OrbitalHub

NASA dixit:

“Scientists using data from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, have identified bright areas in craters near the moon’s south pole that are cold enough to have frost present on the surface. The new evidence comes from an analysis that combined surface temperatures with information about how much light is reflected off the moon’s surface.

“We found that the coldest places near the moon’s south pole are also the brightest places—brighter than we would expect from soil alone—and that might indicate the presence of surface frost,” said Elizabeth Fisher, the lead author of the study, published in Icarus. Fisher carried out the data analysis while doing research at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa after earning her undergraduate degree. She is now a graduate student at Brown University.

The icy deposits appear to be patchy and thin, and it’s possible that they are mixed in with the surface layer of soil, dust and small rocks called the regolith. The researchers say they are not seeing expanses of ice similar to a frozen pond or skating rink. Instead, they are seeing signs of surface frost. The frost was found in cold traps close to the moon’s south pole. Cold traps are permanently dark areas—located either on the floor of a deep crater or along a section of crater wall that doesn’t receive direct sunlight—where temperatures remain below minus 260 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 163 degrees Celsius). Under these conditions, water ice can persist for millions or billions of years.

More than a half-century ago, scientists suggested that lunar cold traps could store water ice, but confirming that hypothesis turned out to be challenging. Observations made by NASA’s Lunar Prospector orbiter in the late 1990s identified hydrogen-rich areas near the moon’s poles but could not determine whether that hydrogen was bound up in water or was present in some other form. Understanding the nature of these deposits has been one of the driving goals of LRO, which has been orbiting the moon since 2009.

Fisher and her colleagues found evidence of lunar frost by comparing temperature readings from LRO’s Diviner instrument with brightness measurements from the spacecraft’s Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter, or LOLA. In these comparisons, the coldest areas near the south pole also were very bright, indicating the presence of ice or other highly reflective materials. The researchers looked at the peak surface temperatures, because water ice won’t last if the temperature creeps above the crucial threshold.”

Video credit: NASA Goddard

ULA dixit:

“Astrobotic’s Peregrine Lunar Lander will launch onboard a ULA launch vehicle in 2019, during the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11. This effort is a big step in realizing Astrobotic’s goal of creating a Rust Belt based international gateway to the Moon. The Peregrine Lunar Lander will fly 35 kilograms of customer payloads on its first mission, with the option to upgrade to 265 kilograms on future missions.”

Video credit: ULA

Wikipedia dixit:

“Reiner Gamma (γ) is a geographical feature of the Moon known as a lunar swirl. It is one of the most visible lunar swirls from Earth, visible from most telescopes. It was originally thought to be a lunar highland, but scientists eventually realized that it cast no shadow on the moon. Until recently, Reiner Gamma’s origin was a mystery. Historically, it was not associated with any particular irregularities in the surface. Recently, similar features were discovered in Mare Ingenii and Mare Marginis by orbiting spacecraft. The feature on Mare Ingenii is located at the lunar opposite point from the center of Mare Imbrium. Likewise the feature on Mare Marginis is opposite the midpoint of Mare Orientale. Thus scientists believe that the feature resulted from seismic energies generated by the impacts that created these maria. Unfortunately there is no such lunar mare formation on the opposite surface of the Moon (although the large crater Tsiolkovskiy lies within one crater diameter).

Reiner Gamma is located on the Oceanus Procellarum, west of the crater Reiner. Its center is located at selenographic coordinates 7.5°N 59.0°W. It has an overall dimension of about 70 kilometres. The feature has a higher albedo than the relatively dark mare surface, with a diffuse appearance and a distinctive swirling, concentric oval shape. Related albedo features continue across the surface to the east and southwest, forming loop-like patterns over the mare. The central feature of Reiner Gamma resembles the dipolar formation created by iron filings on a surface with a bar magnet on the underside. Low-orbiting spacecraft have observed a relatively strong magnetic field associated with each of these albedo markings. Some have speculated that this magnetic field and the patterns were created by cometary impacts. However the true cause remains uncertain.

Reiner Gamma’s magnetic field strength is approximately 15 nT, measured from an altitude of 28 km. This is one of the strongest localized magnetic anomalies on the Moon. The surface field strength of this feature is sufficient to form a mini-magnetosphere that spans 360 km at the surface, forming a 300 km thick region of enhanced plasma where the solar wind flows around the field. As the particles in the solar wind are known to darken the lunar surface, the magnetic field at this site may account for the survival of this albedo feature.

In early lunar maps by Francesco Maria Grimaldi, this feature was incorrectly identified as a crater. His colleague Giovanni Riccioli then named it Galilaeus, after Galileo Galilei. The name was later transferred northwest to the current crater Galilaei.”

Video credit: NASA Goddard

ULA dixit:

“CisLunar – the space between Earth and the moon – holds vast opportunities for humans. Reliable, accessible, affordable access to space will help open economic opportunities. ULA’s ability to provide reliable, affordable access to space, which will provide critical infrastructure to supporting a space economy.”

Wikipedia dixit:

“Originally proposed as the Advanced Cryogenic Evolved Stage by Boeing in 2006 as a concept for use as a new Delta IV second stage — and subsequently, the Advanced Common Evolved Stage by its corporate successor, United Launch Alliance by 2010 — ACES was intended to boost satellite payloads to geosynchronous orbit or, in the case of an interplanetary space probe, to or near to escape velocity. Other alternative uses included a proposal to provide in-space propellant depots in LEO or at L2 that could be used as way-stations for other rockets to stop and refuel on the way to beyond-LEO or interplanetary missions, and to provide the high-energy technical capacity for the cleanup of space debris.

The late-2000s ACES proposal by ULA also had a predecessor at Lockheed Martin, prior to the merger of Boeing and Lockheed Martin launch vehicle manufacturing and operations to form ULA in 2006. Known then as the Lockheed Martin common-stage concept, the upper stage was intended to “provide efficient, robust in-space transportation”, and take advantage of the high-mass fraction that is enabled by Centaur’s design and its common bulkhead to minimize combined LO2/LH2 boil off. A study funded by NASA led to the development of the Lockheed Martin concept known as ACES, under the original name of Advanced Cryogenic Evolved Stage as of 2006.

In April 2015, after ULA had announced the end of production of the Delta IV Medium in 2019 and the Delta IV Heavy in the mid-2020s, ULA renamed the stage the Advanced Cryogenic Evolved Stage, as ACES would in this case serve as the second stage on only a single launch vehicle, the Vulcan, beginning no earlier than 2023.

After the formation of ULA in 2006, the ACES concept became one that would provide a common stage that would be evolved from both Atlas and Delta rocket technology and could be used on both launch vehicles — thus “common”. The concept by 2010 was to utilize the new high-performance upper stage, if built, on both Atlas V and Delta IV/Delta IV Heavy launch vehicles. As further refined in a 2010 conference paper, ACES was intended to be a lower-cost, more-capable and more-flexible upper stage that would supplement, and perhaps replace, the existing ULA Centaur and Delta Cryogenic Second Stage (DCSS) upper stage vehicles.

In April 2015, ULA renamed the stage the Advanced Cryogenic Evolved Stage, and announced conceptual plans to complete development of the ACES technology for the Vulcan launch vehicle, flying no earlier than 2023, but currently planned for 2024-25. No plans to develop the stage for the Atlas V or Delta IV launch vehicle lines remain. However, just like earlier ACES concept proposals, ACES would continue to blend technical aspects of both Delta and Atlas technologies and manufacturing processes, as well as use ULA’s proprietary Integrated Vehicle Fluids (IVF) technology to significantly extend the ability of the upper stage to operate in space long term. The IVF technology utilizes a lightweight internal combustion engine to use propellant boiloff (normally wasted when boiloff gasses are vented to space) to operate the stage including production of power, maintaining stage attitude, and keeping the propellant tanks autogenously pressurized, eliminating the need for hydrazine fuel and liquid helium.

The ACES vehicle is “based on a simple modular design” where the “use of multiple barrel panels, similar to Centaur, provides a straightforward means to building multiple-length (propellant load) stages that are otherwise common. The common equipment shelf accommodates one, two, or four RL10 engines. While ACES can start with existing Centaur and Delta pneumatic, avionics and propulsion systems it is intended to transition to lower-cost and higher capability systems founded on the Integrated Vehicle Fluids (IVF) system concept. IVF eliminates all hydrazine, helium, and nearly all batteries from the vehicle. It consumes waste hydrogen and oxygen to produce power, generate settling and attitude control thrust, and autogenously pressurize the vehicle tanks. IVF is optimal for depot operations since only LH2 and LO2 need be transferred, and it extends mission lifetimes from the present dozen hours to multiple days.” With the addition of a solar power system, the vehicle can remain in space and operate indefinitely.”

Video credit: ULA

Credits: ISRO

After nine months of operation, Chandrayaan-1 failed to communicate with the base. The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) abruptly lost contact with the spacecraft on Saturday, September 29, 2009.

If this is the end of Chandrayaan-1, the mission covered only nine months of its scheduled two-year operational life. I really hope that this is a minor obstacle that the ISRO will be able to overcome. ISRO stated that the Chandrayaan-1 mission was able to meet most of its scientific objectives.

The Chandrayaan-1 scientific payload contains a diverse collection of instruments. The instruments were designed and developed by ISRO, ESA, NASA, and the Bulgarian Space Agency.

There are two instruments that are used to map the surface of the Moon: the Terrain Mapping Camera (TMC) and the Lunar Laser Ranging Instrument (LLRI). The X-ray spectrometer onboard the spacecraft measures the concentration of certain elements on the lunar surface and monitors the solar flux in order to normalize the results of the measurements taken. The mineralogical configuration of the surface is mapped by four instruments: the Hyper Spectral Imager (HySI), the Sub-keV Atom Reflecting Analyzer (SARA), the Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3), and the Near-Infrared Spectrometer (SIR-2). The Radiation Dose Monitor (RADOM-7) records the radiation levels in the lunar orbit.

You can find out more about Chandrayaan-1 on the ISRO’s dedicated web page.

Credits: NASA

The Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) is a mission that will measure the lunar gravity field in unprecedented detail. The twin spacecraft will orbit the Moon in tandem and collect scientific data for several months.

The GRAIL mission will cost $375 million and launch in 2011 as part of NASA’s Discovery Program. The window for the launch is 26 days long and opens on September 8, 2011.

After a dual launch aboard a Delta II 2920-10, the spacecraft will spend three to four months cruising on a low-energy trans-lunar trajectory. The two spacecraft will orbit the moon on 50 km, near-circular polar orbits, with a spacecraft separation of 175 – 225 km. The science phase of the mission will take 90 days, and it will be followed by a 12-month science data analysis.

The technique used by GRAIL for collecting scientific data was also used for the Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment (GRACE) mission, launched in 2002. Small changes in the distance that separates the two spacecraft are translated in variations of the lunar gravity field.

The GRAIL spacecraft are based on the Lockheed Martin XSS-11 bus. The XSS-11 (Experimental Small Satellite 11) is the result of research done at Lockheed Martin Space Systems in the field of agile and affordable micro-satellites. Interesting to mention here is that there were speculations that XSS-11 could also be used as the base for the development of a kinetic anti-satellite weapon (ASAT).

The spacecraft is a rectangular composite structure. Two non-articulated solar arrays and lithium ion battery provides power. The attitude control system, the power management system, and the telecommunications system are also inherited from the XSS-11 bus.

The payload consists of a Ka-band Lunar Gravity Ranging System (LGRS), which is derived from the instrument carried by the GRACE spacecraft.

The spacecraft flight operations will be conducted from Lockheed Martin’s Denver facility. Science Level 0 and 1 data processing will be done at Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Level 2 data processing at JPL, the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The final scientific data will be delivered by MIT.

While missions like the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) will find safe landing sites, locate potential resources, and take measurements of the radiation environment of the lunar surface, GRAIL will explore the moon from crust to core, and determine the moon’s internal structure and evolution.

More information about GRAIL is available on the GRAIL mission page on MIT’s web site.