NASA LADEE lunar probe unveiled

The LADEE spacecraft awaits spin balance testing, conducted to ensure stability during flight, at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. 

LADEE is slated to liftoff from Wallops on Sept. 5, 2013. 

Credit: NASA/Patrick Black

NASA's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) Observatory has arrived at the launch site on the Eastern Shore of Virginia at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island and is now in the midst of weeks of performance testing to ensure it is ready for liftoff in early September.

The LADEE lunar orbiting probe will be the first planetary science mission ever launched from NASA Wallops and the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS).

It will soar to space atop a solid fueled Minotaur V rocket on its maiden flight.

LADEE will blaze a brilliant trail to the Moon during a spectacular nighttime blastoff slated for Sept. 5, 2013 at 11:27 PM from Launch Pad 0B.

LADEE is equipped with three science instruments to gather detailed information about the lunar atmosphere, conditions near the surface and environmental influences on lunar dust.

"LADEE will investigate the moons tenuous exosphere, trace outgases like the sodium halo and lofted dust at the terminator," said Jim Green, Planetary Science Division Director at NASA HQ.

"The spacecraft has a mass spectrometer to identify the gases, a physical dust detector and an imager to look at scattered light from the dust. These processes also occur at asteroids."

"And it will also test a laser communications system that is a technology demonstrator for future planetary science missions. It communicates at 650 megabits per second," Green explained to me.

Credit: NASA

The couch sized 844 pound (383 kg) robotic explorer was assembled at NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field Calif., and is a cooperative project with NASA Goddard Spaceflight Center in Maryland.

The spacecraft was then shipped cross country by a dedicated truck inside a specially-designed shipping container – blanketed with protective nitrogen – which insulated the spacecraft from temperature, moisture, bumps in the road and more than a few crazy drivers.

The first leg of LADEE's trip to the Moon took 5 days. The trans lunar leg will take 30 days.

It's standard practice that whenever space probes are moved by ground transportation that they are accompanied by a caravan that includes a lead scout vehicle to ensure safe road conditions and followed by engineers monitoring the health and environmental storage conditions.

Technicians are now engaged in a lengthy series of performance tests to confirm that LADEE was not damaged during the road trip and that all spacecraft systems are functioning properly.

"One important preparation about to begin is spin-balancing LADEE," says Butler Hine, LADEE Project Manager.

"During this procedure, the spacecraft is mounted to a spin table and rotated at a high-speed to make sure it is perfectly balanced for launch."

After all spacecraft systems pass the performance tests, LADEE will be fueled, encapsulated and moved to the Wallops Island launch pad later this summer for mating with the five stage Minotaur V booster stack.

"I'm excited about the night launch because people up and down the Atlantic seacoast will be able to see it," Green told me.

Russian Plans Launch of Lunar Probe, Luna-Glob

An artist's illustration of Russia's Luna-Glob spacecraft. 

CREDIT: NASA

Russia will launch an unmanned spacecraft to the moon in 2015, the first step in a new push toward establishing a fully robotic lunar station, according to press reports.

The new moon orbiter, called Luna-Glob, should be ready for launch in two years and is expected to be the first of four missions to establish a lunar base, Russia’s RIA Novosti reported today (Jan. 15).

The spacecraft will carry scientific instruments used for measuring dust and cosmic rays as well as tools that will be used for astrophysics experiments as part of the unmanned mission to the moon. Eventually, the probe should traffic samples of lunar dust and rock back to Earth.

Russia's goal to set up this lunar station dates back to the late 1990's, and was originally marked for completion last year.

However, due to a few budgetary setbacks, the Russian Federal Space Program had to postpone the launch, but it appears to be back on track.

The space agency is also planning on developing better strategies for manned moon exploration. The Federal Space Program recently received 10 million rubles (US $330,000) to create a new rocket that could launch their cosmonauts to the moon.

That project is set for completion at the end of May of this year.

Lunar Probe to search for water on Moon

Luna-Glob will be the first sign of Russia's return to a comprehensive programme to study the Moon. 

The probe will be equipped with a radio beacon, which will help other probes to land on planned areas with great accuracy.

Russian scientists at the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences have chosen six venues for landing the Luna-Glob probe.

With the launch of the probe in 2014, Russia will resume its Moon-exploration programme using automatic stations, which was started by Lunakhods several decades ago.

The Luna-Glob probe is designed for studying the Moon's Polar Regions where the environment differs from that in the territories which were studied by the Russian and American "Luna" and "Apollo" programmes.

During distance probing in the past years, signs of the presence of water on the Moon's surface have been discovered. Water in the form of ice exists in carters in the Polar Regions that are constantly in the sun's shadow. The pores of the moon's soil called lunar regolith are filled with water.

This is similar to the earth's permafrost and can be described as "lunar permafrost". The probe will study its properties using special equipment, which will assess the content of water in the soil. It has a mechanical hand to collect the samples of soil at depths up to two meters.

These samples will be analyzed in detail by equipment onboard the probe. The results will help to reveal from where water appeared on the Moon and also on the Earth because our planet was originally dry and hot, says a fellow at the institute Igor Mitrofanov.

"Possibly, comets brought water onto the Moon and also the Earth. There are two significant differences between the Earth and Moon. The Earth has a stronger gravitational field and a thick atmosphere. Owing to this the Earth could hold out, water and rivers, lakes and oceans appeared, and later, all this led to the origin of life.

"The Moon has no atmosphere and has a weak gravitational field. Water on its surface can be only under the conditions of extreme cold," says Igor Mitrofanov.

Water is necessary not only for research purposes. It is an important resource for the exploration of the Moon, which will be most likely started from the poles, says Igor Mitrofanov.

"When question arises about manned expeditions and setting up of lunar stations, water resources should guarantee the station with oxygen and water for day to day use and can be used to produce hydrogen, an excellent fuel for rockets. At present, we are engaged in hydrology surveillance for the exploration of the Moon in the future," Igor Mitrofanov said.

Luna-Glob will be the first sign of Russia's return to a comprehensive programme to study the Moon. The probe will be equipped with a radio beacon, which will help other probes to land on planned areas with great accuracy.

Several other missions, including the Luna-Resurs will start creating a robotized base on the Moon. This, on its part, will prepare everything necessary for landing a manned mission.

The Russian space exploration programme returns not only to the Moon but also to outer space. The "Phobos-Soil" mission will be launched shortly to study a moon of the planet Mars.

Map of Moon Reveals Titanium Treasure Troves

A map of the Moon combining observations in visible and ultraviolet wavelengths shows a treasure trove of areas rich in Titanium ores. Not only is Titanium a valuable mineral, it is key to helping scientists unravel the mysteries of the Moon's interior.

Mark Robinson and Brett Denevi presented the results from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission at last week's joint meeting of the European Planetary Science Congress and the American Astronomical Society's Division for Planetary Sciences.

"Looking up at the Moon, its surface appears painted with shades of grey - at least to the human eye. But with the right instruments, the Moon can appear colourful," said Robinson, of Arizona State University.

"The maria appear reddish in some places and blue in others. Although subtle, these colour variations tell us important things about the chemistry and evolution of the lunar surface. They indicate the titanium and iron abundance, as well as the maturity of a lunar soil."

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) Wide Angle Camera (WAC) is imaging the surface in seven different wavelengths at a resolution of between 100 and 400 metres per pixel. Specific minerals reflect or absorb strongly certain parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, so the wavelengths detected by LROC WAC help scientists better understand the chemical composition of the lunar surface.

Robinson and his team previously developed a technique using Hubble Space Telescope images to map titanium abundances around a small area centred on the Apollo 17 landing site.

Samples around the site spanned a broad range of titanium levels. By comparing the Apollo data from the ground with the Hubble images, the team found that the titanium levels corresponded to the ratio of ultraviolet to visible light reflected by the lunar soils.

"Our challenge was to find out whether the technique would work across broad areas, or whether there was something special about the Apollo 17 area," said Robinson.

Robinson's team constructed a mosaic from around 4000 LRO WAC images collected over one month. Using the technique they had developed with the Hubble imagery, they used the WAC ratio of the brightness in the ultraviolet to visible light to deduce titanium abundance, backed up by surface samples gathered by Apollo and Luna missions.

The highest titanium abundances on Earth are around xx percent. The new map shows that in the mare titanium abundances range from about one percent to a little more than ten percent.

In the highlands, everywhere TiO2 is less than one percent. The new titanium values match those measured in the ground samples to about one percent.

"We still don't really understand why we find much higher abundances of titanium on the Moon compared to similar types of rocks on Earth. What the lunar titanium-richness does tell us is that the interior of the Moon had less oxygen when it was formed, knowledge that geochemists value for understanding the evolution of the Moon," said Robinson.

Lunar titanium is mostly found in the mineral ilmenite, a compound containing iron, titanium and oxygen. Future miners living and working on the Moon could break down ilmenite to liberate these elements. In addition, Apollo data shows that titanium-rich minerals are more efficient at retaining particles from the solar wind, such as helium and hydrogen. These gases would also provide a vital resource for future human inhabitants of lunar colonies.

NASA Launches GRAIL Moon probe

GRAIL Heads to the Moon

Fire and smoke light up a blue sky as a United Launch Alliance Delta II Heavy rocket propels NASA's Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission into space. Liftoff from Space Launch Complex 17B on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida was at 9:08:52 EDT Sept.10.

The spacecraft are embarking on a three-month journey to reach the moon. GRAIL will fly twin spacecraft in tandem around the moon to precisely measure and map variations in the moon's gravitational field.

The mission will provide the most accurate global gravity field to date for any planet, including Earth.

This detailed information will reveal differences in the density of the moon's crust and mantle and will help answer fundamental questions about the moon's internal structure, thermal evolution, and history of collisions with asteroids.

The aim is to map the moon's gravity field so completely that future moon vehicles can safely navigate anywhere on the moon's surface.

Photo credit: NASA/Darrell McCall

China's Lunar Probe Chang'e 2 launched

Long March 3C rocket carrying China's second unmanned lunar probe, Chang'e II, lifts off from the launch pad at the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China's Sichuan Province, at 18:59:57 (Beijing time) on Oct. 1, 2010. (Xinhua/Li Gang)

China's second unmanned lunar probe, Chang'e-2, was maneuvered to correct its trajectory on the earth-moon transfer orbit Saturday.

Scientists successfully activated the attitude control engines on Chang'e-2 and trimmed the satellite for the first time on its journey, according to a flight control official in Beijing.

"During Chang'e-2's 380,000-km journey to the moon, we will conduct more orbit corrections if necessary to ensure that it enters a lunar orbit," said Ma Yongping, vice director of the flight control center.

Chang'e-2 blasted off on a Long-March-3C carrier rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center, in southwest China's Sichuan Province, at about 7 p.m. Friday.

It is China's first unmanned spacecraft to be boosted from the launch site directly to the earth-moon transfer orbit, greatly reducing the journey time from that of its predecessor Chang'e-1.

Chang'e-1 took about 13 days to travel to a lunar orbit after orbiting the earth in a geosynchronous orbit and then transferring to the earth-moon transfer orbit.

Chang'e-2 is expected to travel for about 112 hours, or almost five days, to arrive in a lunar orbit.

To acquire more detailed moon data, Chang'e-2 will enter a lower lunar orbit about 100 km above the surface, compared with the 200-km altitude of Chang'e-1, according to the control center.

The satellite will eventually be maneuvered into an orbit just 15 kilometer above the moon. At that point, Chang'e-2 will take pictures of moon's Bay of Rainbows area, the proposed landing ground for Chang'e-3, with a resolution of 1.5 meters.

The resolution on Chang'e-1's camera was 120 meters, said Wu Weiren, chief designer of China's lunar orbiter project.

The Moon Belongs to the People of Earth, the Bold or no-one?

LAST week, NASA crashed its Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) into the moon's south pole, in a bid to discover reserves of water and other resources.

This was the latest in a veritable flurry of moon missions: between 2007 and 2011 there will have been eight: one from Japan, two from China, one from India, one from Russia and three from the US.

The race back to the moon has been prompted by the realisation that exploiting it may now be within reach. And it poses the question: who gets to use the moon's recoverable resources, such as oxygen or water?

This could be resolved through negotiation, as space scientists happily lodging their instruments in foreign spacecraft hope. But the Lunar Treaty drafted by the United Nations in the 1990s has still not been signed by the space powers. Since this leaves the moon unprotected by law - the ultimate terra nullius - we may now see a scramble for territory.

The UN's Lunar Treaty is still unsigned by the space powers, leaving the moon unprotected by law
History shows that the first step is colonisation and - the pressing issue - staking a claim. Thanks to the explorers Amundsen, Scott and the early sealers, the UK and Norway now claim about one-sixth of Antarctica each. So we may be witnessing a slow-motion reworking of the Antarctica story in which lunar exploration lays the ground for claims.

We are already witnessing the same mix of challenge, bravado, inquiry and national enthusiasm, suffused with dreams of empire and wealth that spurred the Antarctic race. Plus, there's fear. "Whoever first conquers the moon will benefit first," as Ouyang Ziyuan, chief scientist of China's moon exploration programme, once told the BBC.

This potent cocktail can be used by scientists to win support for bigger, more aggressive national programmes. It is a long, expensive game but that never prevented it from being played out in the Antarctic for almost a century, and there are potential rewards to match.

When I put these ideas to David Parker, head of space science and exploration at the British National Space Centre, he called them Machiavellian. Perhaps he should recall that Machiavelli's Prince is the ultimate guide to realpolitik.

India's first lunar probe fails after less than a year - New Scientist

India's first lunar probe fails after less than a year - New Scientist

India's first lunar probe has lost contact with Earth, and the mission has been declared over more than a year earlier than intended.

It is not yet clear what caused the communications failure, but mission members suspect it was exacerbated by the earlier loss of star sensors used to orient the craft.

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