by In the wee hours of Christmas Eve this year, before the wrapping of presents begins and the aroma of gingerbread fills the air, a spaceship is about to be launched to the moon.
It’s called the Peregrine Lunar Lander, named for the fastest flying bird World. If all goes as planned, the robotic bird will zoom in space and fly into the moon’s gravitational tides, then carefully lower its orbit until it finally descends on a region of lunar lava flows called the Bay of Stickiness, or Sinus Viscositatis.
This mission will be one for the history books for several reasons, one of which is the send the first under NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, created as a way for the agency to bring payloads to the moon without building all the spacecraft needed to bring those payloads there. In this case, Astrobiotic is the company behind the Peregrine Lander and NASA is paying to stash some things on board.
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Regarding the rocket, there is another one to discuss. Peregrine will take off on United Launch Alliance’s first flight Vulcan Centaur rocket game. The successor to the company’s Atlas V and Delta IV vehicles, Vulcan Centaur it is, among other things, built to transport many things to space.
And during a briefing on November 29, representatives from Astrobiotic, United Launch Alliance and, of course, NASAgathered to discuss the fate of some of the Hawk payloads as well as outline how everything is supposed to be reduced the day before Christmas.
What is going to the moon?
There are five in total NASA-sponsored payloads heading to the lunar surface during the mission, and the first is called the “Peregrine ion trap ion spectrometer,” or PITMS.
PITMS will be investigating the lunar exosphere, which is a thin gaseous envelope around the moon, using mass spectrometry. Mass spectrometry refers to the technique scientists use to measure the mass-to-charge ratio of ions, which are charged particles such as hydrogen atoms to hold positive protonbut no negative electron to balance out the proton.
“The science results from PITMS will aim to improve our knowledge of the abundance and behavior of volatiles on the moon and how they respond to disturbances such as rocket emissions,” a said Ryan Watkins, program scientist at NASA’s Office of Exploration Science Strategy and Integration.
The Falcon will be carrying a neutron spectrometer system, or NSS, Watkins explained, which will measure the neutron near the surface of the moon as well as their associated energy. By deduction, NSS will help scientists determine how much hydrogen is present in the environment as well as soil hydration levels.
The lunar retroreflector array, or LRA, being launched on Peregrine in December is a device consisting of eight “retroreflectors,” which Watkins compares to small mirrors on a small aluminum support structure: “The LRA will enable a range precision laser to help determine the distance from any orbiting or landing spacecraft to the LRA on the lander.The LRA is therefore a passive optical instrument, and will act as a permanent position marker on the moon on for years to come.”
The last two instruments NASA sent with the mission include the volatile near-infrared spectrometer system, or NIRVSS, and the linear energy transfer spectrometer, or LETS.
“NIRVSS is a sensor suite that includes a near-infrared spectrometer, a Thermal Radiometer and a high-resolution seven-color imager,” Watkins said. “These sensors will observe the lunar surface to determine the surface composition, the fine scale and morphology and the thermal environment.”
In other words, NIRVSS will help the team understand how the aforementioned fluctuations can be spread across the lunar surface – including any fluctuations created by the lander itself – and will reveal how surface temperatures affect the substances.
LETS, on the other hand, will shine on the surface of the moon, when the lander will still be cruising in lunar orbit. It is a radiation monitor that can measure the environment to help scientists determine what solar particle events may be occurring mid-flight. This is extremely important because if humans are to remain in lunar orbit for long periods as envisioned by NASA, or even on the surface of the moon, it will be vital to know what protection they will need to wear to avoid excessive prevent exposure to radiation.
Together, these instruments will dissect features near the landing site called “Gruithuisen Domes” that are of interest to scientists because they indicate volcanic flows on the moon, or “Mare volcanism.”
“Understanding the occupation history of these Gruithuisen Domes in relation to episodes of Mare volcanism is an important aspect of the overall history of the region,” said Watkins.
But beyond a NASA payload, yes 15 other articles sending it to the moon. And while many are super-scientific like the German Aerospace Center’s M-42 radiation detector, many are fun souvenirs that remind us of the humanity behind human space exploration.
The Japanese Lunar Dream capsule, courtesy of the company Astroscale, is a time a capsule that will be on board with messages from over 80,000 children around the world. US Elysium Space is sending human remains to create lunar relics. And scientists from the Seychelles are launching one bitcoin.
“We will be taking seven nations to the surface of the moon, six of which have never been touched by software on the surface of the moon, including the United Kingdom, Mexico, Germany, Hungary, Japan, and the Seychelles, “John Thornton, CEO of Astrobiotic said. “We actually did our first commercial payload sale for lunar delivery, and I believe it could be one of the first in the world, back in 2014. And, since then, we’ve been picking up payload customers and growing the demonstration for this mission.”
“If you’re a lunar scientist, you might have to wait your whole career to have one chance to fly an instrument on a planetary mission,” he said. “CLPS and this partnership with NASA give our nation’s scientists the opportunity to regularly touch the surface of the moon, at different times in their careers, and have a campaign of tests and results.”
As for how exactly the Falcon will get to the moon, here’s what the team that will go down says.
Go there
Liftoff is currently scheduled for around 1:50 a.m. ET on December 24, the team says, with rain dates falling on the following two days. If a launch occurs during this window, the lander is expected to touch down on the lunar surface on January 25 next year.
“You’ve seen China, and more recently, India have managed to land on the moon in the last decade,” said Chris Culbert, CLPS project manager at NASA. Johnson Space Center in Houston, said. “But today, no private company has succeeded in landing on the moon. Landing on the moon is a daunting technical challenge, especially for robotic vehicle engines, navigation systems, radios, and many other social systems that must operate together to enable a soft landing.”
After launch, the launch vehicle and spacecraft (still attached) will go directly into a maneuver called a translunar injection, which means it will still be close to Earth but on a trajectory that essentially intersects with the moon’s orbit. Within an hour or so of launch, the spacecraft will officially separate from its launch vehicle, and the crew will begin communicating with the lander and making small maneuvers to make sure the path looks good.
“This will really be the first time we are firing our engines as a system,” said Thornton. “We, of course, fired them individually here on Earth, but this will be the first time it was all together as a spacecraft, because you cannot simply test here on Earth.” We will doing at least one. , there could be up to three of those trajectory correction maneuvers, and that is dependent on the accuracy of the initial launch.”
Then, about 12 days later, the spacecraft will reach lunar orbit.
“We will go to a medium orbit and stay in that orbit for a while, while we wait for the local lighting conditions to align,” Thornton said. “Most of the time between launch and landing is actually waiting for the local lighting to be right. So basically, we’re trying to land at a specific spot on the moon, at a specific time in the morning. “
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When everything looks good, the spacecraft will descend to the surface at the designated landing site. The lander will operate for about 10 days before that the sun sets, resulting in the same moonlit night that India witnessed Chandrayan-3 lander stepped away.
“It will go from a relatively hot 100 to 120 degrees Celsius down to cold liquid nitrogen,” Thornton said. “It will stay like that for two weeks, and usually with the temperatures in that range, there are a lot of things that break.”
“Yeah, it’s Christmas Eve,” he said, “but it’s going to be one heck of a Christmas present.”
