India Lands on the Moon!
HEADLINE
Chandrayaan-3 mission
Chandrayaan-3 is a follow-on mission to Chandrayaan-2 to demonstrate end-to-end capability in safe landing and roving on the lunar surface.
It consists of Vikram Lander and Rover configuration.
Lander payloads:
Chandra’s Surface Thermophysical Experiment (ChaSTE) to measure the thermal conductivity and temperature;
Instrument for Lunar Seismic Activity (ILSA) for measuring the seismicity around the landing site;
Langmuir Probe (LP) to estimate the plasma density and its variations.
A passive Laser Retroreflector Array from NASA is accommodated for lunar laser ranging studies.
Vikram rover payloads:
Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) and Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscope (LIBS) for deriving the elemental composition in the vicinity of the landing site.
Milestones
5 August 2023, showed it leaving the Vikram lander on a ramp and driving onto the Moon's surface.
26 August saw ISRO post a new video of the rover driving away, moving almost out of the lander's sight.
27 August saw ISRO published two pictures taken by the rover three metres (9.8 ft) from the edge of a large crater.
On 3 September, the rover has since been placed into sleep mode having completed all of its assignments. Its batteries were charged and receiver left on, in preparation for the impending lunar night.
The Vikram rover was only ever expected to operate only for one lunar daylight period, or 14 Earth days. The on-board electronics have not been designed to withstand the −120 °C (−184 °F) - it now comes down to - if it survives.
Gaganyaan
Human Spaceflight Mission (test before the end of 2023 with 2nd test 1st quarter 2024 with actual flight late 2024)
Gaganyaan project envisages demonstration of human spaceflight capability by launching crew of 3 members to an orbit of 400 km for a 3 days mission and bring them back safely to earth, by landing in Indian sea waters.
LVM3 rocket will be re-configured to meet human rating requirements and will become Human Rated LVM3 or HLVM3 and will be able to reach Low Earth Orbit of 400 km.
AUSTRALIAN SPACE NEWS
ELA
Equatorial Launch Australia (ELA)owner and operator of the Arnhem Space Centre (ASC) signed a multi-year, multi-launch contract with Korean aerospace company, INNOSPACE, for a series of orbital launches.
The agreement will see the launch of several INNOSPACE rocket variants each carrying between 50kg and 500kg payloads into low earth orbit from the ASC across a five-year timeframe until Dec 2028.
Innospace offers 3 Hanbit class 2 stage rockets, including:
Nano - rocket with a payload capacity of 50kg
Micro - rocket with a payload capacity of 150kg
The Hanbit Mini is a 3 stage rocket with a payload capacity of 500kg
The deal with ELA makes Australia the third location Innospace will be launching from. Other locations include:
Alcantara Space Center, Brazil
Andoya Space Center, Norway
Gilmour Space Technologies
Gilmour Space Technologies has shared some behind the scenes with the Bowen Orbital Spaceport in North Queensland
Pictured are the launchpad and fluids tower
At the moment, they are still pushing to launch Australia's first sovereign made orbital vehicle this year - no earlier than Dec 2023.
Spiral Blue
Spiral Blue’s Edge computing, SE-1 has been working hard in LEO on board a Satellogic satellite to test machine learning applications, including:
Cloud Detect
Vessel Detect
Water Body Mapping
Spin Launch
Spinlaunch is conducting a feasibility study to determine if two areas of crown land off the Eyre Highway could be used as a launch site for its orbital accelerator.
Several sites around the world are currently under consideration, including two on the south coast of Western Australia near Mundrabilla, 800 kilometres from Kalgoorlie, and 1,300km from Perth.
Spin Launch uses a slingshot where it accelerates the rocket up to 8,000kmh (5,000 miles per hour) before release. During the spin sequence, the payload can experience G-Force of up to 20,000G’s (or 20,000 times what we feel right now).
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Luna-25 crashes into the Moon
Russia has declared the race to explore and develop the moon's resources has begun. Despite the failure of Luna-25 on 19 August, Russia’s the first lunar mission in 47 years, the head of Roskosmos, Yury Borisov, said they must remain a player.
The reason for the crash? A maneuvering engine could not be shut down, and ran for 127 seconds instead of 84.
Change-4
China's Chang'e-4 landed on the far side of the moon in 2018 and has been sampling minerals from the moon's mantle.
From these samples, scientists are able to visualize the layer cake of structures that comprise the upper 300m of the moon's surface in finer detail than ever before.
Change-4’s rover Yutu-2, is equipped with a technology called Lunar Penetrating Radar (LPR) enables the rover to send radio signals deep into the moon's surface. The picture built up has revealed five distinct layers of lunar lava that seeped across the landscape billions of years ago
Momentus Cuts staff
MomeNtus recently cut its workforce by 30% as the cash-strapped company seeks to reduce its costs while looking for “strategic options” to raise funding.
The CFO, Eric Williams has been quoted as saying that the move was designed to “substantially reduce our burn rate while retaining the talent we need to execute our key near-term initiatives.”
