Tag: Moon

Categories
GeekWire

Interlune raises funds to go after the moon’s resources

Rob Meyerson
Space industry executive Rob Meyerson speaks at a 2016 conference. (ISPCS via YouTube)

A stealthy space venture co-founded by the former president of Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture says it’s raising funds to move ahead with its plan to harvest resources on the moon and bring them back for use on Earth.

Former Blue Origin executive Rob Meyerson is listed among the executive officers for Interlune in a financial form filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Feb. 1. The form reports that the startup is offering $17.7 million in equity, and that $15.6 million of that total was sold as of the filing date.

The SEC filing says 18 investors have taken part in the offering but does not identify those investors.

Interlune was founded in 2020, but details about the venture were shrouded in secrecy until last October — when another co-founder, Blue Origin engineer Gary Lai, discussed the company’s vision during an awards banquet at Seattle’s Museum of Flight.

“We aim to be the first company that harvests natural resources from the moon to use here on Earth,” Lai told the audience. “We’re building a completely novel approach to extract those resources, efficiently, cost-effectively and also responsibly. The goal is really to create a sustainable in-space economy.”

Get the full story on GeekWire
Categories
Universe Today

Japan’s moon lander sleeps again after sending science

Picture of darkening lunar landscape
This is the last view captured by Japan's SLIM moon lander before lunar sunset. (JAXA Photo)

After a few days of wakefulness, Japan’s SLIM moon lander has gone dormant once more at the start of a 14-day-long lunar night.

The upended robot sent back a stream of data and imagery while its solar cells were in position to soak up sunlight, and its handlers hope they can get SLIM to wake up again and resume its work after lunar sunrise in mid-February.

The car-sized robot accomplished its primary mission on Jan. 20 (Japan time) when it landed within 100 meters of its target point near Shioli Crater. SLIM — which is an acronym standing for “Smart Lander for Investigating Moon” — was designed to demonstrate a precision landing technique that Japan hopes to use for future missions to the moon and Mars.

Unfortunately, the lander ended up in an upside-down position, with its solar cells pointing off to the side. Mission managers were able to get some data and pictures back — including a photo captured by a mini-robot that documented the lander’s predicament. But within hours, the lander’s batteries ran down to the point that SLIM had to go into hibernation. The mission team could only hope that as the sun moved westward in the lunar sky, enough light would eventually hit the panels to allow for a reawakening.

That’s exactly what happened on Jan. 28: The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, a.k.a. JAXA, re-established contact with the charged-up SLIM and commanded the lander to transmit a set of multispectral images showing the area around the landing site — including a variety of rocks named after canine breeds, such as Bulldog, Toy Poodle and Aki Inu.

Continue reading “Japan’s moon lander sleeps again after sending science”
Categories
Universe Today

Japan’s power-starved moon lander is lying on its side

View of SLIM lander from LEV-2 mini-probe
An image sent back by a mini-probe shows Japan's SLIM lander on the lunar surface. (JAXA / Takara Tomy / Sony Group / Doshisha Univ.)

Update for Jan. 30: The sideways solar cells on Japan’s SLIM moon lander soaked up enough sunlight to allow for the robot’s revival on Jan. 28. SLIM is gathering up science data, including a closeup image of a lunar rock called Toy Poodle, but the power drain is expected to resume Feb. 1 when the 14-day-long lunar night begins.

Now we know why Japan’s lunar lander wasn’t able to recharge its batteries after touching down on the moon last week: The spacecraft appears to have tumbled onto its side, with its solar cells facing away from the sun.

The good news is that the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon, or SLIM, achieved its primary mission of setting down within 100 meters (330 feet) of its target point — and that the mission’s two mini-probes, which were ejected during SLIM’s descent, are working as intended.

Scores of images were taken before and after landing. One of the pictures. captured by a camera on the ball-shaped LEV-2 mini-probe, shows the lander sitting at an odd angle with its thrusters facing upward and its solar cells facing westward.

To conserve battery power, mission managers at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency shut down SLIM after the probes transmitted the imagery they collected. But there’s still a chance that the sun’s shifting rays could provide enough power to allow for further operations in the week ahead.

Continue reading “Japan’s power-starved moon lander is lying on its side”
Categories
Universe Today

Japanese robot lands on the moon but faces power drain

Illustration: SLIM lander on moon
An artist's conception shows Japan's SLIM lander on the moon. (ISAS / JAXA Illustration)

Update for Jan. 21: The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said it shut down its moon lander to conserve battery power, but added that the lander might be recharged and revived if sunlight hits the spacecraft’s solar cells at the right angle.

Japan has become the fifth nation to land a functioning robot on the moon, but the mission could fall short of complete success due to a problem with the lander’s power-generating solar cells.

The Smart Lander for Investigating Moon, or SLIM, was launched along with an X-ray space telescope called XRISM from Japan’s Tanegashima Space Center in early September — and after weeks of in-space maneuvers, SLIM touched down today at 1520 GMT (7:20 a.m. PT Jan. 19, or 12:20 a.m. JST Jan. 20).

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency reported that the landing was successful. During a news briefing, Hiroshi Kuninaka, director general of JAXA’s Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, said the achievement marked “a major milestone” in Japan’s effort to send spacecraft to the moon, and eventually to Mars.

Kuninaka said SLIM was able to communicate with Earth and respond to commands. “However, it seems that the solar cells are not generating electricity at this point in time,” he said. “And since we are not able to generate electricity, the operation is being done using batteries alone.”

Continue reading “Japanese robot lands on the moon but faces power drain”
Categories
GeekWire

Lander falls back to Earth after missing out on the moon

View of crescent Earth from Astrobotic Peregrine lander in space
One of the last pictures taken by a camera on the Peregrine lander shows a crescent Earth. (Astrobotic Photo)

Ten days after its launch, Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander fell back to Earth, ending a trip to the moon’s orbital distance and back that was doomed by a propellant leak.

The mission began auspiciously on the night of Jan. 7-8 with a seemingly successful liftoff from Florida on United Launch Alliance’s first Vulcan Centaur rocket, powered by Blue Origin’s BE-4 rocket engines. But hours after launch, the Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic team detected a problem with the propulsion system. So much propellant was lost that the team had to rule out a moon landing.

After days of troubleshooting, Astrobotic and NASA determined that the best course was to send the 8-foot-wide robotic spacecraft on a looping orbit that went out more than 240,000 miles from Earth — and then came back for a controlled atmospheric re-entry over a remote area of the South Pacific.

Astrobotic said telemetry received during Peregrine’s descent suggested that the spacecraft broke up during re-entry at 1:04 p.m. PT Jan. 18.

Today, Space-Track.org said the U.S. Space Command confirmed the spacecraft’s re-entry. “That’s certainly good to hear,” Astrobotic CEO John Thornton told reporters during a news briefing.

“Peregrine Mission One has concluded,” Astrobotic said in a final mission update. “We look to the future and our next mission to the moon, Griffin Mission One. All of the hard-earned experience from the past 10 days in space, along with the preceding years of designing, building and testing Peregrine, will directly inform Griffin and our future missions.”

Get the full story on GeekWire
Categories
GeekWire

PowerLight looks into beaming power on the moon

Illustration: Power-beaming system on the moon
An artist’s conception shows a beamed-power system operating on the moon. (Illustration via PowerLight)

Kent, Wash.-based PowerLight Technologies says it’s joined a team headed by Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture to design a power beaming system that might someday charge up robots on the moon.

The effort is being funded by the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency as part of its LunA-10 program, which supports concepts for future lunar infrastructure projects. DARPA selected 14 industry teams, including Blue Origin’s team, to receive up to $1 million each for studies that are due this spring.

Blue Origin and PowerLight are focusing on a system that could generate power for lunar operations — perhaps using solar cells manufactured on the moon — and then transmit that power to remote locations via laser light.

The DARPA LunA-10 study takes its name from the goal of advancing a lunar architecture for infrastructure over a 10-year time frame. Hardware development isn’t the point of the study. Instead, DARPA is interested in developing ideas that could give rise to future commercial applications on the moon — and perhaps tech spin-offs here on Earth.

PowerLight, which was known as LaserMotive when it was founded in 2007, is developing laser-based power transmission systems for a variety of closer-to-home applications, including over-the-air power beaming systems as well as power over fiber-optic cable for telecom equipment, drones and hard-to-reach installations on land and underwater.

The company made an early splash in 2009 when it won a $900,000 prize in NASA’s Power Beaming Challenge, so its involvement in a space-related project marks something of a return to its roots.

Get the full story on GeekWire
Categories
Cosmic Space

NASA reschedules Artemis moon landing for 2026

Artemis 2 looking at Orion moon ship
Artemis 2 crew members check out their Orion spacecraft during testing at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. (NASA Photo / Kim Shiflett)

NASA has added another year’s delay to its plan for landing astronauts on the moon: The Artemis 2 trip around the moon is now scheduled for 2025, setting the stage for an Artemis 3 mission in 2026 that would see humans step onto lunar surface for the first time in 54 years.

The reasons behind the postponement have to do with safety concerns that arose in the wake of the uncrewed Artemis 1 round-the-moon mission in 2022. That flight was seen as a shakedown cruise for NASA’s Space Launch System and Orion spacecraft.

When NASA and its industry partners analyzed the results of Artemis 1, they found several issues that required more time to resolve — including higher-than-expected levels of erosion in Orion’s heat shield, deficiencies in the battery and electrical system, and problems with some of the components used in Orion’s life support system.

“Safety is our top priority,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said today in a teleconference. “And to give Artemis teams more time to work through the challenges with first-time developments, operations and integration, we’re going to give more time on Artemis 2 and 3.”

Artemis 2 is now due to send three Americans and a Canadian astronaut on a 10-day trip around the moon in an Orion capsule in September 2025 rather than late 2024.

The Artemis 3 mission, which would use Orion as well as a modified SpaceX Starship lander to put a yet-to-be-named crew of astronauts on the moon’s surface near the south pole, is now scheduled for September 2026 rather than late 2025.

Continue reading “NASA reschedules Artemis moon landing for 2026”
Categories
GeekWire

Astrobotic admits moon lander mission will fall short

Peregrine lander during preparations for launch
Astrobotic’s Peregrine lander is shown during last month’s preparations for launch. (United Launch Alliance Photo)

Astrobotic says that it’s given up on its plan to put a commercial spacecraft safely on the moon’s surface, due to a propellant leak that will soon leave its Peregrine lander without fuel.

The Pittsburgh-based company said there was no indication that the leak occurred as the result of the lander’s launch by United Launch Alliance. ULA’s Vulcan Centaur rocket made its first liftoff over the weekend with the aid of BE-4 engines provided by Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture.

The Astrobotic team’s working theory is that a valve between the propulsion system’s oxidizer and a store of helium that served to pressurize the oxidizer tank failed to reseal after it was actuated during spacecraft initialization.

“This led to a rush of high-pressure helium that spiked the pressure in the oxidizer tank beyond its operating limit and subsequently ruptured the tank,” Astrobotic said today in mission update.

Because of the resulting leak, mission controllers had a hard time keeping Peregrine’s solar arrays pointed toward the sun — but today Astrobotic said “the team was able to update the control algorithm and fix this issue.” The lander’s batteries are currently fully charged, and onboard cameras are sending pictures back down to Earth.

Get the full story on GeekWire
Categories
GeekWire

Propulsion failure puts moon lander’s mission at risk

Illustration: Peregrine lander in space with Earth in background
An artist’s conception shows Astrobotic’s Peregrine lander with Earth in the background. (Astrobotic via YouTube)

Hours after the launch of its commercial moon lander, Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic reported a failure within the robotic spacecraft’s propulsion system that could rule out a soft landing.

“Unfortunately, it appears the failure within the propulsion system is causing a critical loss of propellant,” Astrobotic said today in a mission update.posted to X / Twitter. “The team is working to try and stabilize this loss, but given the situation, we have prioritized maximizing the science and data we can capture. We are currently assessing what alternative mission profiles may be feasible at this time.”

In an earlier update, Astrobotic said the propulsion problem could threaten the “ability to soft land on the moon.” NASA is paying Astrobotic $108 million to have its Peregrine spacecraft carry a suite of science instruments to the lunar surface, and more than a dozen other payloads are going along for the ride.

The setback followed a picture-perfect launch of the 8-foot-wide lander from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida overnight. It was the first liftoff for United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan Centaur rocket — and the first launch for Blue Origin’s BE-4 rocket engines, which Jeff Bezos’ space venture provided for the first-stage booster.

Get the full story on GeekWire
Categories
GeekWire

Moon lander gets a lift from Vulcan rocket and Blue Origin

Vulcan liftoff from launch pad
United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan Centaur rocket lifts off from its Florida launch pad. (NASA via YouTube)

Update: Hours after launch, Astrobotic reported a failure in the Peregrine lander’s propulsion system that could rule out a soft landing on the moon.

United Launch Alliance’s next-generation Vulcan Centaur rocket lifted off for the first time tonight, making use of booster engines built by Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture to launch what could be the first mission to put a commercially built lander safely on the moon.

At the end of a seemingly trouble-free countdown, the rocket rose from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 2:18 a.m. ET Jan. 8 (11:18 p.m. PT Jan. 7). It was the first-ever launch for the Vulcan rocket, and the first-ever use of Blue Origin’s BE-4 engines.

Two BE-4 engines, fueled by liquefied natural gas, powered the first-stage booster spaceward with an assist from two side boosters. “We’re seeing excellent performance out of the BE-4’s,” ULA flight commentator Rob Gannon said.

About five minutes after liftoff, Vulcan’s Centaur V upper stage separated from the first-stage booster and carried Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic’s Peregrine lander into orbit. Spacecraft separation took place 50 minutes after launch, sending Peregrine on the next leg of its trek to the moon.

“Yee-haw! I am so thrilled,” ULA CEO Tory Bruno said after separation. Soon after Bruno’s joyful whoop, Astrobotic confirmed contact with the lander.

“Big kudos and congrats to the whole team!” Bezos said in an Instagram post.

Get the full story on GeekWire