Image (Credit): Launch of Russia’s Progress MS-30 lifting off from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. (NASA)
While things are still unstable with the Russians here on Earth, the International Space Station (ISS) resupply missions continue. Yesterday saw the launch of the Progress MS-30 cargo spacecraft from Kazakhstan. The supplies should be at the ISS by late tomorrow.
Whatever is happening between the US and Russia with regards to Ukrainian negotiations, it is good to see that space science is still taking place in the background.
Image (Credit): The launch of Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C lunar lander (IM-2) from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Wednesday, February 26. (NASA)
Yesterday’s launch of Intuitive Machines’ IM-2 mission carrying the Athena lander was a success. The private sector mission, part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative, is heading to the Moon to look for water at the lunar South Pole. The launch follows the less successful IM-1 mission from last year with the Odysseus lander.
Athena is expected to land on the lunar surface on March 6, about four days after the scheduled landing of Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost spacecraft.
Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment-1 (PRIME-1): This experiment will explore the Moon’s subsurface and analyze where lunar resources may reside. The experiment’s two key instruments will demonstrate the ability to extract and analyze lunar soil to detect volatile chemical compounds that turn into gas. The two instruments will work in tandem: The Regolith and Ice Drill for Exploring New Terrains will drill into the Moon’s surface to collect samples, while the Mass Spectrometer Observing Lunar Operations will analyze these samples to determine the gas composition released across the sampling depth. The PRIME-1 technology will provide valuable data to better understand the Moon’s surface and how to work with and on it.
Laser Retroreflector Array (LRA): This collection of eight retroreflectors will enable precision laser ranging, which is a measurement of the distance between the orbiting or landing spacecraft to the reflector on the lander. The LRA is a passive optical instrument and will function as a permanent location marker on the Moon for decades to come.
Micro Nova Hopper: Funded by NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate Tipping Point initiative, Intuitive Machines’ Micro Nova hopper, Grace, is designed to enable high-resolution surveying of the lunar surface under its flight path. This autonomous propulsive drone aims to deploy to the surface and hop into a nearby crater to survey the lunar surface and send science data back to the lander. It’s designed to hop in and out of a permanently shadowed region, providing a first look into undiscovered regions that may provide critical information to sustain a human presence on the Moon.
Nokia Lunar Surface Communications System (LSCS): Also developed with funding from NASA’s Tipping Point initiative, Nokia’s LSCS 4G/LTE communications system will demonstrate cellular communications between the Intuitive Machines lander, a Lunar Outpost rover, and the Micro Nova hopper. Engineered to transmit high-definition video, command-and-control messages, and sensor and telemetry data, the LSCS aims to demonstrate an ultra-compact advanced communication solution for future infrastructure on the Moon and beyond.
Let’s hope the second mission goes without a hitch. We need a win for NASA and its efforts to expand the commercial space industry.
Image (Credit): The far side of the Moon captured by the Blue Ghost spacecraft. (Firefly Aerospace)
The image above is part of a video taken last week showing the far side of the Moon by Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost spacecraft. The spacecraft is about 120 kilometers above the lunar surface. You can see the video here.
Regarding the video, the company noted:
In this orbit, the team will experience planned rolling comms blackouts as Blue Ghost goes around the far side of the Moon. When on the near side, the team will continue to downlink data and finalize the plan for our next maneuver that will get Blue Ghost even closer to the lunar surface and keep us right on track for landing on March 2.
You can learn more about the Blue Ghost’s mission here.
Image (Credit): Portrait of Galileo by Robusti. (Royal Museum Greenwich)
On this day in 1616, on behalf of Pope Paul V, Cardinal Bellarmine ordered Galileo Galilei to abandon his position on the Earth moving around the Sun. The same year saw the banning of Nicholas Copernicus’ book On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres, which also theorized a heliocentric system. All of this was still 17 years before the formal sentencing of Galileo leading to his house arrest for the rest of his life.
It wasn’t until 1992, following an investigation initiated by Pope John Paul II, that the Catholic Church acknowledged its unfair persecution of Galileo. As The New York Times noted on October 31, 1992:
With a formal statement at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences on Saturday, Vatican officials said the Pope will formally close a 13-year investigation into the Church’s condemnation of Galileo in 1633. The condemnation, which forced the astronomer and physicist to recant his discoveries, led to Galileo’s house arrest for eight years before his death in 1642 at the age of 77.
And to think we complain about the slow pace of government decisions in modern times.
His venture may seem far out, but asteroid mining CEO Matt Gialich has no illusions. The engineer cofounded the bold California startup AstroForge in 2022 with the aim of hunting for precious metals in space, and he is all too aware that success is not guaranteed…The probe is set to lift off aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on February 26. AstroForge’s spacecraft will ride alongside Athena, a lunar lander developed by the startup Intuitive Machines, until it breaks off on its own.
NASA’s Lunar Trailblazer mission is led by Caltech’s Bethany Ehlmann, professor of planetary science and the Allen V. C. Davis and Lenabelle Davis Leadership Chair and director of the Keck Institute for Space Studies, and the mission is operated by IPAC at Caltech. The Lunar Trailblazer small satellite, or smallsat, will orbit the Moon to understand the nature of water on the Moon’s surface, providing maps to guide future robotic and human explorers. Prior missions have seen hints of ice and other forms of water that could be used in a variety of ways, from purifying it for human use, to processing it for fuel and breathable oxygen for future human Moon landings.
NASA and Intuitive Machines are gearing up for a Wednesday evening liftoff, and one of the payloads will test a moon-based cell network. Researchers with Nokia Bell Labs Solutions Research developed the network and say it’s the same tool that we use here on Earth when we pick up our phones and make a call. But they had to make a cell tower much smaller so it could fit in a rocket and land on the moon.
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