Space Stories: The ISS Succession Plan, Privately-built Moon Landers, and Working with Moonquakes

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): View of the International Space Station. (NASA)

Here are some recent stories of interest.

—Aviation Week Network: “Safety Panel Raises Commercial Space Station Transition Concerns“

Concerns over a “very tight” timeline for NASA to transition human low-Earth-orbit operations from the International Space Station (ISS) to commercial successors tops a list of seven concerns raised by an agency safety panel. The latest annual report by NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel’s (ASAP) was released Jan. 25. The 56-page report expresses concerns over sufficient evidence of a viable business case to make NASA one of multiple tenants of at least one ISS successor. The effort is currently supported by NASA and the European, Japanese, Russian and Canadian space agencies.

—Astronomy.com: “Vertex Moon Mission Getting Closer to Launch“

 A new era in lunar research is coming, and Lunar Vertex is getting ready to lead the way. Lunar Vertex is NASA’s first so-called PRISM mission (Payloads and Research Investigations on the Surface of the Moon). PRISM taps into the Commercial Lunar Payload Services program that uses privately built landers to deliver NASA science and other payloads to the lunar surface. PRISM missions are meant to be lower-cost, faster-to-flight programs. There is a mass limit of just over 100 pounds (45 kilograms) — so the science instruments have to be small — and the budget for the first PRISM suite is just $30 million (excluding the lander and the launch vehicle). Lunar Vertex is first in line, and recently has hit a number of major milestones on its way to a June 2024 launch.

—NASA: “Shrinking Moon Causing Moonquakes and Faults Near Lunar South Pole“

As NASA continues to make progress toward sending astronauts to the lunar South Pole region with its Artemis campaign, data from a NASA-funded study is helping scientists better understand this strategic part of the Moon. The study presents evidence that moonquakes and faults generated as the Moon’s interior gradually cools and shrinks are also found near and within some of the areas the agency identified as candidate landing regions for Artemis III, the first Artemis mission planned to have a crewed lunar landing.

Space Quote: Hubble Detects Water on an Exoplanet

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Artist’s rendering of exoplanet exoplanet GJ 9827d. (NASA/ESA/Leah Hustak (STScI)/Ralf Crawford (STScI))

“This would be the first time that we can directly show through an atmospheric detection, that these planets with water-rich atmospheres can actually exist around other stars…This is an important step toward determining the prevalence and diversity of atmospheres on rocky planets.”

–Statement by Björn Benneke of the Trottier Institute for Research on Exoplanets at Université de Montréal. He was referring to the Hubble space telescope’s detection of water vapor in the atmosphere of exoplanet GJ 9827d. The exoplanet is about twice the Earth’s diameter and approximately 97 light-years from Earth. You can read more about the Hubble discovery here.

A Day in Astronomy: Loss of the Apollo 1 Astronauts

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Apollo 1 astronauts Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom, left, Edward H. White, and Roger B. Chaffee. (NASA)

On this day in 1967, the Apollo 1 capsule caught fire on the launchpad, killing the three astronauts in the capsule – Virgil “Gus” Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee.

A frustrated Gene Kranz, NASA flight director, had this to say shortly after the fire and tragic loss of three astronauts:

Spaceflight will never tolerate carelessness, incapacity, and neglect. Somewhere, somehow, we screwed up. It could have been in design, build or test. Whatever it was, we should have caught it. We were too gung-ho about the schedule, and we locked out all of the problems we saw each day in our work. Every element of the program was in trouble and so were we. The simulators were not working, Mission Control was behind in virtually every area, and the flight and test procedures changed daily. Nothing we did had any shelf life. Not one of us stood up and said, “Dammit, stop!” I don’t know what Thompson’s committee will find as the cause, but I know what I find. We are the cause! We were not ready! We did not do our job. We were rolling the dice, hoping that things would come together by launch day, when in our hearts we knew it would take a miracle. We were pushing the schedule and betting that the Cape would slip before we did.

Did the Apollo space program recover? Absolutely. Did NASA avoid deaths on future space missions. Not at all. Do we give up on human space missions or keep moving forward? I think you know the answer to that one.

Credit: NASA

Japanese Moon Mission: It’s Not Pretty, But it’s There

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Japan’s SLIM moon lander, as viewed by small rover LEV-2. (JAXA/Takara Tomy/Sony Group Corporation/Doshisha University)

If you were wondering about the status of the latest Japanese Moon mission, you can rest assured that the Smart Lander for Investigation Moon (SLIM) lander is now safe on the surface of the moon. It also had time to release two small Lunar Excursion Vehicle (LEV) rovers on the lunar surface.

Above is an image from one of those LEV rover’s showing a precariously placed lander. It appears to be standing on its head. Unfortunately, the solar panels are facing west rather than east, as planned.

As noted earlier, it is possible that the SLIM lander could get enough sunlight in the next few days to reactivate for a short period, but after that the lunar evening will drop to -200°F. The lander and rovers are not built for such temperatures.

Update: Good news! As of earlier today (January 29), SLIM has power again and it is back online.

Pic of the Week: The End of Ingenuity

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Shadow of the Ingenuity helicopter’s rotor blade on the surface of Mars. (NASA, JPL-Caltech)

This week’s image shows the shadow of little helicopter that could and continued to do so for 72 flights on Mars. The photo taken by NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter shows one of its rotor blades after it finished its last flight on January 18, 2024. During the landing, one of the blades was damaged, permanently grounded the helicopter forever more.

The amazing little helicopter surpassed all expectations and became a very helpful buddy to the Perseverance rover. It may be the end of Ingenuity, but it should also be seen as the start of more missions that pair rovers and helicopters on Mars.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson has some final words regarding this unique helicopter in a video that you can watch here.

In addition, Teddy Tzanetos, Ingenuity’s project manager at NASA JPL, had this to say:

It’s humbling Ingenuity not only carries onboard a swatch from the original Wright Flyer, but also this helicopter followed in its footsteps and proved flight is possible on another world.