Ladee At The Moon

"An artist's concept of NASA's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) spacecraft firing its maneuvering thrusters in order to maintain a safe altitude as it orbits the moon. Image Credit: NASA Ames / Dana Berry" During the recent government shutdown that lasted thru Oct. 16, NASA's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) mission continued to perform critical maneuvers and was captured into its commissioning orbit around the moon. The trajectory correction maneuver (TCM-1) on Oct. 1, set the spacecraft on course to rendezvous with the moon on Oct. 6. The first Lunar Orbit Insertion maneuver (LOI-1) on Oct. 6, was a real nail-biter for the team, because missing that maneuver would have made it very difficult for LADEE to achieve a lunar orbit and perform the science mission. Fortunately, the LOI-1 engine burn was very accurate, and required no additional course adjustments. This maneuver successfully put the spacecraft in a 24-hour elliptical lunar orbit. The LOI-2 maneuver on Oct. 9, also was very accurate, and placed LADEE in a four-hour elliptic lunar orbit. The third and final burn (LOI-3) occurred on Oct. 12, and put the spacecraft into its current two-hour commissioning orbit at approximately 145-155 miles (235-250 km) above the lunar surface. After arriving at the moon, the LADEE spacecraft first performed commissioning activities to make sure the spacecraft was operating correctly in that orbit. Those activities are now complete, and the instrument commissioning activities have begun. All instruments onboard LADEE have covers to protect them during launch and cruise, and are ejected - or deployed - at various times as LADEE travels to the moon. The cover for the Lunar Laser Communications Demonstration (LLCD) was deployed on Sept. 27, in order to perform an early acquisition calibration test. The Neutral mass Spectrometer (NMS) cap was ejected on Oct 3, just prior to LADEE's arrival at the moon, so that it would not become a hazard to the spacecraft. The Lunar Dust EXperiment (LDEX) and Ultra Violet Spectrometer (UVS) aliveness activities were successfully completed on Oct. 16, with the deployment of both instrument covers. These instrument cover deployments were the last remaining planned critical events for the mission. This means there are no further show-stoppers before the science phase begins. All of the critical maneuvers and all instrument cover deployments are now completed. The science instrument commissioning and LLCD primary experiment will be conducted through mid-November, at which point the spacecraft will descend to the lower lunar orbit and perform science measurements. Posted by: Soderman/SSERVI StaffSource: NASA ARC

Ladee Instruments Healthy And Ready For Science

Now in fly in a circle utter the moon, NASA's newest lunar handing over has extreme the commissioning interlude, and its science instruments take on passed their introductory checks. The Exorbitant Emotion and Vacuum Environment Explorer (LADEE), launched Sept. 6, 2013, carries three science instruments thought to harvest record information about the profile and production of the thin lunar feeling and discover whether smidgen is being lofted voguish the lunar sky. A deliberate sway of these scenery of our nearby space national choice assist researchers choose other bodies in the solar system, such as big asteroids, Mercury, and the moons of peripheral planets.

"This is very encouraging for LADEE's science interlude - we are earlier seeing the shape of data to come into being," made-up Twist Elphic, LADEE project scientist at NASA's Ames Investigate Hang-up in Moffett Interest, Calif., the center that is winging it the handing over.

The mission's commissioning interlude lasted about one month, a casement in which the spacecraft remained in a high-altitude introductory fly in a circle and the instruments were turned on, check and calibrated.

All three science instruments are in effectively vigor, according to the mission's payloads director, Robert Caffrey at NASA's Goddard Tune Emigration Hang-up in Greenbelt, Md. "The hub of the instruments is very high, and we are looking usual to an exciting science phase!"

The Exorbitant Vacuum Trial (LDEX), built to collective and infer lunar smidgen particles in the moon's thin feeling, is fully effective. The medium recorded its first smidgen hit within report after its cover was deployed on Oct. 16. In moment orbits, LDEX observed dozens of smidgen particles, vivid an connection rate on the adjust of one hit per within walking distance. Early impression suggests the brawl sizes are faraway less significant than one micrometer in radius.

The Ultraviolet and Appreciable Catch light Spectrometer (UVS), thought to investigate the production of the lunar feeling, ended its first size before long after the fall access opened on Oct. 16. The medium has been the theater as thought and has conducted a series of pointing and instrument-performance calibrations, by way of looking at the divide of the moon and the theater solar crossings by aiming the solar observer at the sun and panning sympathy and forth.

The Genderless Total Spectrometer (NMS), which choice ban variations in the lunar feeling over many lunar orbits, is functional normally. One of the first steps in accomplishment the NMS in a daze for science size was to cut out the cover of the medium and let know the majority spectrometer to the lunar feeling. To do this, a pyrotechnic device was commanded to hellhole, breaking a ceramic to metal to ceramic minute, and the cover flew exposed from the spacecraft. Sensors on the spacecraft detected a underdeveloped superior of motion caused by this run, and size ended earlier and after the cover operation showed that caged calibration gases had clear in your mind been released to space.

In tentacle to the three science instruments, LADEE includes a Exorbitant Laser Epistle Presentation (LLCD) payload. LLCD has ended history passing through a pulsed laser brightness to cylinder data over the 239,000 miles in the midst of the moon and World at a record-breaking download rate of 622 megabits per spare (Mbps). LLCD is NASA's first system for organization language passing through a laser very of radio waves. It likewise has demonstrated an error-free data upload rate of 20 Mbps transmitted from the deep ground station in New Mexico to the spacecraft at this instant orbiting the moon.

"LLCD's mean is to rationalize and make it to determination in the technology, so that designate missions choice think passing through it," made-up Don Cornwell, LLCD director at NASA's Goddard Tune Emigration Hang-up in Greenbelt, Md. "The unique prerogative grown by the Massachusetts Orderliness of Technology's Lincoln Laboratory has fantastic contract."

In tentacle to LLCD, LADEE track compound other firsts. The handing over is the first flight of a spacecraft grown at Ames, the first spacecraft launched on a U.S. Air Roughness Minotaur V zero incorporated by Orbital Sciences Corp., and the first deep-space handing over to approach from NASA's Wallops Emigration Facility in Virginia.

Now that the commissioning interlude has numb, LADEE has lowered its fly in a circle to get preferably to the lunar conceal and bring about its 100-day science handing over.

NASA's Science Business Directorate in Washington keep the LADEE mission; a kibbutz prod led by Ames, which manages the handing over, built the spacecraft and performs handing over operations. Goddard manages the science instruments and technology demonstration payload, and the science operations center. Wallops was faithful for approach vehicle confederation, approach forces, and approach extensiveness operations. NASA's Marshall Tune Emigration Hang-up in Huntsville, Ala., manages LADEE within the Exorbitant Seek Persuade Hideout.

Credit: NASA

Moon Express Astrobotic And Barcelona Moon Team Emerge As Lunar X Prize Leaders

Google Lunar X-Prize logo

The GOOGLE LUNAR X-PRIZE competition for a30 million in prize monies for soft-landing a privately operated robotic rover on the Moon's surface is nearing critical mass with three top contenders either looking to or having booked a rocket to launch skyward prior to the 2015 deadline. Landing a spacecraft on the Moon has only been done by two nations - the United States and the former Soviet Union - back in the late 1960's and early 1970's. Bob Richards, co-founder and CEO of MOON EXPRESS recently told "POPULAR MECHANICS" WRITER MICHAEL BELFIORE, a rocket launch must be booked two years in advance, "SO IF YOU DON'T HAVE A LAUNCH CONTRACT 24 MONTHS BEFORE THE EXPIRY OF THE PRIZE, YOU'RE JUST NOT CREDIBLE."

The BARCELONA MOON TEAM said this summer that it had contracted a launch aboard a Chinese Long March 2C rocket. "THROUGH THIS LAUNCH SERVICE CONTRACT, BARCELONA MOON TEAM CONSOLIDATES ITSELF AT THE HEAD OF THE TEAMS PARTICIPATING IN THE COMPETITION, SINCE SECURING THE LAUNCHER IS HALF THE IMPORTANCE OF THE MISSION," team leader Xavier Claramunt said in a statement.

Astrobotic's Polaris lunar rover

ASTROBOTIC has a LAUNCH CONTRACT with SpaceX utilizing a Falcon 9 booster. This week, the Astrobotoic Team displayed the new Polaris moon rover. The group working on the "Griffin" lander from which the rover will descend on a ramp to the lunar surface.

While 25-teams remain in the X-Prize competition, it now appears that only the three referenced are entering the top tier because of booster rocket launch contracts within the timeline. Each of the three teams are building capable lunar landers and rovers to mount atop of the boosters to be directed to the moon's surface 250,000 miles away.

As the three commercial international teams (two American and one European) close on the approaching deadline to lay claim to the Google Lunar X-Prize millions, the governments of CHINA, India, RUSSIA, and EUROPE are planning a new era of civil lunar landers and sample return missions in the balance of the current decade.

BARCELONA MOON TEAM artist concept rover

Only recently has NASA started new internal studies for a deep space outpost on the far side of the Moon in space. China and Russia, meanwhile, appear to be expanding investment and technology to place humans on the surface of the Moon. Each of the unique efforts appear to be on a 2020-something timeline. International cooperation among nations may yet lead to development diplomacy in the ultimate human architecture, including the commercial sector (Bigelow Aerospace).