[ad_1]
-
This is the preliminary design of the lunar lander of space.
space
-
And here is his payload, the lunar rover "mother".
space
-
The following images that illustrate the deployment of the mobile come from a company video. Here, the landing gear is launched on a Falcon 9 rocket.
space
-
Here, the ispace spacecraft separates from the second stage into geostationary transfer orbit.
space
-
He flies under his own power at the lunar orbit.
space
-
And then on the surface.
space
-
Then the mother deploys.
space
-
He goes on an adventure.
space
-
Here, the mother unfolds the mobile of the child.
space
-
"I wonder what's going on in this hole?"
space
-
"Again to the breach …"
space
On Wednesday, a Japanese company called ispace announced that it had two planned missions to the moon over the next three years and that it had acquired two Falcon 9 rocket launches to perform these flights. The founder of the company, Takeshi Hakamada, also said he has a long-term vision of a city on the Moon visited by 10,000 people a year by 2040.
If all this sounds a little too ambitious, well, welcome to the world of aerospace, which is always full of promotions and great ideas. And we like that. NASA did not land on the moon because she was shy. However, we also feel obliged to bring at least a touch of realism to the conversation.
Two missions
The two missions announced Wednesday are a launch in orbit in mid-2020 and a more complicated landing mission a year later. Both will be secondary payloads on Falcon 9 rocket launches, being released by the second stage of the geostationary transfer orbit rocket. From there, they will head to the moon under their own power of propulsion.
The initial launcher is a relatively simple mission. Jamie Denniston, the company's chief landing engineer, said the mission's success would reach the lunar orbit. Beyond that, the company hopes to take images of the surface and validate some of its navigation systems for future missions.
As a result of this mission, ispace has completed a preliminary design review of its LG, which houses two rovers. There is a larger "mother" who can then deploy a smaller "child" rover to enter "skylights" that lead to lunar lava tubes. The child would remain attached to his mother by a cable, which would provide energy and communications. It's both very cool and ambitious.
space
The success of the mission, however, does not require these complex maneuvers. For this mission, to be launched in the middle of the year 2021, ispace defines the success of the mission as a soft landing and survival on the surface of the moon for a day. All exploration activities, or lava tube incursions, will be considered a bonus.
Plan of business
During a teleconference with several journalists, Mr. Hakamada said the company hoped to demonstrate to potential customers the initial ability to deliver 30 kg of payload on the lunar surface. But it also has longer-term plans that will allow it to serve customers seeking to reach the lunar surface with larger payloads. In addition, the company is developing the ability to exploit ice from the lunar poles to convert hydrogen and oxygen into rocket fuel.
"By 2030, we plan to start developing the propeller and sending it into a spaceship in space," Hakamada said. He hopes that by then, several hundred people will work on the moon, or lunar orbit, to support an industrial base. A decade later, in 2040, he envisions a city called "Moon Valley" on the lunar surface, with a wide range of industries and thousands of visitors a year.
"We believe that we can build such a world if we can actively develop our capacity at the current speed," said Hakamada.
Is it real?
Hakamada led the team named Hakuto in the Google Lunar X Prize, which no team could win before the project deadline earlier this year. Since the end of this contest, Hakamada has continued to work for the ispace company that he founded. According to him, the company has already collected 95 million dollars, which is enough to finance the mission of orbiter and lander.
This is a considerable sum of money, but until the company starts producing flight equipment, it is difficult to over-credit its efforts, even if its preliminary designs sound healthy. (We saw a similar phenomenon with another company, Moon Express, seeking to develop lunar resources.)
The long-term goals are laudable, but the company seems to seriously underestimate the difficulty of reaching the lunar ice, harvesting it in extremely cold conditions and producing propellant from the ice. These are all significant engineering challenges in unprecedented conditions. Moreover, even under optimistic circumstances, NASA's plans to return to the moon would not put a handful of humans, or even hundreds, on the lunar surface before the end of the 2020s and China
Image of list by ispace
Source link
