Astronomy Picture of the Day - Martian Moon Eclipses Martian Moon
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NASA ^
| 26 Feb, 2024 | Video Credit: ESA, DLR, FU Berlin, Mars Express; Processing & CC BY 2.0 License: Andrea Luck
Explanation: What if there were two moons in the sky -- and they eclipsed each other? This
happens on Mars. The featured video shows a version of this unusual eclipse from space. Pictured are the two moons of Mars: the larger Phobos, which orbits closer to the red planet, and the smaller Deimos, which orbits further out. The sequence was captured last year by the ESA’s Mars Express, a robotic spacecraft that itself orbits Mars. A similar eclipse is visible from the Martian surface, although very rarely. From the surface, though, the closer moon Phobos would appear to pass in...
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Surprise! Japan’s SLIM Moon Lander Wakes Up After a Freezing Night
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Universe Today ^
| 26 February 2024 | ALAN BOYLE
An artist's conception shows Japan's SLIM lander in its upended position on the lunar surface. (Credit:
JAXA) Japan’s space agency didn’t expect its wrong-side-up SLIM moon lander to revive itself after powering down for a circuit-chilling lunar night on Feb. 1. But that’s exactly what happened. “Last night, a command was sent to SLIM and a response received, confirming that the spacecraft has made it through the lunar night and maintained communication capabilities!” the SLIM mission team reported today in a posting to X / Twitter. This wasn’t SLIM’s first resurrection: The boxy spacecraft touched down and tumbled onto its...
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Sideways moon landing cuts mission short, private US lunar lander will stop working Tuesday
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AP ^
| 02 26 2024 | MARCIA DUNN
A private U.S. lunar lander is expected to stop working Tuesday, its mission cut short after landing sideways near the south pole of the moon. Intuitive
Machines, the Houston company that built and flew the spacecraft, said Monday it will continue to collect data until sunlight no longer shines on the solar panels. Based on the position of Earth and the moon, officials expect that to happen Tuesday morning. That’s two to three days short of the week or so that NASA and other customers had been counting on. The lander, named Odysseus, is the first U.S. spacecraft to land...
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Moon Stock Plummets After Odysseus Lunar Lander Tips Over. NASA Calls Landing a Success.
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Barons via MSN ^
| February 24, 2024 | Al Root
Stock in Intuitive Machines sharply dropped in after-hours trading Friday after the company’s Odyessus lunar lander tipped over when it landed on the moon’s surface. The
extreme stock move shows just how hard it is to trade events that will move a small capitalization stock. Intuitive and NASA held a news conference on Friday evening. The lander “is stable, near or at the intended landing site,” said Intuitive CEO Steve Altemus. One hiccup though—the lander is on its side. Altemus said the craft was going 25,000 miles an hour in orbit and landed at about 6 miles an hour, with...
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Astronomy Picture of the Day - Odysseus to the Moon
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NASA ^
| 24 Feb, 2024 | Image Credit: Intuitive Machines
Explanation: Intuitive Machines' robotic lander Odysseus has accomplished the first U.S. landing on the Moon since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972. Launched
on a SpaceX rocket on February 15, the phone booth sized lander reached lunar orbit on the 21st and touched down on the lunar surface at 6:23 pm ET on February 22nd. Its landing region is about 300 kilometers north of the Moon's south pole, near a crater designated Malapert A. Resting on its side, the lander is presently collecting solar power and transmitting data back to the Intuitive Machines' mission control center in Houston. The mission...
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Moon lander tipped sideways on lunar surface but 'alive and well'
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Reuters ^
| February 23, 20247:19 PM CST | By Steve Gorman and Joey Roulette
Feb 23 (Reuters) - The moon lander dubbed Odysseus is "alive and well" but resting on its side a day after its white-knuckle touchdown as the first private spacecraft ever to reach the lunar surface, and the first from the U.S. since 1972, the company behind the vehicle said on Friday. The
vehicle is believed to have caught one of its six landing feet on the lunar surface near the end of its final descent and tipped over, coming to rest sideways, propped up on a rock, an analysis of data by flight engineers showed, according to Houston-based Intuitive Machines...
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Private US lunar lander Odysseus touches down on the moon for first time since 1972
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NY Post ^
| February 22, 2024 | Patrick Reilly
A private robotic rover touched down on the moon Thursday, becoming the first US spacecraft in more than 50 years to land on the lunar surface. The
landing of the vehicle, built by Intuitive Machines, also marked the first time in history a private company successfully pulled off the incredible feat. The craft – dubbed Odysseus – landed some 250,000 miles away near the south pole of the moon around 6:23 p.m. ET — although communication between the rover and crews on the ground were weak, officials said. “We’re evaluating how we can refine that signal,” said mission director Tim...
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America returns {umanned} spaceship to the Moon, a private sector first
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Space Daily ^
| Feb 23, 2024 | Issam AHMED
For the first time since the Apollo era, an American spaceship has landed on the Moon: an uncrewed commercial robot, funded by NASA to pave the way for US astronauts to return to Earth's cosmic neighbor later this decade. Odysseus,
built by Houston-based Intuitive Machines, touched down near the lunar south pole Thursday at 2323 GMT, after a nail-biting final descent where flight controllers had to switch to an experimental landing system and took several minutes to establish radio contact with the lander after it came to rest. "Today for the first time in more than a half century, the...
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U.S. lands unmanned Odysseus spacecraft on moon
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Yahoo! ^
| Thu, February 22, 2024 at 6:08 PM CST | Dylan Stableford and Caitlin Dickson
An unmanned, robotic lunar lander launched by a private U.S. company landed on the moon Thursday evening. “We
can confirm, without a doubt, that our equipment is on the surface of the moon,” said Stephen Altemus, CEO of Intuitive Machines, the Houston-based company that operated the Odysseus spacecraft. “Welcome to the moon.” As it approached the surface of the moon, Odysseus lost contact with NASA, resulting in several anxious minutes for those who worked on the joint project. But after approximately 15 minutes of searching, officials confirmed that they were once again receiving signals from the spacecraft. “A commercial lander...
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More chips, anyone? QQQ to the moon!
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Stockcharts ^
| 2/22/24 | self
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‘Odie’ lunar mission takes off, aiming for historic US moon landing
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Accuweather - Space ^
| Feb 15, 2024 8:11 AM CST | By Jackie Wattles,
The Odysseus lander launched atop a SpaceX rocket on a journey to the lunar surface — aiming for the first touchdown of a US-made spacecraft on the moon in decades. The
Odysseus lunar lander, nicknamed “Odie” or IM-1, has embarked on a historic journey to the lunar surface — aiming to make the first touchdown of a US-made spacecraft on the moon in five decades. The launch follows closely on the heels of a separate US lunar landing mission that failed in January. NASA has ramped up the development of robotic spacecraft via private partners to evaluate the lunar environment...
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Astronomy Picture of the Day - A January Wolf Moon
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NASA ^
| 13 Feb, 2024 | Image Credit & Copyright: Antoni Zegarski
Explanation: Did you see the full moon last month? During
every month, on average, a full moon occurs in the skies over planet Earth. This is because the Moon takes a month to complete another orbit around our home planet, goes through all of its phases, and once again has its entire Earth-facing half lit by reflected sunlight. Many indigenous cultures give each full moon a name, and this past full moon's names include the Ice Moon, the Stay at Home Moon, and the Quiet Moon. Occurring in January on the modern western calendar, several cultures have also named the...
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NASA’s Juno Captures Stunning Images of Jupiter’s Volcanic Moon Io in Closest Flybys Yet
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Scitech Daily ^
| FEBRUARY 11, 2024 | By NASA
Jupiter’s moon Io, its night side illuminated by reflected sunlight from Jupiter, or “Jupitershine.” Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS, Emma Wälimäki © CC BY NASA’s Juno spacecraft has conducted the closest flybys of Jupiter’s moon Io in over two decades, capturing detailed images with its JunoCam instrument. NASA’s
Juno spacecraft just made the closest flybys of Jupiter’s moon Io that any spacecraft has carried out in more than 20 years. An instrument on this spacecraft called “JunoCam” returned spectacular, high-resolution images—and raw data are now available for you to process, enhance, and investigate. On December 30th, 2023, Juno came within about 930 miles...
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Astronomy Picture of the Day - Rocket Plume Shadow Points to the Moon
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NASA ^
| 11 Feb, 2024 | Image Credit: Pat McCracken, NASA
Explanation: Why would the shadow of a rocket's launch plume point toward the Moon? In early 2001 during a launch of the space shuttle Atlantis, the Sun, Earth, Moon, and rocket were all properly aligned for this photogenic coincidence. First,
for the space shuttle's plume to cast a long shadow, the time of day must be either near sunrise or sunset. Only then will the shadow be its longest and extend all the way to the horizon. Finally, during a Full Moon, the Sun and Moon are on opposite sides of the sky. Just after sunset, for example, the Sun...
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Are we worse at Moon landings than 50 years ago?
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BBC ^
Japan's Moon lander ended up on its nose when it made its historic touchdown on the lunar surface. A
US lunar lander has "no chance" of making a soft landing on the Moon due to a fuel leak. We've set foot on the Moon multiple times. So why all the recent mission failures?
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Astronomy Picture of the Day - SLIM Lands on the Moon
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NASA ^
| 30 Jan, 2024 | Image Credit & Copyright: JAXA, Takara Tomy, Sony Co., Doshisha U.
Explanation: New landers are on the Moon. Nearly two weeks ago, Japan's Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) released two rovers as it descended, before its main lander touched down itself. The
larger of the two rovers can hop like a frog, while the smaller rover is about the size of a baseball and can move after pulling itself apart like a transformer. The main lander, nicknamed Moon Sniper, is seen in the featured image taken by the smaller rover. Inspection of the image shows that Moon Sniper's thrusters are facing up, meaning that the lander is upside down from...
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SLIM IS BACK: Upside Down Japanese Moon Lander Recharged Batteries and Resumed Lunar Mission
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Gateway Pundit ^
| Jan. 29, 2024 8:45 am | By Paul Serran
In a surprising turn of events, the ‘bittwersweet’ triumph by the Japanese Space Agency JAXA has taken a turn for the better, as the SLIM spacecraft has regained power. The
module performed a historical and very precise lunar landing a a little over a week ago, but ran out of electricity because it ‘ended up upside down in the moon surface’, with solar panels facing the wrong direction. But on late Sunday (28), JAXA finally re-established communication with its Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM). The spacecraft touchdown made Japan the fifth country to put a spacecraft on the moon,...
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Astronomy Picture of the Day - Full Observatory Moon
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NASA ^
| 27 Jan, 2024 | Image Credit & Copyright: Yuri Beletsky (Carnegie Las Campanas Observatory, TWAN)
Explanation: A popular name for January's full moon in the northern hemisphere is the Full Wolf Moon. As the new year's first full moon, it rises over Las Campanas Observatory in this dramatic Earth-and-moonscape. Peering from the foreground like astronomical eyes are the observatory's twin 6.5 meter diameter Magellan telescopes. The
snapshot was captured with telephoto lens across rugged terrain in the Chilean Atacama Desert, taken at a distance of about 9 miles from the observatory and about 240,000 miles from the lunar surface. Of course the first full moon of the lunar new year, known to some as the...
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NASA Juno spacecraft picks up hints of activity on Jupiter's icy moon Europa...The close approach to reveal possible proof of recent surface activity in the Jovan system.
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SPACE.com ^
| 25 January 2024 | By Andrew Jones
(Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SETI Institute) NASA's Juno spacecraft made a close flyby of Jupiter's intriguing moon Europa in 2022, revealing potential hints of present day surface activity. The
spacecraft's Stellar Reference Unit (SRU), which is a star camera designed to assist Juno's onboard attitude determination, was used to image Europa's surface with high resolution while being lit up by Jupiter-shine, or sunlight scattered off Jupiter. The SRU image from the flyby is explored in an article published in the journal JGR Planets on Dec. 22, 2023. The image shows an oddly-shaped area of the icy surface, measuring 23 miles by 42...
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NASA’S Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Fired a LASER at a Spacecraft On the MOON. Here's the Reason Why.
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The Debrief ^
| JANUARY 24, 2024 | MICAH HANKS
NASA recently revealed that a laser beam was fired from its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) at a spacecraft on the Moon’s surface, in a technological first that could pave the path toward new methods of precision target location. The
American space agency says a laser beam was transmitted from the LRO’s laser altimeter instrument at a tiny device on the Indian Space Research Organization’s (ISRO) Vikram lander on December 12, 2023. The transmission occurred while the LRO was more than 60 miles away as it passed over the lunar South Pole when it fired a series of laser pulses at...
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