[HN Gopher] Peregrine moon lander suffers anomaly after launch
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Peregrine moon lander suffers anomaly after launch
Author : ironyman
Score : 87 points
Date : 2024-01-08 15:59 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (spacenews.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (spacenews.com)
| rileyphone wrote:
| At least this issue seems to be with the lander and not the
| rocket, which had never launched before. Almost twenty years
| since the creation of ULA to the point of launching their own
| design means it would have been a heck of a letdown to see it
| fail.
|
| Aside that, it was cool to see two launches at the Cape yesterday
| less than 9 hours apart. Recommend to anyone who gets the
| opportunity to go out there and see one at some point (though the
| chances that any given launch gets scrubbed is never low).
| capitainenemo wrote:
| ... well... unless it was some issue with the rocket's delivery
| that impacted the lander, like damaging a portion of it on
| release, or shocks on takeoff?
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| They should have the measurements to know if the rocket had
| any forces that went out of spec during launch
| dylan604 wrote:
| essentially, Apollo 13
| T-A wrote:
| Apollo 13's emergency was caused by the spacecraft's
| service module, not Saturn V:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_13#Investigation_and_r
| e...
| basementcat wrote:
| Apollo 13 (and previous flights) did experience "pogo
| oscillation" from the Saturn vehicle which caused one of
| the first stage engines to shut down early.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogo_oscillation
| bewaretheirs wrote:
| The damage to the Apollo 13 service module that caused
| oxygen tank 2 to rupture almost certainly happened well
| before launch during ground testing.
|
| See
| https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/lunar/ap13acc.html
| tekla wrote:
| So? It was irrelevant to the issue. The issue was traced
| back to manufacturing.
| c-linkage wrote:
| Fun fact (for me, anyway): I live 35 miles from the launch
| complex, and the ground-shaking launch of the Vulcan Centaur
| rocket woke me up at 2:19 this morning.
|
| I can't imagine how intense it was for people much nearer to
| Cape Canaveral.
|
| That is one hell of a rocket!
| consumer451 wrote:
| Once Starship is up and running, I am really curious how the
| noise will affect the surrounding areas. For example, the HLS
| version of Starship, for Artemis III, will require something
| like 16 Starship launches in short order.
|
| I am a huge SpaceX fan, but if SpaceX's vision of many
| Starship launches per day becomes reality, then that will
| certainly be interesting for anyone within 50 miles of the
| pad.
| euroderf wrote:
| Are launches permitted when prevailing winds would send
| liftoff exhaust over populated areas ?
| consumer451 wrote:
| Up to this point, that's not been a factor considered by
| anyone in a position of authority.
|
| Starship uses Methane-Oxygen, which burns _way_ cleaner
| than Kerosene-Oxygen, which is used by Falcon 9.
|
| The thing people should be concerned about are solid
| rocket boosters, which SpaceX does not use. Solid
| boosters have polluted every "untouched" alpine lake on
| the planet. Those have been used by the new Vulcan, Space
| Shuttle, and a lot of other rockets.
|
| Tim Dodd has an excellent video and write-up on this
| topic:
|
| https://everydayastronaut.com/rocket-pollution/
| p1mrx wrote:
| The exhaust from Starship is just CO2 and water (CO2
| causes climate change, but that's not a local effect.)
|
| Vulcan is dirtier because of the solid rocket boosters.
| avmich wrote:
| I'm not sure about Raptors specifically, but usually
| liquid rocket engines run rich (or, as Russians say,
| "sweet", rather than "sour", or lean), which means that
| there's excess of methane in the exhaust. Methane is a
| powerful (comparing to CO2) greenhouse effect agent,
| which fortunately doesn't have as long atmospheric life
| as CO2.
| MPSimmons wrote:
| This is a closed cycle, so I would expect it to be
| cleaner, but I don't know for sure.
| p1mrx wrote:
| Raptor (Starship) is closed cycle, and BE-4 (Vulcan) is
| oxygen rich, so neither should be dumping unburned
| methane during normal operation.
| blowsand wrote:
| Indeed. Although Texas is not a primary launch site long
| term. It's a development site. The Cape is going to be a
| primary, with multiple Starship-capable pads.
| consumer451 wrote:
| Yes, but even the Cape has lots of people living within
| sound range. I am not trying to stir the pot, it depends
| on the wind, etc. But, if we will see hundreds or even
| thousands of Starship launches per year, it's hard not
| imagine a system of methane and oxygen pipelines running
| out to offshore platforms being required.
|
| Ideally, those platforms would be located somewhere
| without much sea life. Though that's utter speculation,
| because I have no idea how well air pressure shock waves
| transfer to under the sea.
| janice1999 wrote:
| Aside from scientific instruments it contains a variety of
| payloads, including cryptocurrency and human remains packaged by
| 2 private companies [0] . I think the latter is rather
| distasteful and turning the moon into a celebrity cemetery should
| be banned by international agreement.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peregrine_Mission_One
| laweijfmvo wrote:
| I'm assuming they're cremated remains? At they distinguishable
| from any other ash/carbon at that point?
| ars wrote:
| Cremated remains are not ash/carbon they are ground up bones.
| orbital-decay wrote:
| Why stop at this? Let's internationally ban poor taste and
| kitsch in general. I'm sure it would go well.
| atticora wrote:
| Unfortunately it's very easy to find people who agree with
| the non-ironic reading of this and are fully aware that it is
| incompatible with any notion of a limit to democracy or state
| power.
| jampekka wrote:
| Luckily the irony won't be lost on those who prefer
| oligarchy over democracy.
| rokkitmensch wrote:
| If I could find a tasteful dictator, I'd consider a wholesale
| replacement of democracy for this reason alone.
| toss1 wrote:
| Indeed!
|
| But that's a tall order, but finding a reliable source of
| successor tasteful dictators is even more unlikely.
|
| Better to go with finding a set of people with good taste,
| then use sortition to select the leader.
| drzaiusapelord wrote:
| Billboards can be taken down. Fashion comes and goes.
| Kitchens can be redone. Hair grows back.
|
| Things on the moon are permanent until launching is 1000x
| cheaper. Even then, who would pay to clean up and what
| property rights are in play?
|
| Lets stop polluting the moon with garbage to get rich people
| involved in projects (ashes of relatives, etc). Invest on its
| merits, not on some morbid ego boosting entitlement.
|
| NASA and the international community needs to step in here.
| The moon should not be the trophy case of the super-rich.
|
| Also these budget moon missions are starting to get
| concerning. What standards bodies are in control here, if
| any? The Israeli's lost one in 2019. It crashed on the moon
| and spilled a bunch of tardigardes and dna samples on its
| surface.
| orbital-decay wrote:
| People are going to leave traces on the Moon, this way or
| another. I see very little difference between landers,
| rovers, human ashes, and garbage piles astronauts are going
| to leave near a surface habitat. This isn't something that
| should be either stopped or encouraged, unless it's
| something like nuclear waste. Potential biological
| contamination is another question, and it's been given
| plenty of thought already.
|
| There are no land property rights on the Moon or any other
| celestial body, according to the current treaty. It's going
| to stay that way until the world powers will have something
| to gain from it. The exploitation of potential water
| resources already caused some talk on that matter.
| fumeux_fume wrote:
| Excellent point about the dangers of international agreements
| SubiculumCode wrote:
| why? can you expand on why you think it should be banned?
| bandyaboot wrote:
| Human remains...ok human vanity I understand.
| Cryptocurrency...just why?
| csours wrote:
| Because they were added during the crypto hype cycle.
|
| Just like pink bathroom tile and legacy code - Why is it
| here? History.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| So that bagholders who put their whole life savings into
| dogecoin can feel better and say it's still 'going to the
| Moon' (popular meme)
| mayormcmatt wrote:
| The remains went into orbit around the sun, as I understand,
| not a crash landing into the moon.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| There is a heliocentric orbit remains payload and a soft-
| landing lunar remains payload.
|
| Same company, which has made the reporting confusing. Two
| service tiers.
| butlike wrote:
| If: extra-terrestrial life exists
|
| How can we, with any certainty, guarantee the human remains
| won't be a virus or viralphage to them?
|
| I think we should pause and think about jettisoning organic
| material into space.
| adolph wrote:
| I thought the remains were going into orbit, but apparently
| there is also a lunar target.
|
| _The spent rocket stage will become a human-made artificial
| satellite of the Sun. A plate on the side of the Centaur upper
| stage contains small capsules holding the cremated remains of
| more than 200 people, a "memorial spaceflight" arranged by a
| Houston-based private company named Celestis._
|
| https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/01/ulas-vulcan-rocket-sho...
|
| _Charles Chafer, CEO of Celestis, pushed back on the Navajo
| Nation objections in an interview with Marcia Smith of
| SpacePolicyOnline.com. "Nobody owns the Moon" and there is "no
| religious test for the conduct of space activities," he said._
|
| https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/01/navajo-objection-to-fl...
| subharmonicon wrote:
| The Navajo Nation agrees re: depositing human remains on the
| moon:
|
| https://www.npr.org/2024/01/07/1223351685/some-people-are-pa...
| legitster wrote:
| This is kind of a weird objection. We already spread ashes in
| lots of sacred places - mountains, rivers, oceans, etc. This
| is just space NIMBYism.
| vkou wrote:
| Do you publicly, and with much pomp and fanfare, take
| millions of dollars to spread celebrity ashes in places
| sacred to the Navajo? (If you do, you may indeed be the
| proverbial ass!)
|
| They may claim that _a_ river is sacred to them, they don
| 't claim that _all_ rivers are sacred to them.
| dotnet00 wrote:
| The goal of the lander is not primarily to spread ashes.
| As for being a place sacred to the Navajo, there are no
| other Moons for them to claim to be sacred. It is one
| Moon, shared by all of Humanity, the Navajo alone do not
| get to lay claim to what should be done on it. Especially
| since every other culture has some sort of spiritual
| belief about the Moon and they don't typically hold the
| same expectation of having everyone else obey their
| spiritual beliefs.
| baggy_trough wrote:
| I cannot imagine a more ridiculous claim.
| eichin wrote:
| Note that it's not the first time (
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Merle_Shoemaker#Death )
| and we didn't get agreement then either.
| heliodor wrote:
| What does it mean to have cryptocurrency on the spacecraft,
| _physically_?
|
| Sounds like a marketing falsehood to me.
|
| I can't imagine what a statement like, "there was 1 bitcoin on
| board the spacecraft" would mean. It is nonsensical given what
| bitcoin is, and cryptocurrency in general.
|
| You can have the keys printed on paper and placed onboard but
| that does not mean there was 1 bitcoin onboard.
| I_Am_Nous wrote:
| Maybe they have a hardware wallet on board?
| whatwhaaaaat wrote:
| Which still wouldn't change anything. The coin lives on the
| blockchain. Any sort of wallet or magic words is just the
| key to move what exists only on the blockchain.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| And what exists on the blocking of a cryptocurrency is
| useless without magic words.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| Yeah, maybe the blockchain is in there, too.
| wharvle wrote:
| > You can have the keys printed on paper and placed onboard
| but that does not mean there was 1 bitcoin onboard.
|
| There is in the sense that if you go retrieve it (er, well,
| read and transmit the data) now you have the coin(s).
|
| Unless someone saved a copy, of course.
|
| I guess this was a stunt as a play on the whole "to the moon"
| thing with crypto? Literally (kinda) sending some to the
| moon.
| wlesieutre wrote:
| Yes, continuing the running joke that is DOGE
|
| https://twitter.com/DogecoinFdn/status/1744189433274941571
| michelb wrote:
| >What does it mean to have cryptocurrency on the spacecraft,
| physically?
|
| Someone took 'to the moon' literally?
| deadbabe wrote:
| Maybe it's several bitcoins and the first person to get there
| keeps them all.
|
| Imagine astronauts fight each other on the moon for the
| bitcoins!
| lokar wrote:
| What could be more "maximum crypto ", take the grift to a
| whole new level.
| yreg wrote:
| When someone talks about physical location of some
| cryptocurrency they mean physical medium with a key to a
| wallet.
|
| It's a metaphor, arguing over it is unproductive.
| max47 wrote:
| They were sending dogecoins. Both the coin and "sending it to
| the moon" were meant to be a joke in the first place.
| legitster wrote:
| > I think the latter is rather distasteful and turning the moon
| into a celebrity cemetery should be banned by international
| agreement.
|
| We already spread ashes in the oceans, on mountains, etc. Why a
| weird distinction on the moon?
| 93po wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_protection
|
| It's also that it's effectively waste/garbage.
| jampekka wrote:
| I think it's quite clear the current trajectory is towards
| something like Elysium, where the rich party in a satellite and
| we rest labor for their luxury on a ruined earth.
|
| And a lot of people seem very stoked about such a future.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elysium_(film)
| dotnet00 wrote:
| This idea often gets brought up, and it's always so
| ridiculous in reality. Earth will always be easier to live
| on, if anything it would be the opposite where the rich live
| it up somewhere on Earth well protected from the effects of
| climate change (even if it is a domed habitat, such a habitat
| is infinitely easier to build and expand on solid ground) ,
| while everyone else has to labor in poor conditions in space
| to extract resources.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Protip: it's a metaphor
| dotnet00 wrote:
| It's not a metaphor when they've literally written "where
| the rich party in a satellite and we rest labor for their
| luxury on a ruined earth"
| rnk wrote:
| The "Satellite" could be a rich person's enclave. I can
| see an extension where someone in a wealthy powerful
| country has a good standard of living, but it depends on
| the toil and environmental destruction which affects
| those people "outside".
| shadowgovt wrote:
| One of the two companies providing remains-transportation
| service is actually called Elysium Space.
| https://elysiumspace.com/
| surfingdino wrote:
| It's in poor taste, but as we increase the frequency of our
| visits to the Moon we are going to have to face the possibility
| of people dying there, so we better set aside a crater for that
| purpose.
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| Is the moon's escape velocity too great for catapult?
|
| Of corpse, we'll need sufficient margin of error to avoid
| corpsessler syndrome.
|
| _Edit: this is also in poor taste._
| AaronM wrote:
| 1.87km/s to reach low moon orbit
|
| https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/29861/how-easy-
| is-...).
| pfdietz wrote:
| Moon's haunted meme.
| inasio wrote:
| I imagine someone like idlewords replying that on the contrary,
| we should expedite shipping celebrities and billionaires to the
| moon, ideally while still alive
| dotnet00 wrote:
| There are human remains that have flown past Pluto and are
| currently moving through the Kuiper belt.
| thebruce87m wrote:
| I wonder who it was that Elon stuffed in the boot of that
| Tesla?
| dotnet00 wrote:
| You mean inside Starman :)
| yreg wrote:
| Not in the boot! The (joke) conspiracy is that the Starman
| is a cryogenically frozen person.
| accrual wrote:
| To add detail, the partial remains were of Clyde Tombaugh,
| the person who discovered Pluto. They flew on New Horizons. I
| think it's super cool and fitting that part of him made it
| all the way out to the place he discovered.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clyde_Tombaugh#Death
| butlike wrote:
| So we're sending garbage to the moon now?
| pfdietz wrote:
| We could send nuclear garbage there. The place is already a
| radiation-soaked hellhole. An astronaut on the lunar surface
| experiences 50 rem of radiation per year.
| toyg wrote:
| Good idea, but only once the transport mechanism doesn't
| involve a significant risk of explosion.
| tivert wrote:
| > Aside from scientific instruments it contains a variety of
| payloads, including cryptocurrency and human remains packaged
| by 2 private companies [0] . I think the latter is rather
| distasteful and turning the moon into a celebrity cemetery
| should be banned by international agreement.
|
| It's also desecrating a Indigenous American sacred site:
| https://twitter.com/BuuVanNygren/status/1743340603524431947.
| SubiculumCode wrote:
| My sister's art in digital record is aboard. Hoping for the best
| :( edit: i just assumed its the same one, but not sure. edit: it
| is.
| alecco wrote:
| Related from 2 days ago:
| https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/01/with-vulcans-liftoff-i...
| csours wrote:
| > "Failure to maintain a sun-pointing orientation could deprive
| the spacecraft of the ability to generate power using its solar
| panels."
| vodou wrote:
| I've been in mission control for a satellite when this is going
| on. It is the worst stress I have experienced in my
| professional career. Things sorted out in the end (some bias
| calibrations were just plain wrong). I hope for the best for
| this team!
| jdiez17 wrote:
| My team is about to go through this ;) It's our first pair of
| satellite with solar panels in only one axis, so attitude
| control is critical. The satellites will be deployed on
| Wednesday, wish us luck!
| vodou wrote:
| I really do wish you luck!
| shadowgovt wrote:
| "Fly safe." o7
| csours wrote:
| Is there an equivalent to 'break a leg' in aerospace?
|
| Good luck anyway!
|
| May I ask what the primary constraint is for not adding a
| small panel that could at least enable bootstrap
| functionality?
|
| The risk mitigation isn't worth the mass? Too complicated
| to implement?
| jdiez17 wrote:
| Actually, before we extend the panels we do have do have
| solar cells on 3 out of 6 faces of the satellite - which
| should allow us to make sure our attitude control is
| working as expected.
|
| We need to deploy the panels to maximize the solar
| collection area and thus power for the payloads. And
| there simply isn't enough space on the other panels to
| put "backup solar cells" :)
|
| Some pictures and more info about the mission here:
| https://www.tu.berlin/en/about/profile/press-releases-
| news/n...
| csours wrote:
| Neat! Thanks for the info!
| Murrawhip wrote:
| From space.com's update:
|
| > The team's improvised maneuver was successful in reorienting
| Peregrine's solar array towards the sun.
|
| Looks like they fixed it for now.
|
| https://www.space.com/private-astrobotic-peregrine-moon-land...
| T-A wrote:
| https://www.astrobotic.com/update-4-for-peregrine-mission-on...
|
| _Unfortunately, it appears the failure within the propulsion
| system is causing a critical loss of propellant. The team is
| working to try and stabilize this loss, but given the
| situation, we have prioritized maximizing the science and data
| we can capture. We are currently assessing what alternative
| mission profiles may be feasible at this time._
| ramesh31 wrote:
| Thank god. What they proposed to do was an obscene act of pure
| vandalism.
| bewaretheirs wrote:
| there have been bags of astronaut poop on the moon since the
| Apollo era.
| ramesh31 wrote:
| >there have been bags of astronaut poop on the moon since the
| Apollo era.
|
| And those bags of poop are part of a collective human
| heritage, paid for by public funding and driven by a desire
| to conquer space and explore the unknown.
|
| Peregrine was a vanity stunt for ultra rich people. They
| deserve to get what they paid for.
| DarmokJalad1701 wrote:
| > Peregrine was a vanity stunt for ultra rich people. They
| deserve to get what they paid for.
|
| That's quite the claim. Peregrine was contracted as part of
| NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services - which is paid
| for by public funding. It includes rovers from US and
| Mexico, and scientific payloads from US and Germany as well
| as other payloads from six other countries.
|
| Of course, someone complaining about "sacred sites" makes
| the whole thing a vanity stunt.
| 0xffff2 wrote:
| >Peregrine was a vanity stunt for ultra rich people. They
| deserve to get what they paid for.
|
| I'm not sure why you think that, but I can tell you first
| hand as a member of the team building NASA's first unmanned
| lunar rover, which is going to (hopefully) land on the moon
| on an Astrobotic lander next year, this mission is very
| much not a "stunt for ultra rich people", but a very
| important step in NASA's ongoing work to develop cheap
| commercial access to space.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Two new updates have dropped.
|
| Update 3: They resolved the sunward-pointing issue. That's the
| good news. https://www.astrobotic.com/update-3-for-peregrine-
| mission-on...
|
| Update 4: They're pretty sure they're losing propellant, and may
| have to come up with a new plan. That's the bad news.
| https://www.astrobotic.com/update-4-for-peregrine-mission-on...
| "We are currently assessing what alternative mission profiles may
| be feasible at this time" (which is almost certainly press-
| release-speak for "You will not go to Moon in February.")
| TheBlight wrote:
| Can't have private enterprise find the secret Moon bases. /s
| bookofjoe wrote:
| "Space is hard." -- Elon Musk
| baegi wrote:
| "Just before entering a known period of communication outage, the
| team developed and executed an improvised maneuver to reorient
| the solar panels toward the Sun. Shortly after this maneuver, the
| spaceraft entered an expected period of communication loss."
|
| Imagine the pressure when clicking" send" on that maneuver patch
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