Category Archives: Lunar Orbiters

Wednesday / 23 October 2013

Posted on by

LunarSail Project Completes First Round Of Funding

LunarSail1013

ARES Institute Raises Over US$15K Via Kickstarter Campaign; Mission To Demonstrate Ability Of Spacecraft To Navigate Itself Into Lunar Trajectory & Lunar Orbit With Solar Sail; Spacecraft Will Utilize CubeSat Design, Volume ~1000 Cubic Cm; Applying For Low-Cost / No-Cost Launch Under NASA CubeSat Launch Initiative, Due Date For CLI Proposals 26 Nov 2013; Project Leader Matthew Travis Says Mission Achievable For Under $100K

Image Credit: lunarsail.com

Tuesday / 15 October 2013

Posted on by

LADEE Settling Into Lunar Orbit,
Preparing Communications Demonstration

LLCD1013

Lunar Atmosphere & Dust Environment Explorer Now In 250-Km Near-Circular Equatorial Orbit; Lunar Laser Communications Demonstration To Begin 17 Oct, LADEE To Link Up With Ground Stations In New Mexico, California & Canary Islands, Achieve Downlink Speed 622Mbps / Uplink Speed 20Mbps, Technology Could Revolutionize Deep Space Communication; Around 11 Nov Probe Will Drop To ~50Km Altitude For 100-Day Science Mission

Image Credit: NASA

Thursday / 10 October 2013

Posted on by

LADEE Set To Enter Commissioning Orbit

MaceWindu1013

US$280M Probe Now Orbiting Moon Once Every 4 Hours After Completing 2nd Orbit Insertion Maneuver Early Wed Morning; 3rd Maneuver Planned For Sat 12 Oct Will Move LADEE From Elliptical To Circular ‘Commissioning’ Orbit (250-Km Altitude); Mission Scientists Will Use This Time To Test Science Instruments & Conduct Lunar Laser Communications Demonstration Before Dropping To 50-Km To Begin Science Operations In Late Nov

Image Credit: NASA

Wednesday / 2 October 2013

Posted on by

LADEE In Final Phase Of Moon Trek

LADEElunarInsertion1013

US$280M Probe Completes 2nd Burn Perfectly, No Longer Needs Additional Burn To Reach Desired High Elliptical Orbit; When LADEE Reaches Moon Gravitational Field On 6 Oct It Will Make 197-Second Retrograde Burn Reducing Velocity To 267 Meters Per Second For Lunar Orbit Capture; Craft Will Then Perform 40 Days Of High-Altitude Science Checkouts & LLCD Operations Before Dropping To 50-Km Altitude To Begin 100-Day Science Operations

Image Credit: NASA

Friday / 27 September 2013

Posted on by

ARTEMIS Moon Orbiters Reveal Path Of Energy Through Space

ARTEMIS Moon

ARTEMIS Teams With THEMIS & GOES 13 / 15 Spacecraft To Track Sun Energy As It Hurtles Around Earth Magnetosphere, Forms Aurora (Substorm); Results Published In Science 27 Sep Show Small Events Unfolding Over 1 Millisecond Can Result In 30-Minute Energy Flows & Cover Area 10x Larger Than Earth; Can Help Scientists To One Day Predict Space Weather; Lunar Orbiters Offer Unique Perspective Of Magnetotail, Through Which Moon Travels 1x Month

Pictured: ARTEMIS & THEMIS P.I. Vassilis Angelopoulos (T) & Project Manager David Sibeck (B)

Image Credit: NASA, JPL / Caltech, Berkeley

Wednesday / 18 September 2013

Posted on by

Russia Continuing To Advance Lunar Exploration Agenda

RussiaMoonPlan0913

More Details Of Russia Lunar Exploration Plans To Emerge At 4th Moscow Solar System Symposium, 14-18 Oct; Updates On Luna-Glob (~2016) & Luna-Resource (~2017), Lunar Polar Sample Return Mission (~2019); RSC Energia Chief Designer Of Human Systems Nikolay Brukhanov To Speak On Russia Plans For Human Moon Missions; Successfully Finishing What It Started – Human Moon Mission – Will Strengthen Russia Credibility As Space Power

Image Credit: IKI, RussianSpaceWeb.com

Tuesday / 17 September 2013

Posted on by

LRO Continuing To Produce Valuable Data

LROdata15

Release #15 Of LRO Data Now Available At Planetary Data System Archive; New Data Was Acquired Between 15 Mar & 14 Jun 2013, From CRaTER, Diviner, LAMP, LEND, LOLA, LROC & SPICE Instruments; 6 More LRO Data Releases Scheduled, Final Release In Mar 2015; LROC WAC Data Used To Create Time-Lapse Video Of Full Rotation Of Moon

 Image Credit: NASA

Tuesday / 10 September 2013

Posted on by

LADEE: Destination Moon

LADEEempirest

383-Kg Spacecraft Now Making 30-Day Journey To Moon Through Series Of Phasing Orbits That Will Allow It To Arrive At Proper Time / Phase; Flawless Night Launch Provided Spectacular Viewing For East Coast USA; Slight Glitch With Craft Reactor Wheels Corrected By NASA Engineers; Upon 6 Oct Arrival At Moon LADEE Will Go Through 30-Day Checkout Phase & Then 100-Day Science Phase In Which It Will Orbit Moon Between 20-60-Km 

Image Credit: NASA, Ben Cooper

Weekend Edition / Fri-Mon 6-9 Sep 2013

Posted on by

Launch Of Last Scheduled NASA Moon Mission As Lunar Experts Flock To NewSpace Companies

LADEEme0913

LADEE Launch — 6 Sep, 23:27 EDT, Wallops Island VA, Via Minotaur 5 Rocket — Promises To Provide Spectacular Show To East Coast USA Viewers; US$248M-Mission Will Test New System For Ultra-Fast Optical Data Transmission — 600 Mbit/s, Unravel Mysteries Of Lunar Atmosphere / Dust Environment, Premiere Common Spacecraft Bus; Next Flight Of The Bus Likely On Moon Express (ME) GLXP Mission NET 2015; ME Announces Paul Spudis New Chief Scientist, Jack Burns Added To Science Advisory Board

Image Credit: NASA, Moon Express

Friday / 6 September 2013

Posted on by

China Chang’e-3 Publicists Fail On Eve Of USA LADEE Launch

LADEE launch Chang'e-3

America Pioneering Lunar Atmosphere And Dust Environment Explorer, With Revolutionary Modular Spacecraft Bus And Ultrafast Laser Optical Communications, Counts Down To Dramatic 23:27 Virginia Coast Night Launch; Equally Innovative PRC Chang’e-3 Moon Lander Mission Suffers Public Relations, Lunar Progress Setbacks With Grave Translation Errors Of UV-Telescope, UV-Camera, Advanced Radar Instruments

Image Credit: NASA, Wallops/P. Black, Dragon in Space