NASAWatch on TV: Lunar Mission Updates
Keith’s note: Japan successfully landed its SLIM spacecraft on the Moon this morning. However there seems to be a problem with its solar panels which are not charging its batteries. This may have to do with the panels’ orientation to the sun after landing. Unless that can be rectified the spacecraft can only operate for a matter of hours before its batteries are drained. SLIM did deploy its two small rovers and efforts are being made to see if any data has been collected. One of the rovers has responded. I was on CGTN a few minutes ago to talk about SLIM as well as the end of Astrobotic’s Peregrine mission to the Moon which returned to Earth the other day after a propulsion system failure prevented a lunar landing. I was also asked about former NASA Administrator Mike Griffin’s slam against NASA’s Artemis program. [audio]
2 responses to “NASAWatch on TV: Lunar Mission Updates”
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I do not understand Griffin’s slam of Artemis, nor of some proponents bolstering of Artemis as compared with Constellation. SLS is a downsized Ares V. There were insufficient funds for Ares V. Apparently the funds really don’t support SLS either. I am not sure why. NASA has gotten more tjan enough to support SLS. Ares 1 never worked. It was too underpowered for the Apollo on steroids Orion CERV. Orion now is lighter because its ATV based service module is underpowered with too small an engine and too little fuel. Enlisting the ESA ATV was another Griffin era initiative. They were thinking that would defray costs and reduce the workload on the US. It hasn’t seemed to matter, but its made the program far more complicated and more dangerous. Enlisting commercial vendors like Space X and completion form contracting was a Griffin era initiative. It.was something he got right. At the rate NASA is currently going, Orion and SLS being prime examples, NASA couldn’t afford human spaceflight at all. Hopefully Space X will deliver a new lunar capable “jumbo” vehicle in about 5 years at a fraction of what it would have cost NASA. Thanks to its size and power amd versatility, Starship can hope to enable future growth of a lunar program. Griffin’s Apollo-like lander was a minimalist vehicle that offered no advantages; it was a throwback to half a century ago. Gateway is another difference between now and then. Personally I see it as a distraction, but as the Griffin program evolved into an asteroid program that didn’t have the capability to go to an asteroid, that was also the origin of a waystation beyond the Moon. As I see it a.lot of what is wrong with Artemis originated with Griffin and Constellation’s shortfalls. All I can hope is that Space X and Space X built hardware will carry us through.
Yes I am an unapolegetic Space X fanboy. Space X is the wings of today’s renewed space program. Every Falcon and every StarShip launch bring us closer to the future. A future is now enabled. Without Space X we’d be struggling to launch crews to ISS and have few options on the Moon. Space x even allows dreams of Mars.