LRO Begins Mapping Lunar South Pole (Future Base Location) September 20, 2009
Posted by Nick Azer in : Lunar Reconaissance Orbiter, NASA, Shackleton , add a comment
As OnOrbit reports, NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has gotten all its equipment calibrated and begun mapping, specifically the lunar South Pole and Shackleton Crater. This is where the real fun begins, if you will :)
Due to near-constant sunlight, the south pole is the ideal location for solar power, and therefore for a base.
Check out the full mosiac and more nifty info at this mission blog post.
Japan's SELENE Disproves Concept of 'Peak of Eternal Light' on the Moon March 5, 2009
Posted by Nick Azer in : Japan, Kaguya, Malapert, Peak of Eternal Light, Polar ice, Shackleton, solar power , 4comments
In what seems to be a little-noticed but highly important development for lunar base planning, Japan‘s SELENE (also known as Kaguya) lunar orbiter last month determined that the concept of a ‘Peak of Eternal Light‘ at either of the lunar poles does not exist.
The possibility of a Peak of Eternal Light at one of several locations, including the rim of Shackleton Crater or on Malapert (both at the South Pole), made those locations prime candidates for early lunar bases. Having eternal sunlight is, clearly, an advantage for any outpost relying largely on solar power :) .
Some of these points at the lunar poles do have as much as 89% illumination, though, so they remain very strong locations as far as near-constant solar power.
The pessimists of the universe, though, will rejoice in knowing that permanent shadow was confirmed to exist–leading to potential water ice.
The JAXA team’s findings were published in the U.S. journal of Geophysics last month.
India's Chandrayaan Flags the Moon November 16, 2008
Posted by Nick Azer in : Chandrayaan-1, Current News, Helium-3, Indian Space Research Organization, lander, Peak of Eternal Light, Shackleton, Youtube , 1 comment so far
I’ve been flagging “Chandrayaan” on a lot of my moon posts as of late, but now the Chandrayaan-1 has done me one better, flagging something itself: the Moon.
The craft’s Moon Impact Probe, carrying the Indian Tricolour (pictured above) on its side, landed on the Moon on Friday, making India the fifth (or fourth; videos seems to state fourth, but that linked article from the India Times states fifth) world entity (after the U.S., Russia, Japan, and the 17-nation ESA) to reach the surface of the Moon.
That is a picture the Moon Impact Probe took before impact (from the India Times); the prode landed just 32km from the all-important Shackleton Crater near the South Pole, a very likely location for a future full-fledged colony or colonies (due to its rim being a Peak of Eternal Light, a.k.a. eternal solar power and other benefits). So its likely that future colonists (robotic or otherwise) will come across, or at least take field trips to, this Indian tricolor in the future :)
Below is a great video from CCTV on the Probe’s landing, which rather interestingly, also confirms the active Indian interest in helium-3 (something not mentioned in the official ISRO Moon Impact Probe page):
Astrobotic Technology Announces Details Galore on Series of Commercial Moon Missions (News) October 31, 2008
Posted by Nick Azer in : Astrobotic, Current News, dozer, Google Lunar X Prize, Integration, lander, Lunar Chariot, Obama, private sector, rover, selenography, Shackleton , add a commentToday, Astrobotic Technology (a leading contender for the Google Lunar X Prize) announced a new series of missions as part of their commercial efforts.
“Astrobotic will robotically explore the Moon’s high-interest areas on a commercial basis, collecting information required to design future outposts and to answer scientific questions about the Moon and Earth.”
-David Gump, President of Astrobotic, from their announcement
As part of the announcement, Astrobotic released a White Paper (a ‘white paper’ being an a report or guide that addresses problems and how to solve them, typically seen in business and politics) detailing their program and goals.
In addition to their initial effort for the $20 million Lunar X Prize, TranquilityTrek (which, as David Gump told Space.com for their article today, was “very clear” that it was “going to cost more to win the prize than the prize itself”), Astrobotic will follow with five more missions:
Rovers and landers are pretty commonplace ideas, but the ‘dozer‘ was a new one to me. With some digging (excuse the pun), I found an example: NASA’s Lunar Chariot prototype, which could build roads, dig trenches, or even mine minerals. There’s even some video of it in action, kicking ass and taking names on Earth:
The White Paper has oodles of details on their exact mission plans, particularly the diagram on page 3.
With the X Prize TranquilityTrek slated for Q2 2010, they’ve got their South pole scout (headed for the rim of Shackleton Crater, long considered a prime location for a moon colony) shooting for Q3 2011, with two more missions (a North Pole scout and a ‘Moon Quake 1″ seismic and weather collection mission at Shackleton) set for 2012 and an Ice Surveyor mission going deep into Shackleton itself, followed by the Lunar Dozer mission also at Shackleton Rim, both being conducted in 2013.
So, for Astrobotic alone, that’s 6 total lunar missions in the next four years. Exciting times. And this, of course (and as the White Paper notes), is just the initial slate. Most or all of the rovers will include HD video broadcasting, it sounds like, so we’ll all have a front row seat, to boot.
The general goal of the missions is to build a data library to facilitate other organizations’ (e.g., NASA; Barack Obama, in his space plan, talked of “amplifying NASA’s reach” with the private space sector) and companies’ missions with information for sale, such as detailed terrain maps, allowing future colonial efforts to simply buy the information from Astrobotic at a lower cost that it would take for the efforts to collect the data themselves.
Check out that 4-page White Paper and Astrobotic‘s site for the full skinny on their efforts, and keep an eye here for frequent updates and analysis as they (and other similar companies, such as fellow Google Lunar X Prize competitor Odyssey Moon, Ltd.) progress rapidly towards their mission slate :)
Picture of the Week: That's No Space Station… July 11, 2008
Posted by Nick Azer in : Malapert, Peak of Eternal Light, Picture of the Week, Shackleton , add a comment
Picture of the Week: Shackleton Crater+ Malapert April 9, 2008
Posted by Nick Azer in : Malapert, Peak of Eternal Light, Picture of the Week, Shackleton , add a comment
