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

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:

https://dymon.co.jp/en/yaoki/

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

This is an annotated version of that image.

#moon #IM2 #athena #yaoki

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

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

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/

#moon #Astrobotic

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.

#moon #Astrobotic #griffin #blueorigin

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

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

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

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

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 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