Show threadPhil StookeAug 18
Finally, views looking west very close to sunset. The sun is on the horizon, Earth above it in the top view, with some neighbours peeking into the shot. The light seems to be shining from the wrong direction in the foreground - it is sunlight reflected off Mons Latreille enough to weakly illuminate the surface. An inset (B) shows Earth in eclipse with a nice diamond ring effect. Solar eclipse on the Moon, lunar eclipse on Earth.
#moon #CLPS #firefly #BGM1
Show threadPhil StookeAug 18
These two views look east, the first just after sunrise, the second near sunset. The volcanic cone Mons Latreille is shown in the lower one and would be visible in the top one except we are looking at its shadowed side and sun glare gets in the way a bit. As far as I know we did not get to see the rest of the hill.
#moon #CLPS #firefly #BGM1
Show threadPhil StookeAug 18
I will finish Firefly's mission with some surface views. These images were taken looking west. The top image was taken just after landing at sunrise with the rising sun casting a long shadow to the west. The lower image was taken later with a higher sun. The wide angle lens makes the very flat horizon look curved. Sunlight reflected off the nearby crater wall made the lander hotter than expected so they took a siesta around local noon.
#moon #CLPS #firefly #BGM1
Show threadPhil StookeAug 17
SCALPSS is an experiment from NASA Langley. There were 6 cameras on BGM1 (and 4 on IM-1, 4 more on the Blue Moon Mk1 pathfinder lander coming up soon). They look for surface effects of the rocket plume, which will matter when we have successive landings at places where infrastructure is being assembled - such as Artemis Base Camp. Later images show lots of raised dust, but earlier ones should give me what I need for mapping.
#moon #CLPS #firefly #BGM1
Show threadPhil StookeAug 17
I really want to have two more maps for Firefly's BGM1 mission: an improved version of what I am showing here and a further enlargement showing the space under the lander, locating the drill, Planetvac and other experiment locations, the surface changes created by the landing etc. They have to wait for future publications or presentations. This is a quick version of a map made from SCALPSS (Stereo Cameras for Lunar Plume Surface Studies) images as released so far.
#moon #CLPS #firefly #BGM1
Show threadPhil StookeAug 16
Planetvac ejected a rock - and yes, it was named Dwayne. Not sure why... The SCALPSS image under the lander shows the LISTER drill hole, and beside it a pit with coarser material in the middle... I have labelled it as caused by the Planetvac sampling but it could be from the landing thrusters. Any ideas? I'm waiting for papers on the SCALPSS and Planetvac experiments which I hope will fill in a lot of details.
#moon #CLPS #firefly #BGM1
Show threadPhil StookeAug 16

Firefly landed successfully and operated flawlessly (as far as I can tell), as I am sure you all know. Here is the Firefly web page for the mission:

https://fireflyspace.com/missions/blue-ghost-mission-1/

and here is their image and video site:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/fireflyspace/albums/72177720313239766/

It's nice to look back at the landing video and others here. We have had some failed and partially successful landings in recent years - let's hope for more successes in future.

Here is a quick 'storyboard' summary image.
#moon #CLPS #firefly #BGM1

Show threadPhil StookeAug 15
Two more maps take us down to the BGM1 lander. The top image is from LRO, the bottom one is made of spacecraft descent images, using the LRO image as a base to get the geometry right. In the top image the lander and its shadow are visible. In the lower map the lander is drawn in with its LMS (Lunar Magnetotelluric Sounder) array around it. Four projectiles were fired by springs out to about 20 m from the lander, trailing wires which form antennae for the experiment.
#moon #CLPS #firefly #BGM1
Show threadPhil StookeAug 15
Here is one of my trademark zoom-in sets of images to help locate the Firefly BGM1 landing site. It's quite close to and northwest of a small breached volcanic cone called Mons Latreille. The cone is visible from the landing site but we didn't get a full panorama from the lander (or haven't seen one yet) so we only have a partial view of it. The lower right image shows the descent track meandering up from the south.
#moon #CLPS #firefly #BGM1
Show threadPhil StookeAug 14
What we saw yesterday might be called the official site selection process for Firefly's first lander. But there's more to the story. Often people outside the mission offer suggestions as well, and here we see work by Mélissa Martinot and colleagues looking at alternatives. The work was presented at the European Lunar Symposium in Dumfries, Scotland, in June 2024. The top map here shows the region with 7 suggested sites, with more detail below.
#moon #CLPS #firefly #BGM1
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Show threadPhil StookeAug 18
Finally, views looking west very close to sunset. The sun is on the horizon, Earth above it in the top view, with some neighbours peeking into the shot. The light seems to be shining from the wrong direction in the foreground - it is sunlight reflected off Mons Latreille enough to weakly illuminate the surface. An inset (B) shows Earth in eclipse with a nice diamond ring effect. Solar eclipse on the Moon, lunar eclipse on Earth.
#moon #CLPS #firefly #BGM1
Show threadPhil StookeAug 19

We move on to the next lunar mission, launched on the same day (15 January 2025) as Firefly's BGM1... on the same rocket. It followed a slow, low energy, path to the Moon and arrived in orbit on 6 May. The landing attempt was on 5 June and it failed. What was it called? oh boy - hang on.

The private Japanese company involved is called ispace (no CAP). HAKUTO-R is the program, Venture Moon is the mission and Resilience is the spacecraft. Stay with me...
#moon #ispace #hakuto

Show threadPhil StookeAug 19

Finally, insurance for the flight was provided by Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Company. Names were not always used consistently, and sometimes they were combined to form ‘ispace's SMBC x HAKUTO-R Venture Moon Mission 2’ or other variations. I will call it Resilience.

But first, ispace (through its European offshoot in Luxembourg) spent several years studying a mission near the south pole. The mission was called Polar Ice Explorer. This map shows its study area.
#moon #ispace #hakuto

Show threadPhil StookeAug 19
At top left a context map shows the landing area at 82 degrees south. Top right shows the target area south of the crater Svedberg. The southern rim of Svedberg casts a shadow over a hollow which is never fully illuminated by the sun. The middle map shows this target area with 8 landing sites in better-lit areas. At lower right the preferred landing circle has a rover path into an often-shaded area where ices might be found. At bottom left is a closeup of the landing site.
#moon #ispace #hakuto
Show threadPhil StookeAug 19
But this polar mission study will have to wait for some future implementation. ispace's second mission (the first crashed in Atlas crater in 2023) went to Mare Frigoris in the northern mid-latitudes. Tomorrow we will look at that site.
#moon #ispace #hakuto
Show threadPhil StookeAug 20

Back to Resilience, a private Japanese mission by ispace. The company grew out of one of the Google Lunar X Prize teams, Hakuto, which itself evolved from one of the early GLXP teams, White Label Space. GLXP was complicated and its history might show up here one day.

ispace's early missions were called Hakuto-R (R for Reboot). The first crashed in Atlas crater in April 2023. Resilience was targeted for Mare Frigoris at 60 north. Where were the sites?
#moon #ispace #hakuto

Show threadPhil StookeAug 20
These are the 4 Resilience sites. I expect the site selection process will be published eventually (Mission 1's was). Meanwhile this is what we have. The top map shows all 4 sites, and below each one is enlarged. The prime site was the one used for the mission. If successful this would have been the northernmost landing on the Moon. Alas, it crashed during final approach to the prime site. It would have deployed a rover called Tenacious.
#moon #ispace #hakuto
Show threadPhil StookeAug 21
This set of maps zooms in to the Resilience impact site. Map B includes a box showing the area mapped by the LRO imaging team. Map C shows two targets, one from coordinates released in September 2024, the second illustrated in a video just before the landing. The actual impact was only just outside the second target. Map D uses an image from Chandrayaan 2's Orbiter High Resolution Camera, the best camera in lunar orbit today (sorry, LRO).
#moon #ispace #hakuto
Show threadPhil StookeAug 21

That site was found in OHRC images by Shan Subramanian:

https://twitter.com/Ramanean/status/1935917961929252891

My map in the last post shows debris fragments. How do we know that's what they are? Because OHRC imaged the site before and after the landing (shown in one of Shan's tweets). There are more of them - we will see more about this tomorrow. And we will be seeing more from this amazing camera later.
#moon #ispace #hakuto

Shan (Shanmuga Subramanian) (@Ramanean) on X

Impact site of Resilience Lander (Hakuto-R Mission 2) found in Chandrayaan2 OHRC images! Co-ordinates: 60.4445,355.4108 Quickmap link: https://t.co/FpWi2DqUAX

X (formerly Twitter)
Show threadPhil StookeAug 22
This image starts with 3 views of the Resilience impact site. A is OHRC before the impact. B is OHRC after the impact. C is LRO's Narrow Angle Camera after impact. Usually LRO stands out as a marvellous camera but here OHRC takes the prize. LRO doesn't always look this bad - it might have had some temporary issue like overheating. D is a map showing the small bright debris patches first identified by Shan Subramanian.
#moon #ispace #hakuto
Show threadPhil StookeAug 22
Bright spots like those are seen around some lunar landers after a liftoff - Apollo 11 and Luna 24 are examples. But these are scattered along a line extending 2000 m northeast, not all close to the lander (and of course, no liftoff...). They might be bits of thermal blanket or wrapping, but why are they spread out like that? I have not seen any explanation yet.
#moon #ispace #hakuto
Show threadPhil StookeAug 23
The next lander mission and the most recent is Intuitive Machines mission 2, named Athena. I am starting with a look at the landing area considered for several years but changed in the year leading up to launch. This was on a very challenging target, the Shackleton-De Gerlache Ridge (AKA Connecting Ridge) adjacent to Shackleton, the 20 km crater closest to the south pole. The box was the landing area - we'll see it tomorrow.
#moon #maps #IM2 #athena
Show threadPhil StookeAug 23
The approximate impact site of India's Chandrayaan 1 Moon Impact Probe is shown. This was located by extrapolating from the images taken by MIP during descent. See all the crater names - they are unofficial, part of a set suggested by the LRO camera team - and some have changed since the time this was made in 2022. They are names associated with the famous Shackleton Antarctic expedition. We'll zoom into that box tomorrow.
#moon #maps #IM2 #athena
Show threadPhil StookeAug 24
Athena was carrying several NASA payloads as well as one of the company's own devices, a small flying probe called Grace (after Grace Hopper - an important early computer programmer). Grace would hop off the lander on a short test flight, then make several hops, imaging the surface below. It would hop into a permanent shadow area in a crater unofficially named Marston for direct observation, then out again. This map shows its path.
#moon #maps #IM2 #athena
Show threadPhil StookeAug 24
Hopping into a shaded crater floor comes with some risks... but a method of processing LRO 's high resolution (Narrow Angle) camera images developed by Valentin Bickel revealed some details on the crater floor, depressions and rocks. Two safer areas were suggested for Grace to land in. When the landing site was moved a new route had to be planned, but it has not yet been published. We'll look at the new area tomorrow.
#moon #maps #IM2 #athena
Show threadPhil StookeAug 25
This is the target area for IM-2 Athena, a plateau called Mons Mouton, after an Apollo-era NASA mathematician. In older sources it is called Leibnitz Beta, a peak of the Leibnitz Mountains which were mapped by astronomers on the Moon's southern limb. The mountains are now considered peaks of the South Pole-Aitken basin rim. Get used to Mons Mouton - we will be seeing a lot more of it.
#moon #maps #IM2 #athena
Show threadPhil StookeAug 25
The map of Mons Mouton shows the VIPER rover target area, which I think is still the target of Astrobotic's Griffin lander at the end of this year. The PROSPECT area further north is a target for a future CLPS mission. PROSPECT is a European payload moved to CLPS from its original ride on Russia's Luna 27. Also aiming for this area is Blue Origin's Blue Moon MK-1 Pathfinder lander, about the end of this year, and I think a likely choice for Artemis 3 in a few years.
#moon #maps #IM2 #athena
Show threadPhil StookeAug 25

The Mahanti and Atwell sites were shown in 2 LPSC abstracts about IM-2. The Atwell site was the actual mission target. Four craters have letter designations, from maps shown on the company website (https://www.intuitivemachines.com/im-2) - see the Mission Press Kit.

Tomorrow we will take a closer look at the site.
#moon #maps #IM2 #athena

IM-2 | Intuitive Machines

Intuitive Machines
Show threadPhil Stooke6d ago
Here we zoom in on the Intuitive Machines IM-2 Athena landing site. Mons Mouton is a rolling hills kind of topography like Salisbury Plain where I grew up. The second map here shows that the landing site is quite smooth compared to areas around it. Some craters have letter designations as mentioned yesterday. H would be the shadowed crater floor which the hopper would jump into. The last image shows the lander itself in a crater.
#moon #maps #IM2 #athena
Show threadPhil Stooke6d ago
That last map shows a bright streak along the lander descent path. The lander seems to have struck the surface with some horizontal velocity and toppled into a crater, landing on its side. A similar fate befell the first Intuitive Machines lander, alas. The site is about 400 m southeast of the target. That shallow crater is visible in descent images as we will see.
#moon #maps #IM2 #athena
Show threadPhil Stooke6d ago
As an aside, I mentioned that Artemis 3 might land in this area. This is why I think so: First, it is about 85 south, which makes Earth visibility and sunlight more benign than right at the pole. Second, it is large, a broad plateau of about 3000 square km, very different from the small areas of near-polar high topography like the rims of Shackleton or de Gerlache or the Connecting Ridge between them. For a first landing Mons Mouton is a better choice.
#moon #maps #artemis3