Space Quote: Possible Chinese Lunar Landing Spot

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Credit: Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay

“Rimae Bode is a high-priority ‘sweet spot…Think of it as a prime piece of lunar real estate: its location near the equator provides much flatter, safer terrain for landing, along with constant sunlight for power [during the lunar day] and a direct line of sight to Earth for easy communication.”

-Statement by Jun Huang, a planetary geologist at the China University of Geosciences in Wuhan, discussing a potential landing site for the Chinese crewed Moon mission, as quoted by Scientific American magazine. He is co-author of a new study, Geology of Rimae Bode Region as Priority Site Candidate for China’s First Crewed Lunar Mission, published in Nature Astronomy.

Artemis II Reset for April 1 Launch

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Credit: NASA

It’s a “go,” for now at least, per NASA’s Artemis II Flight Readiness Review.

NASA has a small window in April to launch the Artemis II mission (see above), so the plan is for a launch on April 1.

The next step is to get the Space Launch System and Orion capsule back onto the launch pad, which is planned for March 19.

If you are so interested, you can watch yesterday’s press conference regarding the Artemis II Flight Readiness Review. The participants included:

  • Lori Glaze, acting associate administrator, Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate
  • John Honeycutt, chair, Artemis II Mission Management Team
  • Shawn Quinn, manager, Exploration Ground Systems Program
  • Norm Knight, director, Flight Operations Directorate

Pic of the Week: Blue Origin Moon Landing

Posted on by onespaceman2000

The image above is from a NASA Office of the Inspector General audit report on the Human Landing System. It shows the complexity of the Blue Origin process for getting a crew on the Moon. It is complex, and has one more step than the SpaceX plan, which already seems close to impossible.

This is how the audit report explained the graphic you see above:

For the Artemis V mission, Blue Origin is developing its Blue Moon lander. Standing 52 feet tall, Blue Moon will launch on Blue Origin’s reusable New Glenn heavy-lift rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The lander will utilize Blue Origin’s BE-7 engines, which are fueled by liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen. Prior to the Artemis V mission, Blue Origin will launch a transporter to low Earth orbit, essentially serving as a propellant depot. From there a fleet of refuelers will launch, rendezvous with the transporter, and transfer propellant. The Blue Moon lander will then launch to low Earth orbit to receive fuel from both a refueler and the transporter before traveling to NRHO to dock with Gateway for the Lunar Orbit Checkout Review. The transporter, left in low Earth orbit, will receive additional propellant there before traveling to a higher “stairstep” orbit for final propellant aggregation.14 Once the transporter has traveled to NRHO, Blue Moon will undock with Gateway to receive its final propellant transfer and then dock with Gateway a second time. Next, Orion will deliver the astronauts to Gateway, who will then transfer to Blue Moon for transit to the lunar surface and back to the station. At the end of the mission, Orion will return the astronauts to Earth and the lander will transition to another orbit for disposal or later reuse.

Audit Report: Questions about the Human Landing System

Posted on by onespaceman2000

Auditors with NASA’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) evaluated three aspects of the Human Landing System (HLS) to be used with the Artemis Moon landing: (1) the extent to which the HLS providers are meeting cost, schedule, and performance goals; (2) the HLS Program’s implementation of the insight/oversight model; and (3) the Program’s identification and mitigation of risks to astronaut safety.

In its report, NASA’s Management of the Human Landing System Contracts, the auditors found issues in all three areas. In particular, the report stated:

…both SpaceX and Blue Origin have experienced schedule delays and face technical and integration challenges that have the potential to further impact lander costs and delivery schedules. In particular, SpaceX’s lander will not be ready for a June 2027 lunar landing.

It is possible that the draft version of this audit report was already the desk of NASA Administrator Isaacman right before he decided to move the Moon landing date again. Pending audit reports have a tendency to stir action.

Yet, even once we get to the moon, the auditors identified some safety issues. Specifically, the auditors stated:

We also observed limitations in the Agency’s approach to crew survival analyses—the evaluation of available crew survival capabilities to counter a catastrophic event—due to functional constraints and the availability of resources…While NASA is taking steps to prevent catastrophic events from occurring, ultimately, should the astronauts encounter a life-threatening emergency in space or on the lunar surface, NASA does not have the capability to rescue the stranded crew.

None of this is too surprising with a new approach like this one. Delays are inevitable, and even the best of plans cannot account for everything, as Apollo 13 demonstrated. It also shows that NASA has a tough balancing act, with the need for speed weighed against the mechanisms to ensure the safety of the astronauts.

One of the safety concerns stated later in the report really should have been its own report. It discussed the height of the HLS. As shown in the image above, the Starship Lander is huge compared to the Apollo lander and even Blue Origin’s Blue Moon Lander. Here are the dimensions per the report:

Landers may also encounter hazards such as boulders or mounds that are too large or depressions that are too deep for the landing legs and stability design. For example, steep slopes of up to 20 degrees on the lunar South Pole present navigation and landing challenges. Given Starship’s height of 171 feet— about the equivalent of a 14-story tall commercial building—there is a risk that its momentum will continue after landing causing it to tip over. Blue Moon—standing at 53 feet tall—also faces landing risks, including exceeding the lander’s tilt tolerance for safe and effective execution of critical crew functions. Surpassing the tilt tolerance for either lander, which NASA established as not to exceed 8 degrees to support all post-landing crew activities, could impact the operation of equipment such as the hatch used by the crew to exit and enter the vehicle. By comparison, the Apollo Lunar Module stood 23 feet tall.

This is scary given the multiple spacecraft we have already witness toppling over onto the lunar surface just last year. Why would we ever want to land a 14-story tall rocket with an elevator on the Moon as our first attempt after 50 years? I can understand Elon Musk proposing this ridiculous idea, but it is not clear how the original planners could have gone along with it. This is a “catastrophic event” waiting to happen.

The auditors also added a Apollo 15 Lunar Module story (shown below) to the report. After reading this report and the Apollo 15 clip, I think I will also have trouble sleeping tonight due to an uncomfortable feeling that the current Artemis approach was a mess (if not doomed) from the start.

Sci-Fi Quote: Less Dystopia This Time

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Ryan Gosling in Project Hail Mary. (Amazon MGM Studios)

“I think that’s what’s so special about this film, and why people are having such an emotional connection to it … it’s like we’ve been so saturated with dystopia in future narratives for the last decade to the point where it feels almost inevitable at this point. Then you have Andy sort of reminding us through his work that human beings are always making the impossible possible.”

-Statement by Ryan Gosling, star of the upcoming film Project Hail Mary, in an interview with Scary Mommy. He was interviewed along with author Andy Weir.