Historical Moon landings - good to know for when silver finally takes off

[pmbug]

I thought this was pretty cool:

Source: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/visualizing-all-attempted-and-successful-moon-landings/



I grew up literally minutes away from the Saturn V rocket featured in that video at the Johnson Space Center. It's now part of a tourist attraction called Space Center Houston which is pretty cool if you ever find your way down here. They have a tour where you can visit the actual mission control room where the Apollo missions were conducted (the room is much smaller than you would expect from watching Hollywood movies).

 

[<SLV>]

 

[searcher]

China lands on moon's far side in historic sample-retrieval mission​

BEIJING, June 2 (Reuters) - China landed an uncrewed spacecraft on the far side of the moon on Sunday, overcoming a key hurdle in its landmark mission to retrieve the world's first rock and soil samples from the dark lunar hemisphere.

The landing elevates China's space power status in a global rush to the moon, where countries including the United States are hoping to exploit lunar minerals to sustain long-term astronaut missions and moon bases within the next decade.

The Chang'e-6 craft, equipped with an array of tools and its own launcher, touched down in a gigantic impact crater called the South Pole-Aitken Basin on the moon's space-facing side at 6:23 a.m. Beijing time (2223 GMT), the China National Space Administration said.

The mission "involves many engineering innovations, high risks and great difficulty", the agency said in a statement, opens new tab on its website. "The payloads carried by the Chang'e-6 lander will work as planned and carry out scientific exploration missions."

More:

https://www.reuters.com/technology/space/china-lands-uncrewed-spacecraft-far-side-moon-2024-06-01/

 

[pmbug]

I wonder how they maintained contact/control of the uncrewed spacecraft without line of sight?

 

[rblong2us]

Perhaps it’s fully automated with a dash of AI to manage things

“Open the pod bay door HAL “

But the question remains, how do they even know it’s landed intact ?

Would they be able to use the recent Indian lander as a relay ?
Sorry South Pole network not available right now. Our team are working on it and hope to get you reconnected as quickly as possible

 

[pmbug]

It sounds like they used some relays of some kind:

... "Landing on the far side of the moon is very difficult because you don’t have line-of-sight communications, you’re relying on a lot of links in the chain to control what is going on, or you have to automate what is going on," ...

 

[nickndfl]

They can run a satellite around the moon like earth. I heard they used drill bits from Harbor Freight to manufacture the craft.

 

[pmbug]

Chinese lunar lander has collected rocks and returned to lunar orbit:

China's spacecraft carrying rocks from the far side of the moon leaves the lunar surface

China says a spacecraft carrying rock and soil samples from the far side of the moon has lifted off from the lunar surface to start its journey back to Earth.

apnews.com

 

[pmbug]

A private lunar lander carrying a drill, vacuum and other experiments for NASA touched down on the moon Sunday, the latest in a string of companies looking to kickstart business on Earth's celestial neighbor ahead of astronaut missions.

Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lander descended from lunar orbit on autopilot, aiming for the slopes of an ancient volcanic dome in an impact basin on the moon's northeastern edge of the near side.

Confirmation of successful touchdown came from the company's Mission Control outside Austin, Texas, following the action some 225,000 miles (360,000 kilometers) away.

"You all stuck the landing. We're on the moon," Firefly's Will Coogan, chief engineer for the lander, reported.

An upright and stable landing makes Firefly—a startup founded a decade ago—the first private outfit to put a spacecraft on the moon without crashing or falling over. Even countries have faltered, with only five claiming success: Russia, the U.S., China, India and Japan.

A half hour after landing, Blue Ghost started to send back pictures from the surface, the first one a selfie somewhat obscured by the sun's glare. The second shot included the home planet, a blue dot glimmering in the blackness of space.

Two other companies' landers are hot on Blue Ghost's heels, with the next one expected to join it on the moon later this week.
...

More:

Private lunar lander Blue Ghost aces moon touchdown with a special delivery for NASA

A private lunar lander carrying a drill, vacuum and other experiments for NASA touched down on the moon Sunday, the latest in a string of companies looking to kickstart business on Earth's celestial neighbor ahead of astronaut missions.

phys.org

More details available here:

Blue Ghost Mission 1 - Firefly Aerospace

Firefly’s first mission to the Moon will deliver 10 NASA CLPS payloads to Mare Crisium with a target landing date of March 2, 2025.

fireflyspace.com