This is one of the cubesats that was supposed to have been deployed in the last few hours from Artemis I. Has anybody seen any news?
I just looked at the DSN and they are communicating with like 4 of the cubesat missions right now (though Neoscout isn't one of them). I'm glad some of them are working, since they had dead battery problems due to not being charged for months.
This whole episode illustrates the weaknesses of rideshare. They are at the mercy of the prime payload and they are not a priority for the launch vehicle. The problems of the Janus mission, supposed to be launched with Psyche, is another example of this.And despite the glut of small launch vehicle programs, there doesn't appear to be anything that is really suitable for launching small interplanetary missions.
This whole episode illustrates the weaknesses of rideshare. They are at the mercy of the prime payload and they are not a priority for the launch vehicle. The problems of the Janus mission, supposed to be launched with Psyche, is another example of this.
Have any of the symplex missions worked?
Electron + Photon is suitable.
It does, but I think it goes beyond that. There are some difficult and nuanced questions to ask about what happens when the human exploration program and science (scientists, and SMD) try to cooperate. Unless that is handled very carefully, it can be very inefficient. In this case, "inefficient" means spending money on spacecraft that never became operational.If you think about it, it's pretty nuts that a part of NASA (remember that it was the human exploration side, not all of NASA) was willing to spend money on hardware/missions that it then had no interest in seeing succeed. And think about the people who worked on those things. They spent a considerable amount of time and effort building them only to have them fail.
Don't agree with this. There was extra upmass available, why not do something with it? Everyone knew it was taking a chance, first launch being unpredictable at the best of times. But flying the cubesats didn't hurt Artemis 1 and gave people a good opportunity to learn a lot even if things don't work. As it is we will probably get some useful results, e.g from LunaH-Map and Lunar IceCube. But look ahead - no cubesats on mission 2 and no word I am aware of if there will even be any more Artemis flights with cubesats. So saying 'don't fly cubesats on the first mission' doesn't look like a good strategy.
Don't agree with this. There was extra upmass available, why not do something with it?
Quote from: deadman1204 on 11/19/2022 03:08 amHave any of the symplex missions worked?Not yet.The first one failed just after launch. LunaH-Map, launched on Artemis 1, does appear to be alive. Janus and Escapade are looking for launches. Lunar Trailblazer will launch with a CLPS lander next year.Quote from: Robotbeat on 11/19/2022 04:44 amElectron + Photon is suitable.Rocket Lab/Electron/Photon does look like a promising platform for SIMPL-Ex to build on. It should be less volume limited than a cubesat, and offers a low cost dedicated launch.
The problem with flying the cubesats on Artemis I was the deployment from inside the core interstage. Where there is no access to the cubesats while the SLS is at the launch pad. There should be some better locations on the SLS launch stack to installed the cubesats.