Category Archives: Lunar Landers

Tuesday / 14 May 2024

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ispace Projects Significant Demand of Lunar Services, ISRO Targeting Shiv Shakti with Chandrayaan-4

Japan first commercial lunar lander company ispace projecting 138% increase in year-on-year net sales, growing to JPY¥4,033M (US$25.8M) in FY2024 possibly buoyed by international orders for lunar landers and robots, especially from USA, which may mitigate expected JPY¥12,465M ($79.8M) loss, with ispace CEO Takeshi Hakamada (R) characterizing business environment as ‘quite positive‘ in light of USA-Japan Artemis agreement; Nilesh Desai, director of Space Applications Centre (SAC) in Ahmedabad, declares Shiv Shakti point (Statio Shiv Shakti by IAU designation, 69.373°S, 32.319°E) will be destination of Chandrayaan-4, building on successful Chandrayaan-3 mission, possibly returning sample closer to MSP than any previous NET 2028

 
Credits: ispace, ISRO, SAC

Weekend Edition
Fri-Mon / 10-13 May 2024

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Artemis Advancing with Launch Pad Infrastructure Build-out, Moonwalking and Geology Training, Space Diplomacy

NASA Exploration Ground Systems with Bechtel National contractor working to complete electrical and plumbing of permanent mount structure at KSC for Mobile Launcher 2, where Artemis missions to return humans to Moon will launch; Astronauts (L-R) Kate Rubins and Andre Douglas to practice Moon surface EVA simulation 13-20 May at San Francisco Volcanic Field near Flagstaff AZ; NASA engineers / flight directors conducting exercises in northern Arizona under direction of Cindy Evans (JSC), preparatory to Artemis geology missions; NASA Administrator Bill Nelson meeting with Italy, Vatican and Saudi Arabia space leaders

 
Credits: NASA

Friday / 10 May 2024

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NASA Soliciting Thoughts on Landing Site Value and Non-Interference in Lunar Operations

Expanding on Artemis Accords Section 11 (Deconfliction of Space Activities), which evokes legal concepts such as ‘due regard’ and ‘safety zones’ in consideration of activity on the Moon with potential to interfere in the activities of another signatory, NASA Office of Technology, Policy, and Strategy (OTPS) seeking guidance on landing site valuation (with special emphasis on MSP), how such value may degrade with contamination and mitigation measures; Secure World Foundation, Moon Village Association, For All Moonkind, Open Lunar Foundation among stakeholder groups working to formulate lunar policy; Questionnaire due 7 June 2024

 
Pictured: OTPS Associate Administrator Charity Weeden; Credits: CNSA, NASA

Weekend Edition
Fri-Mon / 3-6 May 2024

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First Lunar Far Side Sample Return Mission on Route to South Pole-Aitken Basin

China space agency CNSA guiding Chang’E-6 53-day mission, consisting of 4-module stack launched from Wenchang SLC (19 N°) on LM-5 rocket 3 May and Queqiao-2 relay satellite, also launched from Wenchang on LM-8 and currently in 200 x 16,000-km lunar orbit; Lander, ascender orbiter and return capsule to reach Moon orbit by 8 May, where they will remain for ~20 days before lander and ascender separate and descend to 490-km Apollo crater (itself within 2,400-km Aitken Basin) spending 48 hours drilling to a depth of 2-m and retrieving up to 2-kg of regolith for Earth (Inner Mongolia) return 25 June

 
Credits: CNSA

Tuesday / 30 April 2024

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SpaceX Presents Plan to Use Starship as Lunar Base Construction Element

14 companies selected to develop conceptual framework for Moon commercialization under <US$1M DARPA 10-Year Lunar Architecture Capability Study (LunA-10) contracts deliver proposal briefs at Lunar Surface Innovation Consortium Spring meeting at JHU/APL, with final reports expected in June; SpaceX study envisions lunar base infrastructure established with 3 Starship landings: Utility Starship as power / communications hub, Rolling Stock Starship for rovers and construction machines, Habitation Starship for crew living quarters; Company projects Starship payload cost to lunar surface to drop from <$10,000/kg to ~$1,000/kg after 2030

 
Credits: SpaceX, NASA

Weekend Edition
Fri-Mon / 26-29 Apr 2024

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Japan SLIM Moon Lander Defies Expectations by Operating on 4th Lunar Day

JAXA controllers maintaining delicate balance on operational period which began 23 April, timing command / transmission with day-long interval to avoid overheating amid temperatures exceeding 100°C; Reactivation following 3rd lunar night (with temps near -170°C) was earlier in lunar day than previous cycles, resulting in brightest landscape / shortest shadows imaged during mission thus far; Near-equatorial location (13.3160°S, 25.2510°E) of SLIM lander mitigates temperature flux in comparison to near-polar site of Intuitive Machines Odysseus, which functioned 1 lunar day; Both Odysseus and SLIM contain lithium-ion batteries, however SLIM utilizes bespoke pouch cells, whereas Odysseus has COTS cells

 
Credits: JAXA

Friday / 19 April 2024

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Firefly Aerospace Set to Announce Blue Ghost Mission 1 Q3/Q4 Launch Window to Moon

Austin TX-based Firefly building on 2-m tall, 3.5-m diameter Blue Ghost lunar lander at newly-expanded 19,231 m2 work space under CLPS US$93.3M task order 19D; Blue Ghost M1 could be 4th Moon surface mission to ride on SpaceX Falcon 9 (Beresheet, Hakuto-R, IM-1) with 30-day launch window TBA in May; The 150-kg capacity lander is to carry 10 NASA payloads with 94-kg mass including regolith-repelling Electrodynamic Dust Shield (KSC), solar wind-Earth magnetic field investigation Lunar Environment Heliospheric X-ray Imager (Boston University), and Lunar GNSS Receiver Experiment (MSFC), first attempt to utilize GPS on Moon

Pictured (T-B) Firefly CEO Bill Weber, Advisory Board Member Jim Bridenstine, CFO Darren Ma
Credits: Firefly

Tuesday / 16 April 2024

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ispace Japan and USA, Luxembourg Subsidiaries Preparing for Second and Third Moon Landing Missions

Resilience lunar lander being readied at Tsukuba JAXA facility as micro rover (1 of 5 manifested payloads to be delivered on HAKUTO-R Mission 2 NET Q4 2024), progresses to flight model build phase following successful testing of qualification model by ispace Luxembourg affiliate; Micro rover is key equipment for fulfillment of NASA regolith purchase under which both ispace Japan and USA were awarded precedent-setting $5,000 contracts; ispace USA also partnering with Draper on APEX 1.0 lander under CLPS contract, and will work with Raytheon subsidiary Blue Canyon Technologies to deploy 2 ‘Venus class’ cis-lunar relay satellites during NET 2026 mission

Pictured: (L-R) ispace-U.S. CEO Ron Garan, ispace CEO Takeshi Hakamada, Ispace-Europe engineer; Credits: ispace

Friday / 29 March 2024

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SLIM Awakens for 3rd Lunar Day of Operations

JAXA team working at Sagamihara Campus SLIM control room are ebullient as their 2.4-m tall lunar lander reactivates yet again, enduring 2 cold nights on the Moon with temperatures below -130°C at mid-latitude landing site (-13.3160°, 25.2510°); Landscape imagery being taken via navigation camera currently amid high temperatures near 100°C with Sun relatively high overhead (necessary to power solar panels in off-nominal orientation); JAXA reports systems are mostly functioning aside from some temperature sensors and battery cells; Lunar day ends for SLIM on 30 March; SLIM team to present at Tanegashima Space Center open house 21 April

Credits: JAXA

Tuesday / 26 March 2024

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Chandrayaan-3 Landing Site Now Officially Designated Statio Shiv Shakti by International Astronomical Union

IAU Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature on 19 March declares area around Vikram lander between Manzinus C and Simpelius N craters (-69.37°, 32.32°) Statio Shiv Shakti (Shiva Shakti Station) after Hindu deities which symbolize masculine and feminine energies in recognition of 4th national soft-landing on Moon; Chandrayaan-1 probe impact site ‘Jawahar Point’ and Chandrayaan-2 crash site ‘Tiranga’ have also been submitted to IAU; Shiva and Shakti are also invoked by Max Planck Institute astronomers for metal-poor 12-13 billion year old stellar streams thought to be proto-galactic fragments observed by Gaia Space Observatory and Sloan Digital Sky Survey; Rubin crater between Amundsen and Demonax B crater (-82.82°, 77.65°) was also named on 19 March after the American astronomer Vera Rubin

Credits: Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature, USGS, IAU