Author Topic: Astrobotic Technology Annouces Lunar Mission on SpaceX Falcon 9  (Read 130126 times)

Offline rcoppola

  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2355
  • USA
  • Liked: 1967
  • Likes Given: 970
This is absolutely wonderful news, and makes me wonder. This question might need to be it's own thread, unless there is one already.

Once Dragon is fitted with it's push LAS and tri-legs for vertical landing, could dragon use it's LAS propellent to handle a moon landing and lift-off? Using the last of it for de-orbit and then a traditional splashdown?

Crazy I know, but is it really? I know they won't be standing up for the decent, but with today's nav hard and software, does it matter?

Could we squeeze enough fuel to bust back out of LO?
Sail the oceans of space and set foot upon new lands!
http://www.stormsurgemedia.com

Offline Jason1701

  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2232
  • Liked: 70
  • Likes Given: 152
This is absolutely wonderful news, and makes me wonder. This question might need to be it's own thread, unless there is one already.

Once Dragon is fitted with it's push LAS and tri-legs for vertical landing, could dragon use it's LAS propellent to handle a moon landing and lift-off? Using the last of it for de-orbit and then a traditional splashdown?

Crazy I know, but is it really? I know they won't be standing up for the decent, but with today's nav hard and software, does it matter?

Could we squeeze enough fuel to bust back out of LO?

Sorry, no. You're talking about 3-5 km/s delta-v, which is far more than the LAS will be capable of. The LAS-equipped Dragon won't actually have that much more fuel than a Dragon Cargo, it will just be able to use it much quicker.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c9/Deltavs.svg

Offline ugordan

  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 8520
    • My mainly Cassini image gallery
  • Liked: 3543
  • Likes Given: 759
Well, this is certainly going to be interesting. They are planning to use a commercial off the shelf intel atom board. They did some tests indicating that it can survive cryogenic temperatures. But surely the radiation environment on the moon would be a problem.

Quite. Latchups and other radiation effects could definitely make things "interesting" once in space.

Offline rklaehn

  • interplanetary telemetry plumber
  • Full Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 1259
  • germany
  • Liked: 191
  • Likes Given: 318
Well, this is certainly going to be interesting. They are planning to use a commercial off the shelf intel atom board. They did some tests indicating that it can survive cryogenic temperatures. But surely the radiation environment on the moon would be a problem.

Quite. Latchups and other radiation effects could definitely make things "interesting" once in space.

They probably don't have much choice. They need some serious computing power for the realtime image recognition they plan to do. Using radiation-hardened computers with the performance of an intel atom would probably bust their budget.

I guess they will try to shield the processor as good as possible, try to make the software fault-tolerant, and hope for the best.
« Last Edit: 02/06/2011 08:01 pm by rklaehn »

Offline ugordan

  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 8520
    • My mainly Cassini image gallery
  • Liked: 3543
  • Likes Given: 759
They probably don't have much choice. They need some serious computing power for the realtime image recognition they plan to do.

That clip was about temperature-triggered wakeup from hibernation so I'm thinking it's meant for the rover itself, not the descent system terrain tracking.

One other thing I'm unclear on. They say they're planning to return HD video from the surface of the moon. How exactly? Where will the bitrate to support that come from? On the other hand, downlinking one frame every N seconds doesn't exactly constitute "video".
« Last Edit: 02/06/2011 08:18 pm by ugordan »

Offline rklaehn

  • interplanetary telemetry plumber
  • Full Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 1259
  • germany
  • Liked: 191
  • Likes Given: 318
They probably don't have much choice. They need some serious computing power for the realtime image recognition they plan to do.

That clip was about temperature-triggered wakeup from hibernation so I'm thinking it's meant for the rover itself, not the descent system terrain tracking.

I am sure they will do some image recognition on the rover as well. They will also have to do full hd video encoding and compression. That's the only way they can transfer significant amounts of full hd video.

Maybe the radiation environment on the moon is less severe than in flight. And certainly a reboot of the lander computer during a maneuver or during descent is much more critical than a reboot of the rover computer.

Makes you wonder if they will use an atom as well for the lander, or a top of the line rad-hardened computer...
« Last Edit: 02/06/2011 08:24 pm by rklaehn »

Offline Jorge

  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 6404
  • Liked: 529
  • Likes Given: 67
They probably don't have much choice. They need some serious computing power for the realtime image recognition they plan to do.

That clip was about temperature-triggered wakeup from hibernation so I'm thinking it's meant for the rover itself, not the descent system terrain tracking.

One other thing I'm unclear on. They say they're planning to return HD video from the surface of the moon. How exactly? Where will the bitrate to support that come from? On the other hand, downlinking one frame every N seconds doesn't exactly constitute "video".

Sure it does. Record onboard at high bitrate, transmit at low, playback on earth at high. They didn't say "live" HD video, did they?
JRF

Offline Mark S

  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2284
  • Dallas, TX
  • Liked: 396
  • Likes Given: 80
I second that they shouldn't be going to 11. Not just because it should be left pristine due its high historical value, but also that site was chosen because it was boring, 15,16 or 17 would seem to be better choices.

How about the sites planned for 18, 19, and 20?  Why retread old ground, while at the same time risking permanent damage to historic sites? Unless of course they are just going as a publicity stunt.

Mark S.

Offline rklaehn

  • interplanetary telemetry plumber
  • Full Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 1259
  • germany
  • Liked: 191
  • Likes Given: 318
They probably don't have much choice. They need some serious computing power for the realtime image recognition they plan to do.

That clip was about temperature-triggered wakeup from hibernation so I'm thinking it's meant for the rover itself, not the descent system terrain tracking.

One other thing I'm unclear on. They say they're planning to return HD video from the surface of the moon. How exactly? Where will the bitrate to support that come from? On the other hand, downlinking one frame every N seconds doesn't exactly constitute "video".

Sure it does. Record onboard at high bitrate, transmit at low, playback on earth at high. They didn't say "live" HD video, did they?

They specify the data requirements in great detail in the guidelines: http://www.googlelunarxprize.org/files/downloads/lunar/GLXP_Guidelines_v3_Nov_20_2008.pdf.

The minimum dataset consists of at least two 500mb "mooncast" datasets. I assume that those contain the HD ((720p) video.

"Near real time" video must be 320x240 or better.

They have up to 14 days to send back this data. Assuming they use the entire available time (not likely), that would be (2^30*8)/(3600*24*14)=7101.46709 bit/s just for the video.

The rover looks like it has no directional antenna. So either they rent some big receivers for the mission, or they transfer the data to the lander and send it from there using a high-gain directional antenna.

Offline Jorge

  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 6404
  • Liked: 529
  • Likes Given: 67
I second that they shouldn't be going to 11. Not just because it should be left pristine due its high historical value, but also that site was chosen because it was boring, 15,16 or 17 would seem to be better choices.

How about the sites planned for 18, 19, and 20?  Why retread old ground, while at the same time risking permanent damage to historic sites? Unless of course they are just going as a publicity stunt.

They would be going in order to win one of the bonus prizes.

http://www.googlelunarxprize.org/lunar/about-the-prize/rules-and-guidelines

Quote
$4 million in bonus prizes are available for achieving other specific mission objectives, including operation at night; traveling more than 5km over the lunar surface; detection of water; and precision landing near an Apollo site or other lunar sites of interest (such as landing/crash sites of man-made space hardware).
JRF

Offline ugordan

  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 8520
    • My mainly Cassini image gallery
  • Liked: 3543
  • Likes Given: 759
The rover looks like it has no directional antenna. So either they rent some big receivers for the mission, or they transfer the data to the lander and send it from there using a high-gain directional antenna.

That's kind of my point. Even if video is recorded onboard and then played back to Earth at a snail's pace, the bitrate would still suck unless a directional antenna is used from somewhere on the Moon. The lander, an orbiting relay craft, whatever.

Offline mr. mark

  • Full Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 1996
  • Liked: 172
  • Likes Given: 0
As for me this is WAY more exciting than the Super Bowl! Here is the intended flight plan just for some extra fun.
« Last Edit: 02/06/2011 08:59 pm by mr. mark »

Offline rklaehn

  • interplanetary telemetry plumber
  • Full Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 1259
  • germany
  • Liked: 191
  • Likes Given: 318
The rover looks like it has no directional antenna. So either they rent some big receivers for the mission, or they transfer the data to the lander and send it from there using a high-gain directional antenna.

That's kind of my point. Even if video is recorded onboard and then played back to Earth at a snail's pace, the bitrate would still suck unless a directional antenna is used from somewhere on the Moon. The lander, an orbiting relay craft, whatever.

You might be able to use an omnidirectional antenna if you had a really big receiver on earth. Galileo's omnidirectional antenna was able to transfer 160 bits/s from Jupiter. But I guess most competitors are going to use some kind of relay.

Offline docmordrid

  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 6334
  • Michigan
  • Liked: 4207
  • Likes Given: 2
Used a hardware encoding chip set up for;

720p (1280x720 progressive)
15 frames/sec
32 kBytes/sec bitrate   

I just encoded one of SpaceX's HD videos to those settings and it's more than adequate.
« Last Edit: 02/06/2011 09:10 pm by docmordrid »
DM

Offline rklaehn

  • interplanetary telemetry plumber
  • Full Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 1259
  • germany
  • Liked: 191
  • Likes Given: 318
Used a hardware encoding chip set up for;

720p (1280x720 progressive)
15 frames/sec
32 kBytes/sec bitrate   

I just encoded one of SpaceX's HD videos to those settings and it's more than adequate.

The requirements are given in megabytes, not in seconds of footage. Better encoding means you will have more footage, but does not change the 2*500 MB requirement.

Edit: at these settings, one of the data packs would be more than 4 hours of HD video footage (or >2 hours of stereoscopic footage). I am really looking forward to this. I hope that more than one team will make an attempt.
« Last Edit: 02/06/2011 09:23 pm by rklaehn »

Offline rklaehn

  • interplanetary telemetry plumber
  • Full Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 1259
  • germany
  • Liked: 191
  • Likes Given: 318
I just read this passage in the "rules and regulations" section of the website
http://www.googlelunarxprize.org/lunar/about-the-prize/rules-and-guidelines
:

The competition's grand prize is worth $20 million. To provide an extra incentive for teams to work quickly, the grand prize value will change to $15 million whenever a government-funded mission successfully explores the lunar surface, currently projected to occur in 2013.

Is this new? I seem to remember that the deadlines used to be fixed.

What government-funded mission do they mean? Does NASA have a lander planned for 2013?

Offline RocketEconomist327

  • Rocket Economist
  • Full Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 812
  • Infecting the beltway with fiscal responsibility, limited government, and free markets.
  • Liked: 96
  • Likes Given: 62
This is almost like JPL v2.0

They have worked with NASA too.  This is what NASA should do, inspire.  Good work Astrobotic but very nice job NASA.

NASA wins today.



VR
RE327
You can talk about all the great things you can do, or want to do, in space; but unless the rocket scientists get a sound understanding of economics (and quickly), the US space program will never achieve the greatness it should.

Putting my money where my mouth is.

Offline A_M_Swallow

  • Elite Veteran
  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 8906
  • South coast of England
  • Liked: 500
  • Likes Given: 223
So by 2014 Astrobotic hopes to have a flight tested 80kg payload lunar lander.  That may permit the testing of small ISRU equipment and prospecting equipment.

Ten years ago there were problems getting batteries to work in Arctic and Antarctic conditions, so there may be a spin off market for the battery.

If the cols surviving computer is nuclear hard there may be other customers for it.

Offline Nomadd

  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 8840
  • Lower 48
  • Liked: 60430
  • Likes Given: 1305
 The moon isn't that much further than geo signal wise. Just another 20db.
 They might get some sat controller or broadcaster to let them use an 18M or so backup dish, as long as they knew it could get yanked for it's regular job at any minute. I've seen some pretty nifty 1M folding dishes. It would be fun to make them vacuum and ludicrous temp variation compatible.
 Sending data to the lander like Pathfinder did should be the easiest way.  Not with Radio Shack 400mhz radios that quit when their temps get a tiny bit out of sync though. Maybe some triple redundant (cheaper than hardening) 802.something. I don't think there will be a lot of Bluetooth headsets around to interfere.
Those who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who couldn't hear the music.

Offline Robotbeat

  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 39270
  • Minnesota
  • Liked: 25240
  • Likes Given: 12115
Intel's Atom chip doesn't support ECC (unless that has changed in a new version). Perhaps they would be better off going with an ARM processor? They are industry standard, there are high-performance ones available, and some are available that are actually rad-hard. There are also some high-performance (dual-core, 7500 MIPS, 64-bit) rad-hard PowerPC processors that are available. But... I guess if you are willing to take a risk and only need to last a month and are able to have a little bit of shielding, and design the system to recover from errors... It's not irresponsible to go without a rad-hard CPU (but really? no ECC support?).

Are they using just one Intel Atom chip? If they are using multiples, I can imagine them doing a sort of redundant setup.
Chris  Whoever loves correction loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid.

To the maximum extent practicable, the Federal Government shall plan missions to accommodate the space transportation services capabilities of United States commercial providers. US law http://goo.gl/YZYNt0

Tags:
 

Advertisement NovaTech
Advertisement Northrop Grumman
Advertisement
Advertisement Margaritaville Beach Resort South Padre Island
Advertisement Brady Kenniston
Advertisement NextSpaceflight
Advertisement Nathan Barker Photography
1