Author Topic: Resource Prospector  (Read 106854 times)

Offline KelvinZero

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Re: Resource Prospector
« Reply #40 on: 11/19/2015 10:47 pm »
More like the 'Begging For A Sponsor and Money' phase.  They've been pitching this thing to anyone who will listen and nobody's taken them up yet.

I've been reading these presentations on Prospector for a while now and I agree with what Blackstar up thread.  AFAICT it doesn't address any compelling science for SMD and HEOMD ain't going to the Lunar surface anytime soon.
https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/heo/about.html
http://science.nasa.gov/about-us/

That also supports one of my paranoid amazing people rants. Precursors just fall through the gap between planetary science and HSF. Planetary science is not interested in human requirements in space. The HSF BEO budget won't go anywhere near ISRU unless it can place an SLS launch and an Orion mission on the critical path.

Offline A_M_Swallow

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Re: Resource Prospector
« Reply #41 on: 11/20/2015 12:00 am »
{snip}
That also supports one of my paranoid amazing people rants. Precursors just fall through the gap between planetary science and HSF. Planetary science is not interested in human requirements in space. The HSF BEO budget won't go anywhere near ISRU unless it can place an SLS launch and an Orion mission on the critical path.

The Prospector Mission can be launched on a current medium sized launch vehicle. However to produce sufficient oxygen to support a Moon Base and LOX for ascent stages will require a large ISRU plant and some heavy mining equipment. If the set plus a lander goes over 53 tonnes then only an SLS can launch them to LEO.

Offline savuporo

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Re: Resource Prospector
« Reply #42 on: 04/01/2016 02:15 am »
More like the 'Begging For A Sponsor and Money' phase.  They've been pitching this thing to anyone who will listen and nobody's taken them up yet.

https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/files/Status-of-AES-tagged.pdf

MAFOR FY16 MILESTONES
Apr 2016  Resource Prospector : Complete lunar lander study with Taiwan

Apparently Colapretegave a presentation at LPSC2016 on the status, would be interesting to hear what he said

http://www.planetary.brown.edu/html_pages/micro57program.htm

Tony Colaprete: Resource Prospector: Overview and Current Status.
Jen Heldmann: Resource Prospector: Science Goals & Implementation.
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Offline AegeanBlue

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Re: Resource Prospector
« Reply #43 on: 04/01/2016 01:05 pm »
On the HEOMD report it says later (p. 26):

Apr 2016  Resource Prospector : Complete lunar lander study with Taiwan

Offline savuporo

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Re: Resource Prospector
« Reply #44 on: 06/01/2016 02:41 pm »
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Offline Phil Stooke

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Re: Resource Prospector
« Reply #45 on: 06/01/2016 02:49 pm »
Or, just making progress and hoping for the best?

Offline AegeanBlue

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Re: Resource Prospector
« Reply #46 on: 06/05/2016 05:21 am »
There is a 4 article on Resource Prospector in the current edition of Room magazine. The gist is that their main achievement is having the RP15 earth prototype to test what they can put on the actual spacecraft. They do not intend to develop a lander, I think it said that they intended to procure one from the commercial sector (GLXP winners?). Their estimated price is $250 mil without the launch vehicle with a launch date of 2021. They are using COTS part: the battery comes from Robonaut, most of the sensors were COTS used for LCROSS and the UV spectrometer also with LADEE. They will not use RAD hard electronics because they do not intend the mission to last long, only achieve limited goals in limited time. The general gist I got was that it is a LCROSS followup with similar philosophy, albeit different goals. The other feeling I got was that they were hoping for money and a ride to the moon to materialize. My sense is that the project will probably scrape resources for HEOMD and SMD to keep going, as in some unspent money some fiscal year diverted there or helping test a control center that needs a mission to test to see if the renovation worked, though both these directorates already have side missions with launches to send resources (e.g. STPSat-2 payloads, EM-1 cubesats). It's best chance IMO, and if anyone else has insider info please share, is as a secondary payload on EM-2. Otherwise it might just languish on the back burner until its people retire

Offline Space Core

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Re: Resource Prospector
« Reply #47 on: 07/19/2016 05:51 pm »
"NASA orders lunar lander from Taiwan"

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2016/07/19/2003651332

tl;dr  Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology will build a lander for Resource Prospector to the sum of ~$47 million.  Expected to be completed by 2018 and launch in the early 2020s, if mission is approved.  Not much more in details beyond what's already been stated in this thread.

Edit: Found another article, this one stating the mass of the lander at 3.7 metric tons.

Apologies in advance, it's Yahoo! News.  You'll be fine, so long as you don't read the comments.  /RaidersOfTheLostArk
https://www.yahoo.com/tech/taiwan-lunar-lander-nasa-moon-mining-mission-114229535.html
« Last Edit: 07/19/2016 06:09 pm by Space Core »

Offline savuporo

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Re: Resource Prospector
« Reply #48 on: 11/01/2016 09:54 pm »
Rubbing some salt in for kicks.
Quote
Green shows list of upcoming international lunar missions. He's having conversations w/Russia, S Korea others on how NASA can participate.
https://twitter.com/SpcPlcyOnline/status/793514212098203648

Notice the wishful 2020 date for Resource Prospector ?

Lets take a look :
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20160009272.pdf
FY21/22 launch at best. SRR has been pushed year by year for last 3 years or so.



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Offline Phil Stooke

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Re: Resource Prospector
« Reply #49 on: 11/07/2016 08:04 pm »
"SRR has been pushed year by year for last 3 years or so."

Although iterations of it are tied to particular dates (of necessity, so the illumination and Earth comm can be modelled accurately for any given scenario), it is still a concept being explored for a future flight.  It's not like a mission in active development which is being delayed due to technical or budgetary problems.  Eventually the concept may be taken up - it is important, and will be more so if the Moon occupies a larger role in the future than it has for NASA in the last few years. 

 I have followed the reports from LEAG, LPSC etc. for the last 5 years on this, and the scenarios of mission ops and the software needed to plan ops are becoming more mature all the time.  That's where the progress is, real progress.  When the stars align it will be ready to go. 

Online Steven Pietrobon

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Re: Resource Prospector
« Reply #50 on: 11/11/2016 06:28 am »
Notice the wishful 2020 date for Resource Prospector ?

Lets take a look :
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20160009272.pdf
FY21/22 launch at best. SRR has been pushed year by year for last 3 years or so.

FY21 begins in October 2020, so 2020 would be the earliest they could launch.
Akin's Laws of Spacecraft Design #1:  Engineering is done with numbers.  Analysis without numbers is only an opinion.

Offline TrevorMonty

Re: Resource Prospector
« Reply #51 on: 11/22/2016 04:33 pm »
Could Moon express MX1e with its 10kg science payload be capable of determining ice content of Lunar craters.

Offline Phil Stooke

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Re: Resource Prospector
« Reply #52 on: 11/27/2016 07:11 pm »
The first MoonEx mission is thought to be to middle latitudes, not a pole.  But a small vehicle like that might be able to carry a small radar sounder, and a few hops might help locate some ice (the goal is to measure the horizontal and vertical distributiuon of ice in the regolith).  So someone needs to buy space on a future lander to do exactly that (i.e a client of MoonEx, not MoonEx itself).

Offline AegeanBlue

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Re: Resource Prospector
« Reply #53 on: 01/13/2017 04:26 pm »
An article on Resource Prospector has appeared online. Does not say much:

Now Space article


Edit/Lar: Long link!
« Last Edit: 01/18/2017 08:49 pm by Lar »

Offline turbopumpfeedback2

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Re: Resource Prospector
« Reply #54 on: 01/13/2017 08:49 pm »
Talk by Daniel Andrews (RP manager) from about a month ago at google:




Offline AegeanBlue

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Re: Resource Prospector
« Reply #55 on: 01/17/2017 04:56 am »
Talk by Daniel Andrews (RP manager) from about a month ago at google:





Interesting talk. So the project moved from Phase A to Phase B. Did NASA formally approve a new start? He never mentioned the Taiwanese involvement. They are trying to avoid doing an all out test of the whole rover on a vacuum chamber, hanging from a rope to simulate lunar gravity and driving over lunar soil simulant. Skimping on testing worked out so well during the Faster Cheaper Better era ...

Offline savuporo

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Re: Resource Prospector
« Reply #56 on: 01/17/2017 05:19 am »
"We are single-string, meaning no redundancy .."

What the actual frump ? They are sending a lunar lander with single-string avionics if they can squeeze by ? That makes no sense.

Edit:
Interesting talk. So the project moved from Phase A to Phase B. Did NASA formally approve a new start?

Nope, that's not what was said at all. Still pending SRR in FY17, which would be gate for phase B. Effectively this means it's pushed back another year, again.
« Last Edit: 01/17/2017 05:50 am by savuporo »
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Offline AegeanBlue

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Re: Resource Prospector
« Reply #57 on: 01/18/2017 08:32 pm »
I thought I saw in the presentation at the end, where he was talking about the status, a slide that they were in Phase B, component testing. I can be totally wrong, I am not claiming infallibility.

They are moving forward, slowly, using whatever funding they can scrape. They definitely have too much risk, single points of failure, insufficient testing. On the flip side though they are definitely maturing, if they can mitigate enough risk to actually meet the success criteria when they launch though is open. It is obvious that they have no ride to the moon, from the very beginning the idea is to be a cheap add on to the next moon mission. If they do not have a ride there is no point in rushing forward. So the question is, what mission is willing to offer them a ride? Can they fit to EM-2? If New Frontiers 4 selects a mission to South Pole Aitken, how do they interact with that? Would they be competitive or complementary? In a few months, when the Presidential transition is over and some decisions have been taken, we will see if this mission will move out of development hell into actual production.

Offline savuporo

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Re: Resource Prospector
« Reply #58 on: 01/18/2017 09:18 pm »
So the question is, what mission is willing to offer them a ride? Can they fit to EM-2?
'Ride' as in launch isn't the big deal, missing lander is.
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Offline A_M_Swallow

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Re: Resource Prospector
« Reply #59 on: 01/19/2017 06:50 am »
So the question is, what mission is willing to offer them a ride? Can they fit to EM-2?
'Ride' as in launch isn't the big deal, missing lander is.

Resource Prospector will just have to hope that Lunar CATALYST successfully produces a lander. Moon Express or Masten Space are possible suppliers.

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