Phil StookeBright 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
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
#moon #maps #IM2 #athena
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
#moon #maps #IM2 #athena
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
#moon #maps #IM2 #athena
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
#moon #maps #IM2 #athena
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
#moon #maps #IM2 #athena
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
#moon #maps #IM2 #athena
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
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
#moon #maps #IM2 #athena
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
#moon #maps #IM2 #athena
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
#moon #maps #artemis3
We zoomed in to the landing site with the last set of maps, and Athena zoomed in too, taking images as it approached the landing site:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/intuitivemachines/
I think the image I used here came from a tweet, but I can't find the source now. I have changed the radial scale and cleaned up significant brightness variations. The shallow crater from yesterday is seen here, and the distant K crater. The original had an intuitive logo which is distorted here.
#moon #IM2 #athena
I expect everyone knows what happened to Athena... it landed but fell over, ending on its side in a shaded crater floor, its legs poking up into the sunlight. It couldn't recharge its batteries so it just did what it could (which was quite a lot) before the power ran out in about 12 hours. Views differ but I call a landing a success if any operations are possible on the surface - not the same as mission success. Let's see what it did...
#moon #IM2 #athena
#moon #IM2 #athena
This article from NASASpaceFlight.com:
https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2025/03/blue-ghost-im-2-landings/
gives an account of the IM-2 Athena landing, after looking at Firefly's mission (they landed only 4 days apart). It includes this surface image:
https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/im-2_moon_orientation-1920x1442.jpg
So we got an image, but several experiments got to run tests including the TRIDENT drill, so there was some data to be had. A rover called MAPP from Lunar Outpost couldn't operate, but a second one took some images...
#moon #IM2 #athena
The second rover was a tiny vehicle called Yaoki from Japan:
It couldn't deploy but could take pictures looking 'down' (in this case sideways) and about 25 images were taken:
https://www.kaggle.com/datasets/louisburtz/dymon-yaoki-lunar-rover-images-from-im2-mission/
Finally, here is my processed version of it. The odd curved disk at right is a decal which was fixed on the footpad and has broken off and curled up a bit. The very bright streak is part of the crater rim in sunlight.
#moon #IM2 #athena #yaoki
Another look at the surface view from IM-2 Athena. It's lying on its side with the TRIDENT drill on the top as seen here. It was extended out from the camera to test its motion and other operations but couldn't touch the surface. The view is to the northwest. I brightened the shaded crater floor, showing a rock at lower right in A which is probably the same rock seen in B (see yesterday's post). Below, a view with the horizon straightened (C)...
#moon #IM2 #athena
#moon #IM2 #athena
Finally, at the bottom of the image in the last post is a version with vertical exaggeration (my party trick) which makes it easier to see the sliver of landscape outside the crater. Half a crater is visible outside the foreground crater at right. We will see it tomorrow in a very different image.
#moon #IM2 #athena
#moon #IM2 #athena
LRO imaged the Athena landing site:
https://lroc.im-ldi.com/images/1409
but again the most impressive and informative images were taken by India's Chandrayaan 2 orbiter. Its Orbiter High Resolution Camera (OHRC) took an image and Indian space enthusiast Chandra Tungathurthi found it in the released data:
https://twitter.com/this_is_tckb/status/1953355239546921281
I made this map using the image and that Yaoki image, hinting at what happened during the final approach.
#maps #moon #IM2 #athena #OHRC
Intuitive Machines have not yet released their analysis of the landing, but this OHRC image has to be a major contribution to that analysis. I have never seen anything like this before but we don't have images like this for most landings. It would be great to have this for Luna 23, for instance, and Surveyors 3 and 5 and many crash sites.
You can look for OHRC images here - you need to register.
#maps #moon #IM2 #athena #OHRC
I have been extolling the virtues of India's Orbiter High Resolution Camera (OHRC) instrument on Chandrayaan 2, so I had the idea of looking to see if any other lander or crash sites might be found. There are surprisingly few images by this camera considering it has been in orbit for 6 years. The map-based image search tool linked to yesterday showed only one I thought might be a candidate, on the far side in the Hertzsprung basin, What is it?
#moon #OHRC
#moon #OHRC
In 2022 an object was found on course to hit the Moon. LRO imaged the crater it made:
https://lroc.im-ldi.com/images/1261
It was almost certainly the upper stage of the rocket used to launch Chang'e 5 T-1. Chang'e 5 was China's first sample return mission, but Chang'e 5 T-1 was a flight to test the return capsule in 2014. LRO images showed a double crater, suggesting it had a mass at both ends (engines and a payload support structure, presumably).
#moon #OHRC
You can see the LRO images (before and after) at the link in the previous post. What did OHRC show us? Here is the image. The impact feature is the double crater exactly in the middle of this tiny detail of a very large image. Comparison shows it is more detailed than the LRO image. I wouldn't say it changes our understanding, but it's nice to see it.
I ran out of landers, but I will look at a few upcoming landings next.
#moon #OHRC
What will be the next lunar lander to reach the Moon? It's not easy to say because, not being tied to specific launch periods like Mars missions, lunar launches are rarely fixed far in advance. We know two missions have been promoted as launching before the end of this year: Astrobotic's second CLPS mission with its Griffin lander and Blue Origin's Blue Moon MK1 Pathfinder, a test of a large CLPS cargo lander. Both are aiming for the same area.
#moon #Astrobotic #Blueorigin
#moon #Astrobotic #Blueorigin
Astrobotic's first CLPS flight had a fuel leak after launch and never made it to the Moon. Its second flight is with a different lander and it was to carry a very precious cargo, the VIPER rover. I'm allergic to putting valuable cargo on a first flight of anything and I was not surprised when VIPER was removed, leaving the flight as a test of the lander. Astrobotic acquired a new commercial rover as a payload:
https://www.astrobotic.com/astrolabs-flip-rover-joins-astrobotics-griffin-1-to-the-moon/
VIPER was removed and NASA tried to find a partner to fly it, with unreasonable conditions which were not taken up by anyone (I don't know details of this). VIPER is in limbo. But there is a large literature on site selection and mission planning, so in my next post I will look at the VIPER site which may still be the landing site with the new rover. Software tools developed to support VIPER will be very useful for any activities near the poles.
#moon #Astrobotic
#moon #Astrobotic
Papers and presentations on VIPER and its ancestor 'Resource Prospector' have been appearing for over 12 years. Early studies looked at the south polar region with sites in Cabeus and elsewhere. This example is a site on the west rim of Haworth crater, southwest of Malapert Mountain (now officially Mons Malapert). Presentations at LPSC, LEAG and other meetings showed various rover traverses carefully planned to stay in sunlight as shadows moved.
#moon #VIPER
#moon #VIPER
These maps are based on conference presentations by Tony Colaprete and Jen Heldmann in 2013-2016. At this time mission plans assumed that the rover would operate for a lunar day at most, and many sites might only be sunlit for 8 or 10 Earth days as shadows sweep across the site. But if the rover could rest in a 'safe haven' with more than average sunlight and dip back into often-shaded areas when they were available, a 3 or 4 month mission might be possible.
#moon #VIPER
#moon #VIPER
To clarify, no place on the Moon is permanently sunlit but a few high ridges near the poles can be in sunlight with only minor interruptions for a few months at a time. Those are the 'safe havens'. It turns out a bigger issue is Earth visibility - it's below the horizon for almost half a month right at the poles. The rover needs to be in a safe haven during those times - unless we have comsats in orbit, which may be coming soon.
#moon #VIPER
#moon #VIPER
Here is a map of those safe havens from two 2020 studies by the aforementioned Colaprete and Heldmann. They have to be well-illuminated and any searches for such sites will always converge on the same few locations. Add in topography and communication, and only a few are promising, as this map indicates. The VIPER team chose the Nobile site, which is on Mons Mouton, a place we've seen before.
#moon #VIPER
#moon #VIPER
Let's look at the chosen area in more detail. These two maps show examples of rover traverses from Tony Colaprete. In map A VIPER lands near the safe haven, drives south to one PSR (permanent shadow region), then north and east to another, and ends at the safe haven. On the next lunar day it goes west to a PSR and back to the haven. Day 3 takes it north to some PSRs and the end of mission. The second map is similar but goes into day 4.
#moon #VIPER
#moon #VIPER
This map shows the Mons Mouton (previously Leibnitz Beta) plateau with the location of the VIPER area of interest ('primary site') on its southern edge. As the idea of a longer mission grew a larger area was defined to accommodate a multi-month traverse ('extended area'). That extended area could very well be the target for Artemis 3. As far as I can tell now, the primary site is still the target for Astrobotic's Griffin 1 mission.
#moon #VIPER
#moon #VIPER
There have been lots of studies of VIPER sites, including near the north pole. I will just add one more, again from Tony Colaprete. At left is an overview of the route, not too different from the previous ones, but at right a small area is mapped at two levels of increasing detail, showing the level of planning done for this mission. All that work will be useful when future missions (including crews) get into these places. One last thing...
#moon #VIPER
#moon #VIPER
The larger map in the previous post shows three white arrows. They are suggested routes for a drone (rocket-powered hopping probe like the one carried by IM-2 Athena). This was an idea from Swiss graduate student Roméo Tonasso, not planned for VIPER but using it as an example of how such a drone could augment a mission - remote sensing inside shadowed areas, hazard detection for route planning etc. Will VIPER fly one day? Until then, back to Griffin mission 1.
#moon #VIPER
#moon #VIPER
What is Griffin mission 1? The name refers to an investor in the company, not the former head of NASA. Griffin is a large lander capable of carrying payloads bigger than the other CLPS landers we have seen. Here is Astrobotic's page on its landers:
https://www.astrobotic.com/lunar-delivery/landers/
and here are the payloads:
https://www.astrobotic.com/lunar-delivery/manifest/
so we get 2 rovers, a big one and a small one, plus descent images and hopefully enough pics to make a panorama.
#moon #Astrobotic #griffin
The Griffin 1 mission has been aiming for a 2025 launch, but I have just seen a hint that it may be delayed until mid-2026. Can't say I am surprised.
Our next upcoming mission might be (I'm playing it safe here) Blue Origin's Blue Moon MK1 Pathfinder, but Blue Origin is not very quick to let us know. We will investigate the mission tomorrow.
NASA selected several companies to fly payloads to the Moon - Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS). Most landers are fairly small with payloads of 100 kg or so, a few like Griffin are bigger, but Blue Moon Mk1 would have a payload of about 3000 kg. This scale of lander can go beyond landing science instruments to bring large objects - rovers, power systems, supplies etc. to support crews on the Moon.
#moon #blueorigin #bluemoon
#moon #blueorigin #bluemoon
This cargo lander also tests systems for use in a larger human lander version late in the decade. The mission we are looking at here is the Blue Moon MK1 Pathfinder, a test of the lander with only minimal payloads before commercial flights begin. Here is their website:
https://www.blueorigin.com/blue-moon/mark-1
Payloads announced so far are a laser reflector and a plume interaction camera, SCALPSS, which also flew on Firefly's mission. Will there be more?
#moon #blueorigin #bluemoon
Remember Steve Squyres, PI of the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity? He is now the chief scientist for Blue Origin. I'm sure he would like to have a few interesting things on the lander, but there's no word yet. Enough cameras to create a full panorama would be nice, even better if it could be multispectral. And there is no exact landing site yet but I have heard that Mons Mouton is the region they are aiming for. Early 2026 seems a likely date.
#moon #blueorigin #bluemoon
#moon #blueorigin #bluemoon
Griffin 1 and Blue Moon MK1 Pathfinder had been suggested to launch his year but a delay into 2026 is likely for both. The next mission might also fly in the first half of the year so it's anyone's guess which will be the first to go. This is another NASA CLPS mission, this time to a known target which is Reiner Gamma, a magnetic anomaly and unusual bright swirl in Oceanus Procellarum. The CLPS payload is Lunar Vertex.
#moon #lunarvertex #clps
#moon #lunarvertex #clps
Lunar Vertex will fly with Intuitive Machines on their third lander. We must hope that it's a case of 'third time lucky'. Here is the website for the lander:
https://www.intuitivemachines.com/im-3-lunar-mission
and one for the main payload:
https://www.jhuapl.edu/destinations/missions/lunar-vertex
(notice it says it will fly in 2024... such is life in the space business)
The mission will carry a rover from Colorado-based Lunar Outpost (who also lost a rover in the IM-2 landing mishap). Tomorrow we will look at the site.
#moon #lunarvertex #clps
IM-3 | Intuitive Machines
Intuitive Machines’ IM-3 mission is slated to deliver groundbreaking science and experimental technology to Reiner Gamma—a swirling magnetic anomaly so bright it’s visible from space, and so strange it defies known geology. The first mission to land at this site, IM-3, carries a diverse suite of international payloads, including autonomous robots, radiation sensors, and a lunar plant experiment.
The wonderful Linda Hall Library in Kansas City is a treasurehouse of history of science material, including this:
https://www.lindahall.org/about/news/scientist-of-the-day/giovanni-battista-riccioli/
Riccioli was the creator of our modern lunar nomenclature system as the maps on this page show. Here is part of one of them compared with the U.S. Air Force Lunar Earthside Mosaic:
https://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/mapcatalog/LEM/
I have ringed a feature which Riccioli interprets as a crater and calls Galilaeus. It's really a bright spot.
#moon #lunarvertex #clps
Riccioli called the spot Galilaeus after the chap we would call Galileo, but when better views showed it was not a crater that name was moved to a quite small crater nearby, too small really for Galileo. We now call the spot Reiner Gamma. The greek letters were used for hills and mountains in the past (as at Gruithuisen which we'll see) but this is not a hill either. It turns out to be a strong magnetic anomaly and bright swirling shape in a flat area. More tomorrow.
#moon #lunarvertex #clps
#moon #lunarvertex #clps
This set of maps lets us zoom in on the Reiner Gamma area and the sites chosen for Lunar Vertex and IM-3. The second map shows 5 candidate sites and a later addition labelled A. At lower left a closeup has two sites with traverses - the A site came later and is preferred, perhaps because it avoids a crater rim which might complicate the magnetic field analysis. The rover has to be in line of sight to the lander at all times.
#moon #lunarvertex #clps
#moon #lunarvertex #clps
The rover carries a magnetometer to measure the field across the dark lane, plus a microscopic camera to study the regolith microstructure. The lander carries cameras, a plasma instrument and its own magnetometer. Another payload will be deployed, CADRE, whch is described here:
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/cadre/
The lander will also carry a laser reflector. Like many CLPS missions it also has some commercial payloads.
#moon #lunarvertex #clps
Did I say commercial payloads? At the NASA Exploration Science Forum in July, Ben Bussey (IM's Chief Scientist) listed them: a plant growth experiment from Australia, virtual reality cameras from Canada, an Italian laser reflector and a 'science and testing facility' from a Houston company. That's not all. IM is also flying a lunar relay satellite, the first of a 5 satellite constellation which has its own set of cameras and instruments.
#moon #lunarvertex #clps
#moon #lunarvertex #clps
We find ourselves in this curious world of commercial payloads now. Hands up if you know what commercial payloads were on Firefly's impressive mission early this year. The NASA science instruments got lots of press but Blue Ghost 1 carried more than that...
https://twitter.com/Adi_OFCL/status/1899881997830406271
Who knew Shiba Inus ate pizza? If I were Firefly I would probably keep quiet about this too. There were other things like this but a full list will probably never be available.
#moon #BGM1 #CLPS
We are looking a few months ahead at lunar missions early next year. Griffin, Blue Moon, Vertex... also set for roughly the same period - but no fixed dates yet for any of them - is Firefly's Blue Ghost Mission 2 (BGM2). Here is their website for it:
https://fireflyspace.com/missions/blue-ghost-mission-2/
Lots to talk about here. NASA's focus is on the Lunar Surface Electromagnetic Experiment at Night (LuSEE-Night), a radio astronomy payload on the far side, complete with a communication relay.
#moon #BGM2
The BGM2 relay is Firefly's own and the first of several. As well as relaying data it has a high resolution camera system. The lander is designed to survive the night and could operate for quite a while. The mission also deploys Pathfinder, a European relay satellite, in lunar orbit. These relays and IM's will last for years and serve future missions. There is an Australian seismic instrument called SPIDER and a rover from the UAE, Rashid 2.
#moon #BGM2
#moon #BGM2
Rashid 1 flew with ispace's Hakuto-R mission 1 which crashed. Second time lucky, I hope. All these payloads are described on that mission website. Also on that list is the obscurely-named User Terminal from JPL which will commission the Pathfinder relay. Tomorrow we will look at the landing site and the way it was selected.
#moon #BGM2
#moon #BGM2
The LuSEE-Night payload on BGM2 is described here:
https://www.colorado.edu/ness/projects/lunar-surface-electromagnetics-experiment-night-lusee-night
It's one of two LuSEE payloads. The other, LuSEE-Lite, will go to another location later.
Site selection has been described in several meetings by Jack Burns (U. Colorado). Sites were on hills so the horizon would be low - to view the maximum amount of sky you want to avoid being in a valley or crater (Apollo 17's site would block quite a lot of sky).
#moon #BGM2
Burns located some sites on the far side near Korolev basin in 2022, shown in this map. Another set of sites was further south.
#moon #BGM2
#moon #BGM2
Burns found more sites around 20 degrees south across the central far side. Location 2 had 2 candidates just east and west of the 180 meridian. In 2023 the mission team announced a target for the mission (the main payload gets to choose the landing site). It was not one of Burns's sites but it was close to one of them, on the north rim of a crater called Nassau. That looked like the end of the story but it's not, as we will see.
#moon #BGM2
#moon #BGM2
Where will BGM2 and its LuSEE-NIght payload go? This map takes us closer to the target area. A press release from Brookhaven gave a location near Nassau crater, shown yesterday, but in the same year Stuart Bale (UC Berkeley) gave different coordinates on the other side of the 180 meridian. It's Location 2, site 2 from the previous map. Which will it be? Bales' site looks like the final choice.
#moon #BGM2
#moon #BGM2
However, nothing is quite as final as it seems. A year later (2024) Benjamin Saliwanchik (Brookhaven) et al. gave very slightly different coordinates - only 250 m from the Bale site. The map on the right here shows both points. Fine-tuning like this is very common in any site selection process. I have been recording the story of site selection like this for years for my new project (about which more in future).
OK - time to look at payloads...
(travelling for a couple of days...)
I'm back from a trip to the edge of the universe (AKA Hornby Island BC). I had mentioned payloads on BGM2 earlier, but here's a bit more about them. This is the website for the Rashid 2 rover:
https://www.mbrsc.ae/rashid-rover/
The original description of the LuSEE-Night payload said it had to avoid interference from lander operations, so lander ops would be over quickly. The rover and SPIDER seismometer will need to operate as long as possible, so.....
#moon #BGM2
... LUSEE-Night will probably not operate until very late in the lunar day. The lander is designed to survive the lunar night, in fact to operate in the lunar night:
https://phys.org/news/2025-07-scientists-craft-radio-telescope-bound.html
It may operate as long as 2 years. That will be quite an accomplishment. I think the rest of the lander is gone after the first lunar day - only LuSEE-night survives, so no other activities in later days.
#moon #BGM2
NASA, Department of Energy Join Forces on Innovative Lunar Experiment - NASA
NASA and the Department of Energy (DOE) are working together to develop a science instrument that will survive the harsh and unforgiving environment of the lunar surface at night on the far side of the Moon to attempt first-of-its-kind measurements of the Dark Ages of the Universe.
We have been looking ahead to lunar missions flying in the next few months, and all those robotic missions are going to fly around the time of a very different mission, Artemis 2. Here is NASA's website for it:
https://www.nasa.gov/mission/artemis-ii/
with more detail here:
The mission's Orion spacecraft doesn't go into orbit, it loops around the Moon and comes back like the Soviet Union's Zond 8 and earlier flights.
#moon #artemis2
The crew will break the human distance record set by Apollo 13. Calculations differ but that record is about 400,100 km above the surface of the Earth. Orion will be about 7000 km from the Moon at its closest, so distant observations of the far side will be made. That doesn't make for great resolution, but it does mean that human eyes will get to observe subtle colour variations, which they are very good at.
#moon #artemis2
#moon #artemis2
Artemis 1 released a fleet of cubesats, most of them accomplishing nothing or very little. Artemis 2 will have 4 cubesats from international sources: Germany, Argentina, Korea and Saudi Arabia. They will test systems and measure radiation - none are lunar missions. Earlier candidates included a US mission and one from Japan, but NASA withdrew the call before eventually selecting these 4 cubesats.
With that I will leave the Moon for a while. What's next? (drumroll...)
#moon #artemis2