The Moon is a Tough Customer

The Moon is a Tough Customer

Subject: S&T

Section: Space tech

Explorers of the Moon:

1. Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter- 2009, by USA, to create a 3D map of the moon’s surface to identify landing sites and environments necessary for robotic and human missions.
2. YUTU-2 Rover- 2018, By China, the lander made a touchdown in the Von Karman crater to understand more about the early solar system and Earth.
3. Chandrayaan-2 orbiter, 2019, by ISRO
4. Chang’e 5 orbiter 2020 by China. Consists of 4 modules: an orbiter, a lander, an ascender and a returner. The goal was to collect and return around 2 kg of lunar samples, which it achieved in Dec.2020
5. Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter 2022: South Korea launched it to study the moon’s surface to inform future missions about the polar region. It will also hunt for ice deposits, observe seasonal changes and measure the terrain inside the craters.
6. CAPSTONE Orbitor 2022: NASA launched a microwave-sized satellite on elliptical lunar orbit, it can offer stability to long-term missions like Gateway- a moon-orbiting outpost that is part of NASA’s also aims to demonstrate spacecraft-to-spacecraft navigation services.
7. Chandrayaan-3: 2023 by ISRO- to land a rover and ladder on the moon, and ISRO successfully did it.
8. SLIM mission: Japan achieved significant success with the soft landing of the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) on January 20, 2024, making Japan the fifth nation to accomplish this feat. However, the mission faced issues with its solar antennae, jeopardising its scientific objectives.
9. Hakuto-R mission:

• Launched in 2023
• A Japanese mission to land on the moon.
• It was not Hakuto-R Mission 2, a lunar lander and rover, is scheduled for launch in 2024.

Challenges in Moon mission:

• January 2024 was marked by significant developments in lunar missions, with two robotic missions to the Moon having mixed outcomes: one a failure and the other a minimal success. NASA, under its Artemis program, announced a delay in its first crewed Moon missions, now planning a flyby around September 2025 and a landing attempt in September 2026. This comes over fifty years after NASA’s successful Apollo program, where twelve men walked on the Moon.
• The US company Astrobotic Technology’s Peregrine lunar lander, part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative, failed after a propellant leak led to the loss of control and eventual re-entry over the South Pacific.
• Contrastingly, Japan achieved significant success with the soft landing of the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) on January 20, 2024, making Japan the fifth nation to accomplish this feat. However, the mission faced issues with its solar antennae, jeopardising its scientific objectives.
• The history of private lunar missions has been challenging, with failures from SpaceIL and Israel Aerospace Industries’ Beresheet in April 2019, the Japanese agency ispace’s Hakuto-R mission in April 2023, and Russia’s Luna-25 mission in August 2023.
• Despite SpaceX’s successes with ISS transport and satellite launches, its Starship missions have failed, and other major players like Boeing’s Starliner have faced delays. This raises questions about the private sector’s role and reliability in future Moon, Mars, and beyond missions.
• Technical and financial challenges are significant in Moon missions, including landing precision and navigation without space-based aids.
• India’s Chandrayaan-3 mission stands out as a notable success amid these developments, highlighting the complexity and difficulty of lunar exploration for both states and private entities.

Source: The Wire