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The Dark Side of the Moon as seen by SpaceIL's LG Beresheet when it came into orbit around the moon on April 4, a week before its planned landing. (credit: SpaceIL) |
by Jeff Foust
Monday, April 8, 2019
On Thursday, a spacecraft called Beresheet will attempt to land at Mare Serenitatis, or the Sea of Serenity, on the Moon. Launched in February as a 600-kilogram space payload on a SpaceX Falcon 9, the Israeli spacecraft has made a series of maneuvers to expand its initial transfer orbit around the Earth, increasing its peak to more than 400,000 kilometers. Last Thursday, the spacecraft passed near the moon and launched its main engine for six minutes, slowing it enough to orbit the moon for this landing attempt.
| "We have to learn something new, expand our intellectual horizons, do science," said Aharonson, recalling the initial discussions with the SpaceIL team. "They said," Sounds great, but probably not this time. " |
The primary purpose of the mission is simply to demonstrate that this can be done. SpaceIL began as one of the many competitors of the Google Lunar X PRIZE, which for a decade offered a $ 20 million grand prize to the first privately funded organization to place a spacecraft on the moon, browse through less than 500 meters from its surface and render images. and video. The prize expired last March without a winner, but SpaceIL, funded largely by philanthropic contributions and a collaboration with Israel Aerospace Industries for the construction of the LG, continued as part of the program. an effort to stimulate the interest of Israeli students for science and education.
The mission will also do science, finally a little. Oded Aharonson, Professor of Planetary Science at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, has been reminded to have spoken with the three founders of SpaceIL to discuss the mission. "I did not stop asking them," What are you going to do when you get to the moon? ", Is he reminded at a conference held on the Moon?" last month at a lunar exploration workshop outside of Houston. They explained that they would perform the tasks required by the X PRIZE Foundation. "And then what?" And then, they said, "We go to Rabin Square and celebrate."
For Aharonson, it seemed like a missed opportunity. "We have to learn something new, expand our intellectual horizons, do science," he said. "They said," Sounds great, but probably not this time. "
Finally, he was able to get SpaceIL to also incorporate some scientific goals. This includes the characterization of the landing site, the measurement of magnetic anomalies in the lunar crust and the demonstration of a precise rangefinder. The latter goal will be achieved through a laser-sized retroreflector five centimeters in diameter provided by NASA under a cooperation agreement between it and the Israeli Space Agency.
In addition to the retroreflector and the LG cameras, the main scientific instrument of Beresheet is a magnetometer. "The main scientific goal of the mission, I would like to say, is to measure the magnetism of the lunar crust," said Aharonson, who heads an international science team created for Beresheet. "We are trying to understand when and how the lunar crust has acquired its magnetization. These two questions are closely related to the ancient history of the Moon. "
The magnetometer, provided by a research group of UCLA, weighs less than one kilogram. "It's a very robust instrument, without command," he said. "You have just turned it on." The first tests of the instrument while the spacecraft was still in Earth orbit showed that it was in good condition.
Even if Beresheet lands successfully, it will probably only work for a short time because it is not designed to survive the lunar night. While SpaceIL sees this mission as a one-off mission, IAI has considered using the concept of LG. Meir Nissim Nir, director of advanced space systems at IAI, said at a conference that future versions of the LG could accommodate 30 to 60 kilograms of scientific loads. IAI has already concluded an agreement with the German company OHB to study the use of such landing gear for missions on behalf of the European Space Agency.
Beresheet also provides insight into how scientists can work with non-governmental entities on lunar missions. It is a scenario that may require both scientists and companies to rethink their assumptions about how such missions should work, based on the experience of previous government-led missions.
"I do not know what the next generation of commercial and private spaceships on the moon will look like," said Aharonson, "but I can tell you that this marriage between science and commercial interests has been difficult and interesting, and clearly a huge opportunity for all of us. "
| "We are really about to be able to visit the Moon very, very quickly," said Jim Head. "What are the truly transformative things we can do with these small missions?" |
The two-day meeting, called Microsymposium 60 and held just before the start of the 50th Global and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) last month, was meant to help improve these marital relationships, if you will. During the meeting, scientists discussed the investigations they wanted to perform on the moon with the help of instruments that could fly on commercial landers, while representatives of several companies working on these Landers discussed the technical capabilities of these spacecraft and their state of development.
There was definitely excitement about the possibilities. "We are really about to be able to visit the Moon very, very quickly," said Jim Head of Brown University, one of the organizers of the meeting. "What are the truly transformative things we can do with these small missions?"
This interest was stimulated by NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, which awarded contracts to nine companies that develop lunar sites (see "Three Ways to the Moon", The Space Review, 3 December 2018.) We have also recently selected a dozen instruments from agency researchers likely to fly aboard these landers. We are currently reviewing proposals from external investigators for another set of instruments.
The next step is to map these payloads to the landing gear of the SPDP. At the workshop and subsequent sessions of the entire LPSC, NASA officials announced that the agency would shortly release the first "order of tasks" of the SPDP to which the companies of the SPDP would make known their proposals as to how to carry out the mission. At the time, they expected to award a contract by the summer.
However, this time may have increased. At the National Space Board meeting held on March 26 in Huntsville, Alabama, Vice President Mike Pence announced that NASA was now invited to land on the Moon. 39; here 2024 (see "Lunar Whiplash," The Space Review, April 1, 2019), NASA director Jim Bridenstine said that the agency was also progressing with the SPDP.
"We have just released the first task order this morning" for SPDP, he said. "There may be people in the audience who have to check their mail right away."
He added that the proposals needed to be submitted in a month, and that rewards should follow a month later "to commercially land small payloads on the surface of the Moon as soon as possible: perhaps 2019. The L & # 39; goal, of course, is 2020 ".
| "The return of the samples could still belong to the" Discovery / New Frontiers "classes of planetary science missions led by the principal investigators, Hopkins said. |
But a 2019 mission seems unlikely. During a panel discussion at another LPSC meeting, representatives of six of the CLPS-awarded companies – Astrobotic, Deep Space Systems, Lockheed Martin, Masten Space Systems, Moon Express and OrbitBeyond – were asked when their landers would be ready. Responses ranged from mid-2020 to the end of 2021 (the latter being the requirement to win an SPDP award). There is no evidence that the other three SPDP companies – Draper, Firefly Aerospace and Intuitive Machines – are ready sooner.
OrbitBeyond, one of the first-to-fly companies, bases its lunar lander on designs originally developed by TeamIndus of India for the Google Lunar X PRIZE. (TeamIndus is part of the OrbitBeyond team, but the LG will be built in the US, as required by the CLPS program; the company plans to establish this facility in the United States. Assembly in Florida.) A technical qualification model of the company's undercarriage was on display. to the LPSC, demonstrating its ability to carry a payload of 40 kilograms during this mid-2020 mission.
An engineering of OrbitBeyond's first lunar lander at the 50th Global Lunar and Planetary Science Conference held last month in Houston. (credit: J. Foust) |
The panel discussion provided an opportunity for scientists to learn about the payloads they would like to fly and their technical requirements. However, it became clear that there was a gap between the expectations of many researchers and the current capabilities of the providers of CLPS. The session used an online survey system to collect information from the public. Complex missions, such as return of samples and use of in situ resources (ISRU), were among the most popular missions desired by those present, even though they exceeded the initial capabilities of most landing gear of the SPDP.
Josh Hopkins of Lockheed Martin said that they had examined ISRU applications for his LG without McCandless, which had driven the "solar panel big enough". The return of the sample, however, might not be as feasible. "These types of missions have everything to gain from a highly integrated scientific team working with the mission engineering team," he said, "a different approach than buy such a mission as a commercial service. "The returned samples could still belong to Discovery / New Frontiers' global science mission classes," he said.
Others, however, said they were more flexible. "It's a very market-driven approach, and that's part of the culture shift that's happening right now," said Alain Berinstain of Moon Express. "I'm driving a bus. My bus will do what you need to do, if the price is right and there is a market. "
| "We're taking this step at a time, and we're demonstrating the ability, and it's really important to do it very well, because the whole space community is watching," Hendrickson said. |
Scientists have also been investigating the possibility of operating their payload for more than one lunar day, so that they, along with the undercarriage they are on, must survive the lunar night. Most SPDP providers, however, do not expect their first landing gear to operate more than one lunar day. "For our first mission, we will only survive and function for eight days on Earth," said Astrobotic's Dan Hendrickson.
This mismatch between scientific expectations and commercial capabilities has highlighted a deeper problem. "We are really building the first railroads to the moon, in a sense," said Hendrickson. "So, hopefully, we do not anticipate and do not think that certain capabilities will be available. They will be there. We will get there. "
"But we are taking this step at a time and we are demonstrating its ability, and it is really important that we do it very well because the whole space community is watching over us," he continued. "That's why we're taking a very conservative approach to trying to do things right the first time."
"Everyone is just starting," said Steve Clarke, assistant deputy director of exploration at NASA's Science Mission Directorate, at the end of the two-hour roundtable. He suggested a series of workshops featuring the scientific community, instrument vendors and lander developers, "so we can work through this stuff".
Thursday, the entire space community will monitor to see if Beresheet will succeed to land. Aharonson mentioned that Beresheet means "at the beginning". "In many ways, I think it shows how to do these things for the first time."
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