Category Archives: The Moon

The Israeli non-profit SpaceIL organization now expects SpaceX to launch its lunar lander mission in February. SpaceIL was a competitor in the Google Lunar XPRIZE contest, which ended before any entrant reached the Moon. However, SpaceIL and several other GLXP entrants are continuing with plans to send landers to the lunar surface. Recently, for example, three former GLXP entrants are involved in partnerships with NASA to participant in the agency’s Commercial Lunar Payload Delivery program in which NASA will pay commercial companies to take technology and scientific experiment payloads to the Moon.

Here is the latest announcement from SpaceIL:

SpaceIL, IAI to Send Time Capsule on Israel’s Historic Moon Mission
The time capsule will include Israeli national, cultural and traditional symbols,
such as Israel’s Declaration of Independence, Hebrew songs, the Wayfarer’s Prayer,
and paintings by Israeli children.

YEHUD, Dec. 17 – Israeli nonprofit SpaceIL and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) presented today at IAI’s Space Division a time capsule that will travel to the moon — and remain there indefinitely — with the first Israeli spacecraft, which will launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida, in February, 2019.

*The SpaceIL lunar spacecraft. Photo by Yoav Weiss*

The time capsule consists of three discs, each containing hundreds of digital files. Included among the files, which will travel to the moon inside SpaceIL’s lunar spacecraft, are: Details about the spacecraft and the crew building it; national symbols, like Israel’s Declaration of Independence, the Bible, Israel’s national anthem, “Hatikvah”, and the Israeli flag; cultural objects; materials – paintings, for example – collected over many years from the public for sending to the moon; dictionaries in 27 languages and encyclopedias, an indication of knowledge accumulated by all humanity thus far; Israeli songs; the Wayfarer’s Prayer; books of art and science and Israeli literature; information about Israeli scientific and technological discoveries and developments that influenced the world; photos Israel’s landscapes and of leading figures in Israeli culture; a children’s book that was inspired by SpaceIL’s mission to the moon.

The time capsule, along with the spacecraft, will remain on the Moon indefinitely, even after completing Israel’s first lunar mission. With no plans to return to Earth, the spacecraft and information within the time capsule’s disks will possibly be found and distributed by future generations.

*Time capsule data disks to go to the Moon on SpaceIL lander. Photo by Yoav Weiss*

In early 2019, the spacecraft, recently named Beresheet (the Hebrew word for Genesis), will launch alongside other satellites as a secondary payload on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The precise launch date remains undetermined, as SpaceIL awaits final confirmation from the launch company.

“This is another step on our way to the moon,” said Ido Anteby, CEO of SpaceIL. “Inserting the disks into the spacecraft, which is a real “time capsule,” indicates the spacecraft’s readiness to blast off from the launch site in a few weeks. SpaceIL’s crews and IAI have completed testing of the spacecraft and its systems, and are preparing for the beginning of the amazing and complex journey that exemplifies innovation, creativity and courage. The spacecraft’s historic journey, which also includes a scientific mission, makes a significant contribution to advancing the space industry and the subject of space in Israel.”

Yonatan Winetraub, one of three SpaceIL founders, said, as he inserted the time capsule into a spacecraft:

“This is a very emotional moment. We do not know how long the spacecraft and the time capsule will remain on the moon. It is very possible that future generations will find this information and want to learn more about this historic moment.”

Opher Doron, IAI’s Space Division General Manager, said:

“We are proud to be the first non-governmental entity in the world to go to the moon. Landing on the moon was for many years a little-discussed topic among the public, but recently we see growing interest as world superpowers seek to return to the moon in a variety of commercial missions. There is no doubt that the technological knowledge acquired by IAI during the development and construction of Beresheet, together with Space IL and combined with the space capabilities developed over more than 30 years at IAI, puts us at the global forefront in the ability to complete lunar missions.”

The spacecraft, whose construction was carried out at IAI’s Space Division, successfully completed a series of recent tests to examine the integration of systems, and a series of complex experiments aimed at testing its durability. Concurrently, validation and verification tests checked the function of the spacecraft in scenarios it could experience during the mission. Since actual space conditions cannot be replicated, tests are carried out in part by a SpaceIL simulator that mimics space conditions and part on the spacecraft itself. Next, SpaceIL will soon ship the spacecraft to the launch site in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

In October, SpaceIL and the Israeli Space Agency announced a collaboration with NASA that will enable SpaceIL to improve its ability to track and communicate with the spacecraft before, during, and after landing on the moon. Two weeks ago a retro-reflector from NASA was installed on the spacecraft, an instrument that reflects laser beams and will enable NASA to precisely locate the spacecraft on the lunar surface after the landing. SpaceIL, the Israel Space Agency and NASA also agreed that NASA will have access to data gathered by the magnetometer installed aboard the Israeli spacecraft. The instrument, which was developed in collaboration with Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science, will measure the magnetic field on and above the landing site.

About SpaceIL: SpaceIL is a non-profit organization established in 2011 aiming to land the first Israeli spacecraft on the Moon. The organization was founded by three young engineers: Yariv Bash, Kfir Damari and Yonatan Winetraub who answered the international challenge presented by Google Lunar XPRIZE: to build, launch and land an unmanned spacecraft on the Moon. SpaceIL was the only Israeli representative. In October 2015, SpaceIL reached a dramatic project milestone by becoming the first team to announce a signed launch contract, that symbolizes an actual “ticket to the Moon”. In January 2017, SpaceIL became one of the competition’s five finalists. The competition officially ended with no winners in March 31, 2018, after Google ended their sponsorship.
Regardless of the competition, SpaceIL is committed to continue and complete its mission, to land on the Moon and to the advancement of science and technology education in Israel.

SpaceIL is actively working to create an Israeli “Apollo Effect.” SpaceIL is committed to inspiring the next generation in Israel and around the world to choose to study science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

The launch will take place on an American SpaceX rocket in first quarter of 2019, and the Moon landing will be at the end of a two-month journey in space, after the launch. Read More

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History, Space books, The Moon

Listening to “Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8”

December 12, 2018 TopSpacer

December 21st will mark the 50th anniversary of the launch of Apollo 8, the first time humans left earth orbit to reach another celestial object. While the landing on the surface of the Moon by Apollo 11 dominates the public’s view of America’s lunar program, it was the orbiting of the Moon by the terrifically dangerous and milestone-making Apollo 8 mission that actually marked the triumph of the USA in the 1960’s “Space Race” with the Soviet Union.

I recently listened to Bob Zimmerman’s book, Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8: The First Manned Mission to Another World. An audiobook version was released this year with a excellent reading by Grover Gardner. Bob nicely weaves a narrative of the Apollo 8 mission, from its conception to capsule splashdown, with captivating portraits of the three astronauts and vivid descriptions of the political and social upheavals of the time, especially the many dreadful events of the tumultuous year of 1968. (The book should disabuse young people of the notion that political polarization in the US today is something new or reaches the levels of other angry periods in the country’s history.)

The three astronauts – Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders – were the first to see earth from beyond low earth orbit. How the famous EarthRise photo came about is described in the book and answers the question of who actually took the picture.

The astronauts made a surprising but very appropriate reading during a widely viewed broadcast from lunar orbit on Christmas Eve. The book tells the background story of how this came about.

The three space pioneers are still alive for the half century remembrances of Apollo 8 and Bob attended an event held in their honor last October at the Museum of Science and Technology in Chicago: Honoring the Apollo 8 astronauts | Behind The Black

We are blessed to still have them. Once again during the dinner presentation they talked of their mission, kidding each other repeatedly about what had happened, and talking about why they went and what they thought the future might hold. Borman was pessimistic about the future of space, but then he remains fixated on the concept of a government program for space. Anders meanwhile was in touch with the rise of private commercial space, and advocated that it is where the future lies.

Lovell was Lovell, as always a space cadet, enthused for the future exploration of space, no matter how we do it.

This event is likely only the beginning. Over the next year there are going to many similar events, celebrating the fiftieth anniversary the 1960s Apollo triumph, right through to the landing in July. To me, however, it will always be Apollo 8 that had the most historical impact. Everything that happened afterward merely reinforced what that flight taught us.

BTW: I had thought that George Mueller, head of the Office of Manned Space Flight during the Apollo era, played the key role in the decision to go to the Moon with Apollo 8. Mueller did successfully push the “all-up testing” approach in which the entire Saturn V would be tested altogether rather than incrementally, starting with dummy upper stages. This greatly reduced the number of test flights needed before the lunar missions could begin and was crucial in achieving JFK’s goal of reaching the Moon “before this decade is out“. However, as made clear in the book, it was in fact George Low, chief of the Apollo Spacecraft Program Office (ASPO), who proposed and championed the radical idea of going all the way to the Moon on just the third flight of the Saturn V, the first flight with a command module, and the first flight with a crew. For more about Low and his role in Apollo 8, see The Man Who Won the Moon Race – Air & Space Magazine.

Today NASA has little of its 1960’s daring and risk-taking culture demonstrated by Apollo 8. The agency, for example, indicated recently after another Russian Soyuz failure, that it would rather let the 100 billion dollar International Space Station fall into the atmosphere for destruction rather than permit astronauts to travel to the station in new American vehicles whose builders have not yet checked every last box in the mountains of certification requirements created by the agency’s vast multi-center bureaucracy.

Space exploration, development, and settlement will require endless risk-taking in the coming years but it appears the risks will be taken by participants in the private space sector, not by NASA.

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Living in Space, Mars, The Moon

China heads for the Moon’s far side, NASA listens to Martian winds, and a Dragon arrives at the ISS

December 8, 2018 TopSpacer

Lots of activity in space this weekend:

** Moon: China launched on Friday the Chang’e-4 mission to the far side of the Moon. The 3,780 kg package includes a lander (1,200 kg), a rover (140 kg). This will be the first mission of any kind to the surface of the side of the Moon that never faces Earth due to tidal locking. A lunar orbiter was launched earlier to serve as a communications relay. The landing date has not been announced yet.

*Chang’e 4 Rover on the Moon (Image: CNSA)*

** Mars: Insight is busy setting up its experiments and listening to the Martian wind.

NASA’s Mars InSight Flexes Its Arm | NASA

This image from InSight’s robotic-arm mounted Instrument Deployment Camera shows the instruments on the spacecraft’s deck, with the Martian surface of Elysium Planitia in the background. The image was received on Dec. 4, 2018 (Sol 8). Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech Full image and caption

** Earth Orbit: The SpaceX Dragon, launched on a Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral last Wednesday, rendezvoused and berthed to the ISS this morning. It joins five other spaceships attached to the station including Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus cargo vehicle, two Russian Progress cargo vehicles, and two Russian Soyuz crew vehicles.

Dragon Attached to Station, Returns to Earth in January – Space Station

Dec. 8, 2018: International Space Station Configuration. Six spaceships are attached at the space station including the U.S. resuppy ships Northrop Grumman Cygnus and the SpaceX Dragon; and Russia’s Progress 70 and Progress 71 resupply ships and the Soyuz MS-09 and MS-10 crew ships all from Roscosmos.

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Check out the Best Selling Electronics at Amazon

History, Space Collecting, The Moon

Sotheby’s space auction includes Moon rock from Soviet Luna 16 mission

November 29, 2018 TopSpacer

[ Update: The Moon rocks sold near the top of the expected range of bids: Soviet robot-retrieved moon rocks sell for $855,000 at Sotheby’s | collectSPACE

Sotheby’s on Thursday (Nov. 29) auctioned the only known pieces of Earth’s natural satellite to be collected from the lunar surface and be legally sold for $855,000. The three tiny pebbles were among a small cache of moon material that was brought back by the former Soviet Union’s Luna 16 robotic probe in 1970.

The same moon rocks — which were originally presented to Nina Ivanovna Koroleva, the widow of Sergei Korolev, the “Chief Designer” of the Soviet space program — were sold by Sotheby’s in December 1993 for $442,500. With inflation, Thursday’s sale in New York City reflected an increase of about $87,500.

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Sotheby’s is holding a Space Exploration auction in New York today. The space collectibles and memorabilia items on sale include actual material obtained from the Moon’s surface:

The top lot in the sale was originally sold in the 1993 Russian Space History Sale here at Sotheby’s – a sample of lunar rocks returned to Earth by the Russian Luna-16 unmanned mission. It was the first time a piece of another world had ever been offered for sale to the public. It remains to this day, the only known legal sale of moon rocks to have ever occurred. We look forward to once again offering this tremendously rare and historic artifact to the public.

“Three samples of lunar rock from Luna-16, the first automated sample retrieval from the moon, encased under glass within a 2 by 2 inch metal block positioned below an adjustable lens, the whole secured to a 6½ by 3½ inch metal base labeled “ЧАСТИЦЫ ГРУНТА ЛУНЫ-16” [SOIL PARTICLES FROM LUNA-16]. Central fragment consisting of basalt with feldspar crystals visible, adjoining larger fragments consisting of finely structured vesicular agglutinates, showing glass coatings caused by age-old meteorite impact.” – Sotheby’s

In addition there is

a wide variety of material from both the American & Soviet space programs — from lunar & space photography, original artwork by artists such as Chesley Bonestell and Alan Bean, flown mission artefacts and hardware, items from the personal collections of astronauts, autographed items, maps & charts, signed books, models, spacesuits, and much more, with material suited for both new and seasoned collectors.

“A complete Gemini spacesuit with helmet, gloves made for Pete Conrad, and boots made for Frank Borman, 1963-65…G-2C-4 full high altitude pressure suit, including inner pressure suit and outer cover layer, complete with GH-2C-7 helmet, GG-2C-16 gloves made to fit Pete Conrad, and GB-5C-9 boots made to fit Frank Borman, all manufactured by the David Clark Company for NASAS between 1963-1965.” – Sotheby’s

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“A Nice Place to Visit” – acrylic painting by Alan Bean, an Apollo astronaut who walked on the Moon and a talented artist.

“The Moon Race” – A lunar technologies competition

October 2, 2018 TopSpacer

Airbus, Blue Origin, ESA, and some other heavyweight companies and organizations are backing a new technical competition program called The Moon Race:

The Moon Race competition is a global initiative founded by Airbus and international partners, aiming to boost the movement around Moon exploration and enable the demonstration of key technologies required for its sustainable exploration.

Some minor details such as exactly what technologies are to be demonstrated and the value of the prizes have yet to be determined: Blue Origin and Airbus back ‘The Moon Race’ – Alan Boyle/GeekWire

Organizers launched their effort at this week’s International Astronautical Congressin Bremen, Germany. They want teams to propose technological challenges for lunar surface operations in time for next year’s IAC meeting.

Suggestions could include constructing the first artifact made from lunar resources, extracting enough water from lunar soil to fill a standard-sized bottle, building a power-generating system capable of lighting up the lunar night, or operating the first lunar greenhouse.

The application period is due to open in early 2019. “Details on monetary prizes will be announced with the opening of the applications period,” the organizers say.

The competition is envisioned as a five year program starting from the 2019 starting line. The teams would be expected to “demonstrate proof-of-concept” in 2020, test the systems in a “lunar environment” in 2021, build working implementations in 2022-2023, and send them to the Moon in 2024.

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