Non-SpaceX Specific Exploration Missions Discussion

[JB47394]

After all the talk of the collector being packed with material, they walked away with 4.3 ounces of asteroid. They'll be saving 70% of that for future scientists. I hope we'll have a lot more material long before they become eligible.

After a decade and $1.2 billion, NASA reveals its booty from Bennu: 121 grams

A long way, and a lot of money, for half a cup.

arstechnica.com

 

[JB47394]

The Mars helicopter, Ingenuity, threw a blade.

 

[ecarfan]

Analysis by Eric Berger of the NASA CLIPS program.

There are also valid questions about how big of a "commercial" market there is for these services. There are some nifty private payloads on these early CLPS missions, but they mostly seem to be one-off exhibitions. There is no clear signal yet that long-term industrial customers will be signing up for these missions. For the time being, NASA is paying most of the freight.

I have had the same questions. I don’t see a private commercial interest in lunar exploration and development developing for many decades, if ever.

 

[JB47394]

I don’t see a private commercial interest in lunar exploration and development developing for many decades, if ever.

Absolutely. There are no customers off-planet. Worse, there aren't even any resources off-planet worth bringing back. The only reason to go off planet is to explore and learn about the solar system to find out if there's anything interesting or dangerous out there. We can do that with machines, and our machines are looking to get turbo-boosted from all this AI development.

 

[ecarfan]

The JAXA SLIM lunar lander mission got within 55m of its targeted landing location, which is amazingly good, but unfortunately during final descent, at 50m above the surface one of its two engines lost power and the lander ended up on its side. That means its solar panels won’t generate enough power to keep it going.

News: Japan’s moon lander survives two-week lunar night after wonky landing

“Yesterday we sent a command, to which Slim responded,” Jaxa said on Monday. “Slim succeeded in surviving a night on the moon’s surface while maintaining its communication function.”

It said communications were “terminated after a short time, as it was still lunar midday and the temperature of the communication equipment was very high. Preparations are being made to resume operations when instrument temperatures have sufficiently cooled.”

 

[Grendal]