siriuss said:Wow, they already have plans to contaminate the moon, I'm impressed by their efficiency and forethought. I am sure the military will fund putting missiles on satellites for pure testing purposes.
Fortis said:Another aspect to this is that Gene Shoemaker narrowly missed going to the moon during the Apollo program, (IIRC due to ill-health), and hence in death he has acheived what he failed to do in life.
Robotic space penguin to hop across the Moon 18:20 31August 2005
NewScientist.com news service
Will Knight
The first lunar colonists may not be a humans but compact robots capable of jumping more than a kilometre in a single bound.
Engineers at US defence contractor Raytheon, in Massachusetts, have developed a robot, dubbed the Lunar Penguin, that could one day bounce across perilous craters and imposing mountains on the Moon's craggy surface using a set of compact rocket boosters.
US president George W Bush has made returning to the Moon, and later reaching Mars, a crucial part of his vision for future US space exploration. But, in order for humans to make the Moon a second home, robotic scouts will need to search for safe landing spots and useful minerals for colonists to mine.
"Since we could set it down in such a precise location, the Penguin could be the delivery vehicle for the science community," Raytheon engineer Karleen Seybold, who is leading the Penguin project, told Reuters.
Jumping craters
The robot, in fact, bears no physical resemblance to a real penguin, but looks like a simple, squat, four-legged lunar lander. It is just under 1 metre tall and weighs 104 kilograms.
The design borrows technology from Raytheon's missile systems - the rockets come from a ground-based missile defence system and the guidance system is taken from a Tomahawk cruise missile. Although Raytheon has yet to receive an order to develop the Lunar Penguin further, Seybold says the bot could feasibly be launched as soon as 2009.
"The hopping penguin is an interesting concept," says Max Meerman, a researcher at UK space company Surrey Satellites. "Jumping a mile means that crater edges, like the ones that cause problems for the Mars rovers, are not a big issue."
Difficult landing
But Meerman adds that leaping such distances across the surface of the Moon could subject any instruments aboard the robot to severe stress. "Landing on the Moon is notoriously difficult," he says. "Much more so than on Mars, so doing it multiple times will be a big engineering challenge."
The Lunar Penguin was publicly demonstrated for the first time on Tuesday at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics' 2005 SPACE Conference and Exhibition in California, US.
The event, which takes place between 30 August and 1 September, provides a showcase for many new technologies, from supercharged jet engines to giant hot air balloons.
Leaps and bounds
For the Lunar Penguin to be a viable Moon probe, some of the prototype's features would need to be redesigned. For example, the guidance system would need to be reconfigured for navigation on the Moon rather than on Earth. It currently uses a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver, which would not work on the surface of the Moon, as it uses Earth-orbiting satellites.
Returning to the Moon is unlikely to be straightforward process, says Ian Wright, a researcher at the UK’s Open University and one of the team behind the failed Beagle 2 Mars mission. Wright notes that the last human mission took place more than 30 years ago. But to reach out to the stars, he says scientists will need to try out novel concepts. "The robotic penguin sounds like an excellent opportunity to help us do this," he told New Scientist.
Meerman says the Lunar Penguin's unique approach to lunar locomotion could prove a useful way of exploring the Moon’s hostile landscape. "If it's successful, perhaps we could find astronauts on the next manned Moon mission using the same system to jump over hills," he says.
China lands Jade Rabbit robot rover on Moon
By Paul Rincon Science editor, BBC News website
Moon The lander has touched down on a flat plain known as Sinus Iridum, or the Bay of Rainbows
China says it has successfully landed a craft carrying a robotic rover on the surface of the Moon, a major step in its programme of space exploration.
On Saturday afternoon (GMT), a landing module underwent a powered descent, using thrusters to perform the first soft landing on the Moon in 37 years.
Several hours later, the lander will deploy a robotic rover called Yutu, which translates as "Jade Rabbit".
The touchdown took place on a flat plain called Sinus Iridum.
The mission launched on a Chinese-developed Long March 3B rocket on 1 December from Xichang in the country's south.
China's space mission team celebrate after the landing
The Chang'e-3 craft began its descent just after 1300 GMT (2100 Beijing time), with state television showing pictures of the moon's surface as the lander touched down.
Staff at mission control in Beijing were shown clapping and celebrating after confirmation came through. The official Xinhua news service reported that the spacecraft reached the surface at 1312 GMT after hovering above the surface for several minutes finding an appropriate place to land.
The probe's soft-landing was the most difficult task during the mission, Wu Weiren, the lunar programme's chief designer, told Xinhua.
It is the third robotic rover mission to land on the lunar surface, but the Chinese vehicle carries a more sophisticated payload, including ground-penetrating radar which will gather measurements of the lunar soil and crust.
China is saying: 'We are doing something that only two other countries have done before - the US and the Soviet Union”
"It's still a significant technological challenge to land on another world," said Peter Bond, consultant editor for Jane's Space Systems and Industry told the AP news agency.
"You have to use rocket motors for the descent and you have to make sure you go down at the right angle and the right rate of descent and you don't end up in a crater on top of a large rock."
According to translated documents, the landing module was to actively reduce its speed at about 15km from the Moon's surface.
When it reached a distance of 100m from the surface, the craft fired thrusters to slow its descent.
At a distance of 4m, the lander switched off the thrusters and fell to the lunar surface.
The Jade Rabbit was expected to be deployed several hours after touchdown, driving down a ramp lowered by the landing module.
Infographic
Reports suggest the lander and rover will photograph each other at some point on Sunday.
According to Chinese space scientists, the mission is designed to test new technologies, gather scientific data and build intellectual expertise.
"China's lunar program is an important component of mankind's activities to explore [the] peaceful use of space," said Sun Huixian, a space engineer with the Chinese lunar programme.
The 120kg (260lb) Jade Rabbit rover can reportedly climb slopes of up to 30 degrees and travel at 200m (660ft) per hour.
No humans have set foot on the lunar surface since America's Apollo missions ended in 1972
Its name - chosen in an online poll of 3.4 million voters - derives from an ancient Chinese myth about a rabbit living on the moon as the pet of the lunar goddess Chang'e.
The rover and lander are powered by solar panels but some sources suggest they also carry radioisotope heating units (RHUs), containing plutonium-238 to keep them warm during the cold lunar night.
Dean Cheng, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank in Washington DC, said China's space programme was a good fit with China's concept of "comprehensive national power". This might be described as a measure of a state's all-round capabilities.
Space exploration was, he told BBC News, "a reflection of your economic power, because you need spare resources to have a space programme. It clearly has military implications because so much space technology is dual use".
He added: "It reflects your scientific and technological capabilities, it supports your diplomacy by making you appear strong.
"China is saying: 'We are doing something that only two other countries have done before - the US and the Soviet Union."
The Chang'e-3 mission launches from Xichang, south China
Mr Cheng explained that the mission would also advertise the country as a destination for commercial space launches, as well as providing an opportunity to test China's deep-space tracking and communications.
"The rover will reportedly be under Earth control at various points of its manoeuvres on the lunar surface," Mr Cheng wrote in a blog post.
"Such a space observation and tracking system has implications not only for space exploration but for national security, as it can be used to maintain space surveillance, keeping watch over Chinese and other nations' space assets."
China has been methodically and patiently building up the key elements needed for an advanced space programme - from launchers to manned missions in Earth orbit to unmanned planetary craft - and it is investing heavily.
Moon The Jade Rabbit, seen in this artist's impression, is the first wheeled vehicle on the Moon since the 1970s
"China wants to go to the Moon for geostrategic reasons and domestic legitimacy," Prof Joan Johnson-Freese, of the US Naval War College in Rhode Island, told the AFP news agency.
"With the US exploration moribund at best, that opens a window for China to be perceived as the global technology leader - though the US still has more, and more advanced, assets in space."
The lander's target is Sinus Iridum (Latin for Bay of Rainbows) a flat volcanic plain thought to be relatively clear of large rocks. It is part of a larger feature known as Mare Imbrium that forms the right eye of the "Man in the Moon".
After this, a mission to bring samples of lunar soil back to Earth is planned for 2017. And this may set the stage for further robotic missions, and - perhaps - a crewed lunar mission in the 2020s.
"[Chang'e-3] is probably laying some of the groundwork for a manned mission," said Mr Cheng.
rynner2 said:There'll be a conspiracy theory along in a minute, claiming that the landing was hoaxed!
Private plan to send Moon rover to Apollo 17 site
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- 30 November 2016
- From the sectionScience & Environment
Image copyrightNASA
Image captionApollo 17 was Nasa's last crewed mission to the Moon
A proposed private space mission is planning to visit Apollo 17's landing site on the Moon.
A German team wants to land a pair of rovers on the lunar surface to inspect the buggy left behind in 1972 on the last crewed mission to the Moon.
The group, called PT Scientists, is one of 16 teams vying for the $30m Google Lunar X-Prize.
It has signed a deal with launch broker Spaceflight Inc. to secure a ride on a commercial launcher.
Image copyrightAUDI
Image captionThe rovers should be able to transmit high-definition video from the lunar surface
The XPrize will award the first privately funded teams to land a robot on the Moon that travels more than 500 metres (1,640 ft) and transmits back high-definition images and video.
Spaceflight Inc will place the mission with a commercial launcher, but it is not yet known which one.
The PT Scientists team has been working with German car manufacturer Audi on the solar-powered rovers, which will be capable of sending back high-definition video.
The rovers are expected to touch down 3-5km from the Apollo 17 landing site in the Moon's Taurus-Littrow valley. It will then drive to within 200m of the lunar rover and inspect it remotely.
Nasa guidelines stipulate that missions should land at least 2km away from US space agency heritage sites and not approach closer than 200m in order to avoid the risk of damage to these historic locations.
The rover's cameras should be able to assess the condition of the Apollo buggy and how it has fared in the Moon's harsh environment - including damage from micro-meteorites.
Why not the Apollo 11 site, I wonder?
Maybe a bit too historical. Or maybe the set was destroyed after Kubrick was finishedWhy not the Apollo 11 site, I wonder?
17 was the last landing.
...and said components will thereafter appear as items on 'Flog it!' or 'Bargain Hunt'!Correct.
I fear once this sort of contact is under way the landing sites will be pillaged and all components e-bayed before you can say Michael Collins.
Question: how can they tell it's 'strangely coloured' if they can only take black and white photos? Or, if they can take coloured photos, why don't they show us?
With the help of obstacle-avoidance cameras, Yutu-2 carefully approached the crater and then targeted the unusually colored material and its surroundings. The rover examined both areas with its Visible and Near-Infrared Spectrometer (VNIS), which detects light that is scattered or reflected off materials to reveal their makeup.