Posted on 01/08/2024 12:49:06 PM PST by bitt
The first U.S. lunar lander in more than 50 years rocketed to space Monday, but trouble seems to be already afoot.
The private lunar lander launched from the US this morning appears to have suffered an ‘anomaly’ – with experts trying to tackle the problem.
Peregrine Mission-1 – which took off on a new massive Vulcan rocket – aims to become the first US spacecraft to land on the moon’s surface since Apollo 17 in 1972; everything appeared to go well as it lifted off into space as planned.
Associated Press reported:
“But about seven hours after liftoff, Astrobotic Technology reported the solar panel on the lander wasn’t properly pointed toward the sun to generate and store power and it was investigating the issue.
The Pittsburgh company’s lander caught a ride on a brand new rocket, United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan. The Vulcan streaked through the Florida predawn sky, putting the spacecraft on a roundabout route to the moon for a landing attempt on Feb. 23.”
We have liftoff! The first American commercial robotic launch to the Moon will deliver science instruments to study its surface, a critical part of preparing for future #Artemis missions. https://t.co/KoOZjXvqjD pic.twitter.com/Vo2Dnn6TwA
— NASA (@NASA) January 8, 2024
Astrobotic, who won a $108 million NASA contract, wants to be the first private company to land on the moon, but a Houston company will also send up a lander and could beat it to the lunar surface by taking a more direct path.
A moon-landing mission – a manned one, too – was launched in December 1972, when Apollo 17’s Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt became the 11th and 12th men to walk on the moon.
(Excerpt) Read more at thegatewaypundit.com ...
Uh, Houston, we’ve got a problem
If it were built today it would be more like 20+ years minimum with 19 in T&E.
American industries and associated regulatory agencies have become one giant Dunning-Kruger experience that won’t stop.
Ronald Reagan. (I'm from the government and here to help). I'm 74 and have seen wonderous accomplishments from original government programs. Unfortunately, they mostly all turn to crap later on.
from another article:
NASA: “What we have learned from our commercial partners is if we have a high enough cadence, we can relax some of the requirements that make it so costly, and have a higher risk appetite.”
Me: translation from buzzword jargon into vernacular English: technical requirements and testing known to work cost really big bucks, so we’ll try flying a bunch of junk and hope something makes it ... maybe that will be less expensive than doing it right in the first place ... [plus, we can spread the dough around to more places and get more kickbacks and campaign “donations” that way] ...
NASA: “And if they fail, the next one is going to learn and succeed.”
me: IOW, as usual with all rocket “science”, we’ll blow shit up until something finally flies ...
One big Grift. To the time of 19 billion dollars a day. Enjoy!
“Launched in 1977, the Voyager 1 and 2 probes were both cutting-edge pieces of technology for their time. The computers at the heart of their operations consisted of three systems, each with dual-redundancy, that worked together to enable the probes to journey to Jupiter, Saturn, and beyond: the Computer Command System (CCS), the Flight Data Subsystem (FDS), and the Attitude and Articulation Control System (AACS).
What is amazing is that even after four decades of traveling through the harsh, sometimes unpredictable, environment of space, both probes continue to function and call home with new insights and data.”
“There are three different computer types on the Voyager spacecraft, two of each kind, sometimes used for redundancy. They are proprietary, custom-built computers built from CMOS and TTL medium-scale CMOS integrated circuits and discrete components, mostly from the 7400 series of Texas Instruments.[34] Total number of words among the six computers is about 32K. Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 have identical computer systems.”
They can’t even tell the difference between a woman and a man. And they want to send something to the moon? ROTFLMFAO!!!
They ain’t got the “goods” nowadays....
way to go Bill Nelson.
It is one big lie! A Grift to the tune of 19 billion dollars a day. Probes and all...
NASA had a bit of computing power back then. When Apollo 13 had a fuel cell explosion on the way to the moon, they quickly realized that any return flight would have to include the lunar lander for life support. The return flight required a critical rocket burn on the far side of the moon. Too long a burn would miss the earth, and too short a burn would overshoot it. Unfortunately, NASA had never calculated this burn with the mass of the lander remaining attached to the command module.
Getting the right numbers in time required massive computing power. NASA literally confiscated computing time from all the available IBM 360 computers in the country. It involved jetting boxes of punch cards around the country and running them on volunteered time from the universities and businesses that offered them. Your smart watch has far more computing than NASA had at the time. The burn worked, and all returned home safely
Definitely. We couldn’t have done it without pioneering negro space program (hat tip to Chappelle. True comedy genius but also cray-cray)
For $108 million you would think they could locate the sun and have stop leak in the fuel tank.... : )
Several aluminum versions got me through the doctoral program in biophysics. One even had a magnifying cursor. Before
I resigned to start a small company, HR would rarely send a prospective hire past me to be vetted. Most of the engineering grads were intrigued as hell by the slip sticks I had on the desk top. Most never saw the circular versions.
Assembly Programmers Rule !
Very interesting. Thanks for sharing that.
As a boy, I used a circulat slide rule for my FAA ground school.
I wonder if you had ever seen the vircular calculator for ahem bomb yield?
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