Author Topic: Next Moon flight (Read 42632 times)

Tom Schmidt · « **on:** 07/28/2020 09:40 am »

Hello,

sorry for disturbing, but does anyone know, when the next moon flight is planned? By which country?

Thanks for support!

Shyrakeso · « **Reply #1 on:** 07/28/2020 10:13 am »

China is launching Chang'e 5, a lunar sample return mission on November 24th. c:

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=33431.0

Twark_Main · « **Reply #2 on:** 08/07/2020 06:18 pm »

Wow, the first lunar sample return since 1976! Thanks for the heads-up.

Forrest White · « **Reply #3 on:** 12/03/2020 09:29 am »

NASA Administrator stated that the program is planning an unmanned orbital mission called Artemis 1 for 2020 - as usual, it is delayed. In 2022 they planned the manned mission Artemis 2 which will move around the Moon. Finally, in 2024, a mission called Artemis-3 will take place, which will bring astronauts to the lunar surface, including the world's first woman.

Phil Stooke · « **Reply #4 on:** 12/05/2020 03:30 am »

The next Moon flight will probably be CAPSTONE, launched by Rocket Lab, probably in about April. The following one will presumably be Astrobotic's lander in the summer, and then Intuitive Machines at the end of the year. India's Chandrayaan 3 is probably going to be in 2022 rather than 2021, and I expect the same of Russia's Luna 25, but I could be wrong.

Phil Stooke · « **Reply #5 on:** 09/26/2021 09:05 pm »

Interesting to read that post from the perspective of September 2021.

CAPSTONE is still probably the next mission to the Moon - too bad we don't hear more about specific plans. After that... it looks like a toss-up between Artemis-1 and its cubesat flotilla, and Intuitive Machines IM-1. The first - who can say but I will guess January. The second - supposed to be launched in February. Next, possibly, Luna 25 or Japan's SLIM, mid-year some time. Moving into the fall, maybe Astrobotic's first Peregrine mission and ispace's Hakuto-R mission 1 (the Japanese ispace, not the Chinese one). Late in the year, Intuitive's IM-2 mission to the south pole and Chandrayaan 3, though the latter may slip into the following year.

It's going to get busy.

TrevorMonty · « **Reply #6 on:** 09/26/2021 11:50 pm »

Capstone has been delayed by NZ covid lockdown. Hopefully flies before end of year.

Sent from my SM-G570Y using Tapatalk

Phil Stooke · « **Reply #7 on:** 10/13/2021 07:18 am »

Now it's moved into February. Which is the next Moon flight? Could be a tight race between Capstone, Intuitive Machines IM-1 and Artemis 1 with its set of cubesats.

jdon759 · « **Reply #8 on:** 10/13/2021 07:44 am »

Quote from: Phil Stooke on 10/13/2021 07:18 am

Now it's moved into February. Which is the next Moon flight? Could be a tight race between Capstone, Intuitive Machines IM-1 and Artemis 1 with its set of cubesats.

Oooh, another race! SS v SLS to orbit, and now IM-1 v Artemis-1 v CAPSTONE to Luna! Having so many things all at once is fun.

Phil Stooke · « **Reply #9 on:** 11/17/2021 09:08 pm »

Updates... well, maybe Artemis 1 will be pushed back a bit into the summer, and it looks like CAPSTONE will be pushed back too, so that makes IM-1 the next lunar flight. Intuitive is doing pretty well these days - just awarded a third CLPS mission to Reiner Gamma. Let's hope they land successfully.

Phil Stooke · « **Reply #10 on:** 01/18/2022 05:26 pm »

Capstone (or rather, CAPSTONE) is now set for launch on March 19th. IM-1 is supposed to be in Q1 this year but I don't see any sign that the spacecraft is at the launch site being readied for a February launch so I will guess it goes up in March. Any information gratefully received! And Artemis 1 probably in April. Still bunched together as we head into he final straight.

Phil Stooke · « **Reply #11 on:** 01/27/2022 04:26 pm »

Today Intuitive Machines announced a delay of IM-1 to an unspecified date later this year. It looks like CAPSTONE will be the next lunar mission, then probably Artemis 1 if no snags next month.

Phil Stooke · « **Reply #12 on:** 10/13/2022 07:15 pm »

How time flies! And we still don't know the answer to our question about the next launch to the Moon. Right now it looks like a race between ispace's HAKUTO-R Mission 1 (Falcon 9 launch) or Artemis 1, both looking at mid-November. Intuitive Machines and Astrobotic seem to be battling it out for 3rd place in about March, with suggestions that Chandrayaan 3 and Japan's SLIM would be not far behind. But many changes are still possible.

Vahe231991 · « **Reply #13 on:** 05/07/2023 03:11 am »

Quote from: Phil Stooke on 10/13/2022 07:15 pm

How time flies! And we still don't know the answer to our question about the next launch to the Moon. Right now it looks like a race between ispace's HAKUTO-R Mission 1 (Falcon 9 launch) or Artemis 1, both looking at mid-November. Intuitive Machines and Astrobotic seem to be battling it out for 3rd place in about March, with suggestions that Chandrayaan 3 and Japan's SLIM would be not far behind. But many changes are still possible.

The Artemis 1 mission launched last November, and the HAKUTO-R mission launched in December 2022. The IM-1 mission might be the next lunar mission to launch, followed by the Chandrayaan-3 and Peregrine.

Phil Stooke · « **Reply #14 on:** 05/10/2023 09:09 pm »

There have been suggestions that Chandrayaan 3 will slip to 2024 (and that it will not, so hard to be sure). Anyway, I would add Japan's SLIM to the list of summer launches, and Russia seems to be aiming for summer 2023 for Luna 25 as well.

EDIT: Looks like this summer is still the plan despite some earlier rumours of a delay. So the summer months could be busy with Intuitive, Astrobotic, India, Japan and Russia all going in the same few months.

Vahe231991 · « **Reply #15 on:** 05/10/2023 11:32 pm »

Quote from: Phil Stooke on 05/10/2023 09:09 pm

There have been suggestions that Chandrayaan 3 will slip to 2024 (and that it will not, so hard to be sure). Anyway, I would add Japan's SLIM to the list of summer launches, and Russia seems to be aiming for summer 2023 for Luna 25 as well.

EDIT: Looks like this summer is still the plan despite some earlier rumours of a delay. So the summer months could be busy with Intuitive, Astrobotic, India, Japan and Russia all going in the same few months.

The Chandrayaan 3 and Luna 25 missions are now scheduled to launch in July of this year, while the SLIM mission is planned to launch in August, so either the Chandrayaan 3 or Luna 25 will launch first.

Links:
https://www.dnaindia.com/science/report-chandrayaan-3-isro-s-moon-mission-to-be-launched-in-july-know-all-about-new-aditya-l1-first-mission-to-sun-3040773
https://spaceflightnow.com/2023/04/11/japanese-space-science-missions-facing-delays-after-h3-rocket-failure/

Phil Stooke · « **Reply #16 on:** 05/12/2023 02:50 am »

It's not easy to keep up with all these missions. Today we have this release from Intuitive Machines:

https://investors.intuitivemachines.com/node/7376/pdf

It's a financial report but it includes a statement that the launch of IM-1 will be in the 3rd quarter of this year. July-September. So it goes back a bit down the list now.

turbopumpfeedback2 · « **Reply #17 on:** 05/12/2023 08:57 pm »

I agree, it is not easy to keep track of the lunar missions. Around 2007-2009 period missions were well organized on Wikipedia. Now even on the lunar lander company sites there is not much info.

Landing a robotic mission on a lunar pole will be the most important robotic mission of the decade, and yet IM-1 was shifted from non-polar region to a lunar pole a bit under the radar ...

And overall the recent lunar missions were weird, apart from Chang'e 3. Chang'e 4 return some weird photos of a plant on the far side of the Moon inside of what looked like a very cheap plastic container. Then Chang'e 5 returned samples but that is the last we heard of it ... I was hoping they would share some with other countries. And then the sequence of crashes from Israel, India, and now Japan. It is the Moon we are talking about not Mars. It is supposed to be much less demanding. They probably did not even test the landing sensors here on Earth from a helicopter or a drone ...

And then the weird Starship based lunar lander ... geez ... that whole Starship bussiness may end up like Wardenclyffe Tower, a.k.a free energy for all, in this case cheap space for common people.

I am still perplexed that nobody tries to use lunar water or at least make a decent effort to try to land at the poles and take some water samples. LCROSS detection of water was 14 years ago. Still there are no sampling missions of the ice.

IM1 is the big hope to at least open the door to the poles. Please test you landing systems thoroughly in realistic situations here on Earth including the blown dust and plasma from the exhaust. I am getting tired of crashes in the last 500 meters of the surface.

Ok that was my rant :-)

Zed_Noir · « **Reply #18 on:** 05/13/2023 08:58 am »

Quote from: turbopumpfeedback2 on 05/12/2023 08:57 pm

<snip>
..... And then the weird Starship based lunar lander .....
<snip>
I am still perplexed that nobody tries to use lunar water or at least make a decent effort to try to land at the poles and take some water samples. LCROSS detection of water was 14 years ago. Still there are no sampling missions of the ice.

IM1 is the big hope to at least open the door to the poles. Please test you landing systems thoroughly in realistic situations here on Earth including the blown dust and plasma from the exhaust. I am getting tired of crashes in the last 500 meters of the surface.
<snip>

Landing on the Lunar polar regions is hard!

I give IM-1 less than a 33% chance of landing intact on the Lunar regolith.

The lander with the highest probability of landing intact on one of the Lunar Polar regions is the Shiny Monstrosity from Hawthorne. Someone who can regularly landed a booster on a floating platform in the middle of the ocean, should be able to do a landing on the Lunar surface better than someone who have no practice landing a rocket. We shall see in a few of years if said Shiny Monstrosity will stand tall on the Lunar surface with the HLS demo mission.

turbopumpfeedback2 · « **Reply #19 on:** 05/13/2023 11:40 am »

Quote from: Zed_Noir on 05/13/2023 08:58 am

... Someone who can regularly landed a booster on a floating platform in the middle of the ocean, should be able to do a landing on the Lunar surface better than someone who have no practice landing a rocket. ...

Great point!