes back to life
https://phys.org/news/2024-01-japan-moo ... -life.html
by Kyoko HASEGAWA

SLIM's January 20 touchdown made Japan only the fifth nation to achieve a "soft landing" on the Moon after the United States, the Soviet Union, China and India.

Japan's moon lander has come back to life, the space agency said Monday, enabling the craft to proceed with its mission of investigating the lunar surface despite its rocky start.

The surprise announcement was a boost to Japan's space program, nine days after the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) touched down at a wonky angle that left its solar panels facing the wrong way.

[weatheriscool]

[weatheriscool]

Japan's Moon lander goes into what may be its final sleep as Sun sets
By David Szondy
February 01, 2024

Japan's SLIM Moon lander has gone back into sleep mode as the Sun sets on its landing site. The robotic spacecraft began to lose power as the lunar day came to its end and it now faces the freezing cold 14-day lunar night, which it may not survive.

Though it only came back online a few days ago, the clock was already running against the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM). When it touched down at Mare Nectaris, south of the Theophilus crater, on January 19, 2024, it bounced and landed on its nose. This placed the solar panel in the wrong direction, preventing the battery from charging.

On January 29, the Sun had moved into a position where it could shine on the panel, allowing it to spring back to fully operational status. Unfortunately, it was also very late in the lunar day because SLIM's panel was facing west. This meant that the spacecraft's new lease on life was only a short one.

https://newatlas.com/space/japans-moon- ... nal-sleep/

[caltrek]

Lunar Science is Entering a New Active Phase, with Commercial Launches of Landers that Will Study Solar Wind and Peer Into the Universe’s Dark Ages
by Jack Burns
February 5, 2024

Introduction:

(The Conversation) For the first time since 1972, NASA is putting science experiments on the Moon in 2024. And thanks to new technologies and public-private partnerships, these projects will open up new realms of scientific possibility. As parts of several projects launching this year, teams of scientists, including myself, will conduct radio astronomy from the south pole and the far side of the Moon.

NASA’s commercial lunar payload services program, or CLPS, will use uncrewed landers to conduct NASA’s first science experiments from the Moon in over 50 years. The CLPS program differs from past space programs. Rather than NASA building the landers and operating the program, commercial companies will do so in a public-private partnership. NASA identified about a dozen companies to serve as vendors for landers that will go to the Moon.

NASA buys space on these landers for science payloads to fly to the Moon, and the companies design, build and insure the landers, as well as contract with rocket companies for the launches. Unlike in the past, NASA is one of the customers and not the sole driver.

CLPS launches

The first two CLPS payloads are scheduled to launch during the first two months of 2024. There’s the Astrobotics payload, which launched Jan. 8 before experiencing a fuel issue that cut its journey to the Moon short. Next, there’s the Intuitive Machines payload, with a launch scheduled for mid-February. NASA has also planned a few additional landings – about two or three per year – for each of the next few years.

Read more here: https://theconversation.com/lunar-scie ... s-219892

[Time_Traveller]

China's Chang’e-6 Lander Is Almost Ready to Sample Far Side of the Moon
This is a follow-up to 2020's Chang’e-5, which returned samples from the Earth-facing side of the Moon.
By Ryan Whitwam January 12, 2024
https://www.extremetech.com/science/chi ... f-the-moon

After decades of neglect, humanity is again shooting for the Moon—NASA hopes to return humans to the lunar surface in a few years, and numerous countries have ramped up efforts to land robotic explorers, with surprisingly limited success. China's Chang’e missions have been a bright spot, with Chang’e-5 bringing back the first samples of lunar soil in decades. Now, the China National Space Administration (CNSA) says the follow-up Chang’e-6 has arrived at the launch site for final testing before it heads off to collect samples from the far side of the Moon.

Chang’e-5 reached the lunar surface in 2020, an event that we might not have sufficiently appreciated at the time. In the intervening years, we've seen both public and private Moon landers crash into Earth's satellite, including Russia's Luna-25 and the US Peregrine lander from Astrobotic. Chang’e-5 successfully collected 1.7 kilograms of dust from the Moon and sent it back to Earth. Chang’e-6 will perform a similar operation on the far side of the Moon (above), which has only been visited a handful of times and from which we have no samples.

More on this: -

China eyes May 2024 launch for 1st-ever lunar sample-return mission to moon's far side

published about 18 hours ago



Engineers working on China's Chang'e-6 mission have foregone family reunions over the Lunar New Year to help get the spacecraft ready for launch.

The components of the complex Chang'e-6 moon sample return mission arrived at Wenchang spaceport on Hainan island in early January. There, a team of engineers and researchers, many with extensive experience from the 2020 Chang'e-5 mission, is intensively testing and adjusting the equipment, according to a China Central Television (CCTV) report.

The mission will make the first ever attempt at collecting material from the far side of the moon and deliver it to Earth for analysis. Launch is planned for around May.

Zhang Yang, managing engineer of Chang'e-6, said that Spring Festival, as Lunar New Year is known in China, is a critical period for the mission. "We must ensure that the probe is in good condition, and each step we take is quality guaranteed," Zhang said.

As traveling back to see families was not possible, team members caught with loved ones remotely.

https://www.space.com/china-moon-missio ... 024-launch

[wjfox]

Evidence shows the Moon’s south pole is probably not the best place to land

By Elizabeth Gamillo | Published: January 30, 2024

Seismic events throughout its history have sculpted the Moon’s crust with the cracks and cliffs we observe today. These features formed as the Moon shrank and sections of crust were pushed on top of one another.

Now, a new study of surface warping in the Moon’s south polar region has found evidence that some areas proposed for future landings are near or within fault zones and vulnerable to moonquakes. The paper was published in The Planetary Science Journal on Jan. 25, 2024.

https://www.astronomy.com/science/evide ... e-to-land/



The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera's image of a thurst fault near the lunar south pole.
Credit: NASA/LRO/LROC/ASU/Smithsonian Institution

[weatheriscool]

Commercial moon lander brakes into orbit, setting stage for historic landing attempt Thursday

Source: CBS News

February 21, 2024 / 12:34 PM EST

The Odysseus lunar lander fired its main engine for six minutes and 48 seconds Wednesday, putting the spacecraft into a 57-mile-high orbit around the moon and setting the stage for a landing try Thursday, the first for a U.S. spacecraft in more than 50 years.

"Odysseus is now closer to the moon than the end-to-end distance driving across Space City, Houston," spacecraft builder Intuitive Machines said on its web page. "Over the next day, while the lander remains in lunar orbit, flight controllers will analyze the complete flight data and transmit imagery of the moon.

"Odysseus continues to be in excellent health," the company added. If all goes well, Odysseus will begin its descent to the surface Thursday afternoon, touching down near a crater known as Malapert A, 186 miles from the moon's south pole, at 5:49 p.m. EST.

"You know, of all the missions mounted to the moon in the history of mankind, there's only been a 40 percent success rate," Steve Altemus, a former space shuttle engineer and co-founder of Intuitive Machines, told CBS News in an interview last year. "We believe we can do better than that. And so, I put our odds at 75 percent success." The odds are presumably better than that now, given the main engine's actual performance in space.

Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/moon-orbit ... -odysseus/

[firestar464]

And it's landed!

[weatheriscool]

Odysseus becomes first US spacecraft to land on moon in over 50 years
https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/nasa-o ... index.html
By Elise Hammond and Jackie Wattles, CNN
Updated 7:48 PM ET, Thu February 22, 2024
What we're covering

JUST IN: The Odysseus lunar lander, nicknamed “Odie” or IM-1, has become the first US-made spacecraft to touch down on the moon in 50 years — but the condition of the lander remains in question.
Odie's engineers had to overcome navigation issues during a highly difficult landing attempt. Mission control had trouble communicating with the craft after touchdown, but confirmed contact after a tense few minutes, according to Intuitive Machines, which developed the lander.
Odie is the first commercial spacecraft to make touchdown on the moon. It comes after a failed US lunar lander mission last month.
The Odysseus lander’s mission is designed to assess the lunar environment of the moon's south pole ahead of NASA’s current plan to return a crewed mission there in late 2026.

NASA reacts to lunar landing: "Great and daring quest"

From CNN's Jackie Wattles

NASA posted a reaction to the moon mission on social media, saying "Your order was delivered… to the Moon!"

"(Intutive Machines') uncrewed lunar lander landed at 6:23pm ET (2323 UTC), bringing NASA science to the Moon's surface. These instruments will prepare us for future human exploration of the Moon under #Artemis," the space agency posted on X, the website formerly known as Twitter.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson added during the webcast: "Today for the first time in more than a half-century, the US has returned to the moon."
"Today is a day that shows the power and promise of NASA's commercial partnerships," he added. "Congratulations to everyone involved in this great and daring quest."

Applause and celebrations could be heard on the Intuitive Machines webcast of the event before the live coverage concluded.

CNN is standing by for additional updates on the spacecraft's status.