Author Topic: Moon Express MX-1  (Read 108794 times)

Offline FutureSpaceTourist

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Re: Moon Express MX-1
« Reply #100 on: 07/12/2017 02:37 pm »
Quote
MOON ΞXPRΞSS‏ @MoonEx 5m5 minutes ago

Today we unveiled our exploration architecture & plans for a robotic outpost at the south pole of the Moon by 2020. http://www.moonexpress.com
https://twitter.com/MoonEx/status/885144363420049408

Here's a write-up:

Quote
Moon Express announces plans to build lunar outpost by 2020
The Moon could soon be open for business.

Eric Berger - 7/12/2017, 3:30 PM
https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/07/private-company-plans-to-bring-moon-rocks-back-to-earth-in-three-years/

Offline synchrotron

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Re: Moon Express MX-1
« Reply #101 on: 07/12/2017 05:59 pm »
Moon Express shows off mockups, other providers' prototype hardware, and powerpoint slides. Their launch date has slipped year-for-year dating back to 2015. Why are they still getting coverage? Because they tweet?

Offline ChrisWilson68

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Re: Moon Express MX-1
« Reply #102 on: 07/12/2017 06:12 pm »
Moon Express shows off mockups, other providers' prototype hardware, and powerpoint slides. Their launch date has slipped year-for-year dating back to 2015. Why are they still getting coverage? Because they tweet?

The news outlets covering them get a story that draws readers.  What do they care if it's unrealistic?

There's a reason that some people come to this site, to get an honest discussion, including all the pessimistic viewpoints.  Most people don't know or care enough and just click on the exciting story, without having a filter for what's plausible and what's not.

Offline meberbs

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Re: Moon Express MX-1
« Reply #103 on: 07/12/2017 06:16 pm »
Moon Express shows off mockups, other providers' prototype hardware, and powerpoint slides. Their launch date has slipped year-for-year dating back to 2015. Why are they still getting coverage? Because they tweet?
They are still getting coverage because your statements about them are false. They have done tests including powered landing tests on their own hardware. The current expected launch is in less than six months, incompatible with your claim of year for year slips. Especially since expected launch was in 2017 as of 2015.

Maybe you have them confused for some other company.

edit: typo
« Last Edit: 07/12/2017 06:22 pm by meberbs »

Offline FutureSpaceTourist

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Re: Moon Express MX-1
« Reply #104 on: 07/12/2017 06:28 pm »
I’ve seen a fair amount of skepticism today from industry insiders in response to this announcement.

Here’s an example exchange:

Quote
I'd take them more seriously if they had pictures of flight hardware by now instead of just mockups and glossy ambitions.
https://twitter.com/rocketrepreneur/status/885158533091672064

Quote
supposedly they have built two engines.
https://twitter.com/sciguyspace/status/885162697146466304

Quote
Have they tested them?
https://twitter.com/nomadicnerd/status/885177227054166016

Quote
They plan to soon, Richards said.
https://twitter.com/sciguyspace/status/885184237393129474

Quote
Yeah, they got a 980 on the SAT
https://twitter.com/valleyhack/status/885177704152039424

Offline Navier–Stokes

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Re: Moon Express MX-1
« Reply #105 on: 07/12/2017 06:33 pm »
Here's Jeff Foust's write-up for SpaceNews: Moon Express releases details of its lunar lander missions
Quote
Richards, standing next to a full-scale mockup of the MX-1E, said work on that initial spacecraft is going well. “We have flight hardware already,” he said, citing development of the lander’s engine, called PECO, that uses rocket-grade kerosene and high-test hydrogen peroxide propellants. Two of those engines have been built and will soon be undergoing tests.

Other components of the spacecraft are either undergoing testing — its laser altimeter, Richards said, is being tested at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center — or are being manufactured. That includes the main spacecraft bus, a carbon composite “unibody” design that includes both the spacecraft structure and propellant tanks. The company did not release photos or videos of that hardware.

Current plans call for integrating the spacecraft components by September at the company’s facility at the former Launch Complex 17/18 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, then shipping the spacecraft to the New Zealand launch site of Rocket Lab, which will launch the spacecraft on its Electron rocket.

Offline savuporo

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Re: Moon Express MX-1
« Reply #106 on: 07/12/2017 06:59 pm »
The current expected launch is in less than six months, incompatible with your claim of year for year slips. Especially since expected launch was in 2017 as of 2015.


Aricle from November, 2011
https://www.space.com/13615-moon-express-lunar-lander-naveen-jain-interview.html
Quote
SPACE.com: When do you think your lunar lander could be ready?

Jain: Our team has proven out many of our critical subsystems of our lunar lander systems through rapid prototyping and will be proceeding on [an] accelerated flight program to meet our goal of a late 2013 or early 2014 launch to the moon.

EDIT: i think this right here also describes the problem:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/22/science/space/22moon.html
Quote
Meanwhile, at Moon Express, Mr. Jain’s imagination runs wild. A robot could scrawl a marriage proposal in the lunar dust, take a picture and send it to the customer’s beloved back on Earth. A time capsule filled with mementos or a strand of someone’s hair — and DNA — could be sent to the Moon, where it would persist, pristine in the airless environs.

The imagination in that team, from founders and investors and executives does run far ahead from the art of feasible.
« Last Edit: 07/12/2017 07:04 pm by savuporo »
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Online ringsider

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Re: Moon Express MX-1
« Reply #107 on: 07/12/2017 07:12 pm »
I think the main problem with Naveen Jain is his background.

Not a lot of people know this is the same Naveen Jain who did this:-

1. INFOSPACE

Dissecting The InfoSpace Dot Con

From the revenue?-we-don't-need-no-steenkin'-revenue... dept

InfoSpace was a company that definitely scared off a lot of people, thanks to the sheer hype spewing from the CEO's mouth. During the boom years, there were a lot of people wondering just what the company actually did. In 2002, we noted that atheists were rejoicing when InfoSpace was delisted just a couple years after CEO Naveen Jain was quoted as saying: "There are two kinds of people in this world... those who don't believe in God, and those who believe in God and InfoSpace. That's OK -- the nonbelievers will be converted when we become a trillion-dollar company."

It turns out that Jain wasn't just over-emphasizing the future prospects of the company, that (at the time) was nothing more than a random collection of content services (white pages, weather, horoscopes, etc.), he was outright lying about the existing business situation for the company. The Seattle Times is running a fascinating look at the con-job pulled by Jain to take a company that wasn't anything special, take it public, and then do anything and everything to boost the stock, including lying about the company's prospects and eventually doing a bunch of "lazy susan" deals, where InfoSpace would invest in a company (including one owned by Jain's brother) who would then turn around and "buy" services from InfoSpace -- turning existing cash into revenue. Meanwhile, the folks at Silicon Beat wonder if this sort of scam would have happened in Silicon Valley -- noting that all of the worst dot con scams all seemed to happen outside the Valley. (Updated to correct: InfoSpace was delisted, but did not declare bankruptcy).

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20050307/1735208.shtml

2. INTELIUS

Naveen Jain's Latest Quest For A Trillion Dollar Company May Be In Trouble

From the how-about-that? dept

Naveen Jain is nothing if not confident in himself. Back in 2000, as founder and CEO of InfoSpace, he famously declared both that InfoSpace was bigger than the internet, and that it would be the world's first trillion dollar company. More specifically, he said: "There are two kinds of people in this world... those who don't believe in God, and those who believe in God and InfoSpace. That's OK -- the nonbelievers will be converted when we become a trillion-dollar company." Now, it's one thing to be confident, but it's another thing to be cooking the books to try to get there. After InfoSpace imploded and Jain was sent packing, an investigative report uncovered all sorts of evidence about how much of InfoSpace's revenue was a huge scam, involving outright lies and "lazy susan" deals, where InfoSpace would "invest" in a company, who would turn around and pretend to buy InfoSpace services as a way to boost revenue.

Jain moved on and started a new company called Intelius, which claims to help you get background information on people -- though it's not hard to find many, many, many people who claim that the information is next to useless. Still, it's managed to bring in a ton of revenue, and with that has been planning to go public. However, Mike Arrington did a fantastic bit of sleuthing to discover that much of that revenue seems to come from a very questionable method.

Basically, Intelius gets you to cough up some money for the "information" it has on someone. Afterwards, it asks you to take a short survey, promising to give you $10 for your time. The survey is quick, but down below, in tiny gray-colored hard-to-read print, it notes that in submitting the "survey," you're actually agreeing to sign up for a $20/month "service" that, according to Arrington, doesn't appear to do anything other than charge you $20/month. As for that $10? Well, it's never mentioned again (nor is the $20/month you'll be paying... other than on your credit card bill). The "service" is a separate company (though Intelius gives them your credit card info), but clearly pays Intelius a fee for each signup. Arrington does a few back of the envelope calculations and figures that nearly all of Intelius' "growth" comes from these scammed deals, which, some claim are also difficult to cancel.

The whole thing stinks, and you would think that, given the situation with InfoSpace, the backers of Intelius' IPO would have done a bit more due diligence before agreeing to take the company public.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080530/0238341267.shtml

3. SEC

SEC complaint

https://www.sec.gov/litigation/briefs/2004/dreiling0304.pdf
« Last Edit: 07/12/2017 07:21 pm by ringsider »

Offline TrevorMonty

Re: Moon Express MX-1
« Reply #108 on: 07/12/2017 07:50 pm »
I like modular design concept.
Here some ideas for MX1E missions.


MX1E (RL version) while cheapest mission ($10m?) may not have enough payload to achieve much it can still be used as comms relay or observation post. Deliver ashes, DNA or keepsakes to surface.
As OTV it offers a few possibilities, cubesats to lunar orbit while itself staying in orbit as comms relay. Same can apply for asteriod missions. Earth departure for interplanetary cubesat missions.

M2 (VG version) would be about $20m and deliver enough payload to surface to do  useful exploration. Missions to Mars moons and orbit.

Offline meberbs

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Re: Moon Express MX-1
« Reply #109 on: 07/12/2017 08:01 pm »
The current expected launch is in less than six months, incompatible with your claim of year for year slips. Especially since expected launch was in 2017 as of 2015.


Aricle from November, 2011
https://www.space.com/13615-moon-express-lunar-lander-naveen-jain-interview.html
Quote
SPACE.com: When do you think your lunar lander could be ready?

Jain: Our team has proven out many of our critical subsystems of our lunar lander systems through rapid prototyping and will be proceeding on [an] accelerated flight program to meet our goal of a late 2013 or early 2014 launch to the moon.
To summarize the status:
2011: 2 - 2.5 years away
2015: 2 years away
2017: 6 months away

Year for year slips is not a valid complaint, at least not anymore.

This doesn't mean that I don't think their current schedule for completion isn't optimistic given their current status, but that is the case for basically any aerospace project.

-- Noting that the sentence above has a triple negative in it - yes, their schedule is probably still optimistic.

Offline Space Ghost 1962

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Re: Moon Express MX-1
« Reply #110 on: 07/12/2017 08:50 pm »
They have hardware, I've personally seen it. And watched tests. Likely it could function as a payload.

They won't win the GLXP - both LV and SC likely to not make it to a pad for a lunar launch before it expires.

Barney Pell (an investor) trash talked Musk to my face - from the babbling I get the idea they couldn't get a launch (probably free) out of him.

My guess is that they're attempting to reposition post GLXP to get something out of all of this.

Meanwhile Pell said he isn't doing anything in space.

Expect it to totter on. Until it doesn't.

Offline Steven Pietrobon

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Akin's Laws of Spacecraft Design #1:  Engineering is done with numbers.  Analysis without numbers is only an opinion.

Offline as58

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Re: Moon Express MX-1
« Reply #112 on: 07/13/2017 07:24 am »
To be fair, even Richards admits in the SpaceNews article that '6 months' is optimistic:
Quote
Richards admitted that the schedule was tight, both for spacecraft assembly and launch, in order to meet the deadline in the $20 million Google Lunar X Prize competition of launching by the end of the year. “We have a lot to do in a very short timeframe, and Rocket Lab has a lot to do in a very short timeframe,” he said.

Offline synchrotron

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Re: Moon Express MX-1
« Reply #113 on: 07/13/2017 01:24 pm »
Moon Express shows off mockups, other providers' prototype hardware, and powerpoint slides. Their launch date has slipped year-for-year dating back to 2015. Why are they still getting coverage? Because they tweet?
They are still getting coverage because your statements about them are false. They have done tests including powered landing tests on their own hardware. The current expected launch is in less than six months, incompatible with your claim of year for year slips. Especially since expected launch was in 2017 as of 2015.

Maybe you have them confused for some other company.

edit: typo

Incorrect. Better check which post has the false statements.  Moon Express did not develop the landing technology. It's out of Ames.  They have not funded it and they are not the design authority.

Offline synchrotron

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Re: Moon Express MX-1
« Reply #114 on: 07/13/2017 01:28 pm »
The current expected launch is in less than six months, incompatible with your claim of year for year slips. Especially since expected launch was in 2017 as of 2015.


Aricle from November, 2011
https://www.space.com/13615-moon-express-lunar-lander-naveen-jain-interview.html
Quote
SPACE.com: When do you think your lunar lander could be ready?

Jain: Our team has proven out many of our critical subsystems of our lunar lander systems through rapid prototyping and will be proceeding on [an] accelerated flight program to meet our goal of a late 2013 or early 2014 launch to the moon.

EDIT: i think this right here also describes the problem:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/22/science/space/22moon.html
Quote
Meanwhile, at Moon Express, Mr. Jain’s imagination runs wild. A robot could scrawl a marriage proposal in the lunar dust, take a picture and send it to the customer’s beloved back on Earth. A time capsule filled with mementos or a strand of someone’s hair — and DNA — could be sent to the Moon, where it would persist, pristine in the airless environs.

The imagination in that team, from founders and investors and executives does run far ahead from the art of feasible.


Yeah, they don't even know what they don't know. If you are launching a lunar lander in 6 months, you should already be doing integration testing of the spacecraft with the launch vehicle. Their partners (not Moon Express) are still prototyping parts.

The reason this "other peoples' money"/"other peoples' technology" makes me angry is they detract from other more credible providers by discrediting the smallsat approach with their Barnum and Bailey tripe.

Offline synchrotron

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Re: Moon Express MX-1
« Reply #115 on: 07/13/2017 01:30 pm »
The current expected launch is in less than six months, incompatible with your claim of year for year slips. Especially since expected launch was in 2017 as of 2015.


Aricle from November, 2011
https://www.space.com/13615-moon-express-lunar-lander-naveen-jain-interview.html
Quote
SPACE.com: When do you think your lunar lander could be ready?

Jain: Our team has proven out many of our critical subsystems of our lunar lander systems through rapid prototyping and will be proceeding on [an] accelerated flight program to meet our goal of a late 2013 or early 2014 launch to the moon.
To summarize the status:
2011: 2 - 2.5 years away
2015: 2 years away
2017: 6 months away

Year for year slips is not a valid complaint, at least not anymore.

This doesn't mean that I don't think their current schedule for completion isn't optimistic given their current status, but that is the case for basically any aerospace project.

-- Noting that the sentence above has a triple negative in it - yes, their schedule is probably still optimistic.

Nah, you've cherry picked their announcements.  They publicly predicted a 2015 launch in 2013. They are no closer to a mission today.

Offline Phil Stooke

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Re: Moon Express MX-1
« Reply #116 on: 07/13/2017 02:51 pm »
Those launch date predictions are following the GLXP deadline, not really predicting when launch might be possible.

Offline meberbs

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Re: Moon Express MX-1
« Reply #117 on: 07/13/2017 03:23 pm »
Moon Express shows off mockups, other providers' prototype hardware, and powerpoint slides. Their launch date has slipped year-for-year dating back to 2015. Why are they still getting coverage? Because they tweet?
They are still getting coverage because your statements about them are false. They have done tests including powered landing tests on their own hardware. The current expected launch is in less than six months, incompatible with your claim of year for year slips. Especially since expected launch was in 2017 as of 2015.

Maybe you have them confused for some other company.

edit: typo

Incorrect. Better check which post has the false statements.  Moon Express did not develop the landing technology. It's out of Ames.  They have not funded it and they are not the design authority.
Yours, on all counts. External funding, partnerships, etc. are an expected part of doing business. It doesn't matter if they got NASA funding or used NASA technology (which is available to U.S. companies for a reason). They have tested hardware, and they are building and testing the flight hardware.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAMPD65dvIY&feature=youtu.be

Offline Phil Stooke

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Re: Moon Express MX-1
« Reply #118 on: 07/13/2017 03:37 pm »
Also, the Ames Common Bus that they worked with some years ago is no longer what they are using.  They have had two different designs since then.  I am more concerned with the constant changes (similarly for Astrobotic).

Offline savuporo

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Re: Moon Express MX-1
« Reply #119 on: 07/13/2017 04:23 pm »
.. I am more concerned with the constant changes (similarly for Astrobotic).

Well, this being the 'iPhone of space', as it were, it does require a new version release every once in a while. Mark my words, they'll go wireless control systems and take off refueling port next year. Less is more.
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