The supposed race between Russia's Luna-25 and India's Chandrayaan-3 ended over the weekend when (apparently) one or more incorrect commands were sent to Luna-25 to lower its intended orbit in preparation for its landing attempt and resulted in loss of the spacecraft. This happened Saturday morning the 19th US East Coast time.
At around the same time, Chandrayaan-3 was testing its Lander Hazard Detection and Avoidance Camera (LHDAC) by photographing the far side of the moon. The LHDAC was designed to help guide the mission's Vikram lander to a safe landing site during its descent onto the lunar surface.
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) released the images via X, the social media service formerly named Twitter, on Monday (Aug. 21).
The series of four Chandrayaan-3 images were taken on Saturday (Aug. 19) and show a range of geological features, including vast impact craters that cast varying degrees of shadows and lunar mare, or "seas" of cooled moon lava.
Assuming that the stories about Luna-25 are correct, it's not a sure thing that it could have landed successfully - just as it's not a sure thing that Chandrayaan-3 can land either. The terrain is rough; those who remember Apollo 11 will recall that while approaching touchdown on the moon, Neil Armstrong took manual control of the LEM to avoid some larger things in the field they were approaching. The large lunar plain Apollo 11 was landing on, the Sea of Tranquility, was chosen to improve the chances of not encountering obstacles like those for the first landing.
India's previous attempt to land on the moon, Chandrayaan-2, Israel's attempt with SpaceIL's Beresheet lander and Japan's Hakuto-R all failed due to the problems of landing without an intelligent pilot looking at the terrain and adapting the flight to it. The ISRO's approach is this LHDAC vision system.
"This camera that assists in locating a safe landing area — without boulders or deep trenches — during the descent is developed by ISRO at SAC," ISRO stated.
If Chandrayaan-3 and its mission "partner," the Vikram rover, survive their
landing, they will spend an entire lunar day, approximately 14 Earth days,
doing science in the landing area. If it is successful, India will be
the first nation since China to join the roster of countries that have
successfully landed on the moon. For now. Next up to try is going
to be Japan. Their
Smart Lander for Investigating Moon
(SLIM) is scheduled to lift off on a H-2A rocket on Aug. 26 from Tanegashima
Space Center. There's suddenly a lot of interest in the moon again.
would carrying additional fuel solve these problems? give them the option to slow down, wait for or choose a more favorable landing zone? I realize additional fuel adds cost. Slamming into the ground does too.
ReplyDeleteIt's an issue with the launch vehicle. They've (the Russians and Indians) have maxed out the size and weight of their landers for the launch vehicles they're using. It's why modern lunar missions take so long to get to the moon, as they're using low power-long duration thrust to slowly move up to a transfer orbit, rather than the very energetic way the Apollo missions used.
DeleteIt's one of the ways Starship will change the whole equation, once it comes fully on-line. Mass and volume suddenly become less critical.
Thank you Beans
DeleteHogwash.
DeleteTruth is, it takes time to become one with Luna. Then to receive her blessings to enter.
I would think even you Westerner conspiracists knew that. I will fly a prayer flag for you.
One or more inadvertent commands....LOL! Vodka! It's a helluva drink!
ReplyDeleteROTFL Or "Vodka! It's what's for breakfast!"
DeleteIf you can't land on the moon you can't land elsewhere (as far as autonomous systems go)!
ReplyDeleteGimme the Mark I brain and Mark I eyeball any time!!
Strike anybody funny how all these years pass with nary a moon anything then the last year it is been a bum's rush. Even a couple small sats sent to orbit the moon, was it not only one barely made it and that on a fuel sipping conservative Hollman like transfer orbit. Way the world works these days, where everything we are told to beleive is a lie, everything is some kind of cabal false flag or mockingbird mind job, by yours truly eating the baby faces and drinking the child blood satanic overlords, who one of their pets loves him some X and a red satanic costume, who is launching a veritable blanket if DEW/com sats around the earth. I am not a monkeys uncle but it sure looks like somebody or something does not want anything landing on the moon. After all Surveyor landed over 50 years ago, they did not have ground collision guidence then. We got AI now can totally run taxis and semis across the country, total autonomy. Something just ain't adding up here. What is going on. The moon really is made of green cheese or something? And there are alien bases in long slant mine like facilities with airlocks large enough to park their space ships, on the dark side? Remember that movie with the devils tower and aliens, remember the MC announced "all ready on the dark side of the moon", and big special Lions Gate astrological alignment was this month too.
ReplyDeleteGuess them aliens they do not want to share the cheese. Thats it right there. One way all for me Bob, aliens.
Effing A, bubby.
DeleteIf we're not friends, we should be.
Put down the bong, please.
DeleteWhat's interesting about that photo is the larger rings (assumed to be fringing about central craters) are broken here and there, i.e., not continuous.
ReplyDeleteHowever, the smaller the crater, the more intact the fringing ridge. Or so it seems.
The interesting part is this is what you'd expect to see of ejecta of a single massive impact or ejection.
The heavier ejecta fall to the ground first. The lighter ejecta descend to impact according to mass. In a low g atmosphere, this event may take many earth years.
The question remains; what caused the impact peripheral ridges to become broken in their concentricity?
Not water (in any phase). Lunar winds (aeolian)? I can hardly believe a sifting of grain size and/or dissimilar material would be so particular (pun not intended).
You can bet your last space buck this problem has been studied, if you go looking on the Interwebbies you probably can find a few analysis' of how cratering occurs in a vacuum, or in a gaseous environment. Lots of variables can affect the final shape of the impact crater wall - temperatures due to impact, the type of material being impacted, the speed of collision, etc. You get the idea. Not exactly cut-and-dried, and you *won't* get a perfectly uniform wall. It's chaotic out there! (It's chaotic in here as well, we just hide it better!) ;P
DeleteChaotic in the sense of that's how the solutions to partial differential equations work out when you solve them. It's like the observation that you'll find no straight lines in nature. No perfect Euclidean geometry of any shape to be found. Everything that's natural is PDEs all the way down.
DeleteFluid dynamics is inherently unsolvable, right? More unknowns than equations. When you whack something that hard, it's a fluid.
CONGRATS, India, you pulled it off!
ReplyDelete