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Small Innovative Missions For Planetary Exploration
Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration (SIMPLEx) is a planetary exploration program operated by NASA. The program funds small, low-cost spacecraft for stand-alone planetary exploration missions. These spacecraft are intended to launch as secondary payloads on other missions and are riskier than Discovery or New Frontiers missions. The program selects missions from multiple proposals and gives them some money to begin development. After early development they are analyzed to see if they are cost-effective and scientifically valuable during Key Decision Point-C. If they pass Key Decision Point-C then they move into full development. The missions must weigh less than 180 kg. So far only the first two missions have launched, and the remaining missions have struggled to stay within budget and find missions to launch with, and have been removed from multiple launches. Missions On August 8, 2015, the first two SIMPLEx missions were selected: Q-PACE and LunaH-Map.NASASm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
LunaH-Map
Lunar Polar Hydrogen Mapper, or LunaH-Map, is one of 10 CubeSats launched with Artemis 1 on 16 November 2022. Along with Lunar IceCube and LunIR, LunaH-Map will help investigate the possible presence of water-ice on the Moon. Arizona State University began development of LunaH-Map after being awarded a contract by NASA in early 2015. The development team consists of about 20 professionals and students led by Craig Hardgrove, the principal investigator. The mission is a part of NASA's SIMPLEx program.NASASmall Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration Program Abstracts of selected proposals August 8, 2015. Retrieved Nov. 17, 2022. Objective LunaH-Map's primary objective is to map the abundance of hydrogen down to one meter beneath the surface of the lunar south pole. It will be inserted into a polar orbit around the Moon, with its periselene located near the lunar south pole, initially passing above Shackleton crater. LunaH-Map will provide a high resolution map of the ab ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Protoplanetary Disk
A protoplanetary disk is a rotating circumstellar disc of dense gas and dust surrounding a young newly formed star, a T Tauri star, or Herbig Ae/Be star. The protoplanetary disk may also be considered an accretion disk for the star itself, because gases or other material may be falling from the inner edge of the disk onto the surface of the star. This process should not be confused with the accretion process thought to build up the planets themselves. Externally illuminated photo-evaporating protoplanetary disks are called proplyds. Formation Protostars form from molecular clouds consisting primarily of molecular hydrogen. When a portion of a molecular cloud reaches a critical size, mass, or density, it begins to collapse under its own gravity. As this collapsing cloud, called a solar nebula, becomes denser, random gas motions originally present in the cloud average out in favor of the direction of the nebula's net angular momentum. Conservation of angular momentum causes t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rocket Lab
Rocket Lab is a public American aerospace manufacturer and launch service provider, with a New Zealand subsidiary. The company operates lightweight Electron orbital rockets, which provide dedicated launches for small satellites. Rocket Lab also plans to build a larger Neutron rocket as early as 2024. Electron rockets have launched 26 times from either Rocket Lab's Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand or the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport in the United States. Two attempts have been made at recovery of the Electron booster. As of 2022, Rocket Lab is developing the bigger Neutron reusable unibody rocket; Photon satellite buses; and Rutherford, Curie , HyperCurie, and Archimedes rocket engines. The company was founded in New Zealand in 2006. By 2009, the successful launch of Ātea-1 made Rocket Lab the first private company in the Southern Hemisphere to reach space. The company then established a headquarter in California in 2013 and developed the expendable Electron rocket. The f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Intuitive Machines
Intuitive Machines, LLC is a private American company headquartered in Houston, Texas. It was founded in 2013 by Stephen Altemus, Kam Ghaffarian, Tim Crain. Intuitive Machines is completing its lunar program which will provide lunar surface access, lunar orbit delivery, and communications at lunar distance. Intuitive Machines holds three NASA contracts, under the space agency's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, to deliver payloads to the lunar surface. Overview Intuitive Machines has designed some airborne drones and spacecraft, including the Universal Reentry Vehicle (URV), [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
IM-2
''Nova-C'' is a lunar lander designed by the private company Intuitive Machines to deliver small commercial payloads to the surface of the Moon. Intuitive Machines was one of nine contractor companies selected by NASA in November 2018 to submit bids for the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. ''Nova-C'' is one of the lunar landers that will be built and launched under that program. Other selected landers included the ''Peregrine'' by Astrobotic and (at a later time) ''Xelene'' by Masten Space Systems (Masten Space Systems suffered a bankruptcy in 2022, leaving their lunar lander plans in a state of confusion). The first ''Nova-C'' lander is manifested on the IM-1 mission in March 2023, with a second lander on the IM-2 mission later in the same year. The IM-3 mission is scheduled to launch in early 2024. All three landers will launch on SpaceX's Falcon 9 launch vehicle. Overview The ''Nova-C'' lunar lander was designed by Intuitive Machines, and it inherits ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Falcon Heavy
Falcon Heavy is a partially reusable heavy-lift launch vehicle that is produced by SpaceX, an American aerospace manufacturer. The rocket consists of two strap-on boosters made from Falcon 9 first stages, a center core also made from a Falcon 9 first stage, and a second stage on top. Falcon Heavy has the second highest payload capacity of any currently operational launch vehicle behind NASA's Space Launch System and the fourth-highest capacity of any rocket to reach orbit, trailing the Saturn V, Energia and Space Launch System. SpaceX conducted Falcon Heavy's maiden launch on 6 February 2018, at 20:45 UTC. The rocket carried Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster belonging to SpaceX founder Elon Musk, with a dummy dubbed "Starman" in the driver's seat, as a dummy payload. The second Falcon Heavy launch occurred on 11 April 2019, and all three booster rockets successfully returned to Earth. The third Falcon Heavy launch successfully occurred on 25 June 2019. Since then, Falcon Heavy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Janus Spacecraft
''Janus'' is a planned NASA mission that will send dual space probes, ''Serenity'' and ''Mayhem'',https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=50260.0;attach=2070175;sess=0 to visit asteroids that will be chosen prior to launch date. The mission is part of NASA's SIMPLEx program and was expected to be launched in October 2023 as a secondary payload on Falcon Heavy together with the ''Psyche'' spacecraft, but it was removed due to an inability to reach its target from that launch date. On 3 September 2020, ''Janus'' successfully passed Key Decision Point-C and was approved for the final design of hardware. The mission budget is limited to US$55 million. Currently the new launch date and new launch vehicle is yet to be confirmed. Spacecraft The two small 36 kg spacecraft —which fall under the 180 kg mass limit for SIMPLEx missions — will conduct stand-alone planetary science missions. The spacecraft is jointly developed by two teams, based ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arizona State University
Arizona State University (Arizona State or ASU) is a public research university in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, ASU is one of the largest public universities by enrollment in the U.S. One of three universities governed by the Arizona Board of Regents, ASU is a member of the Universities Research Association and classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very High Research Activity". ASU has nearly 150,000 students attending classes, with more than 38,000 students attending online, and 90,000 undergraduates and nearly 20,000 postgraduates across its five campuses and four regional learning centers throughout Arizona. ASU offers 350 degree options from its 17 colleges and more than 170 cross-discipline centers and institutes for undergraduates students, as well as more than 400 graduate degree and certificate programs. The Arizona State Sun Devils compete in 26 varsity-level sports in the NCAA Division I Pac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Educational Launch Of Nanosatellites
Educational Launch of Nanosatellites (ELaNa) is an initiative created by NASA to attract and retain students in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics disciplines. The program is managed by the Launch Services Program (LSP) at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Overview The ELaNa initiative has made partnerships with universities in the US to design and launch small research satellites called CubeSats (because of their cube shape). These low-cost CubeSat missions provide NASA with valuable opportunities to test emerging technologies that may be useful in future space missions, while university students get to be involved in all phases of the mission, from instrument and satellite design, to launch and monitoring. A CubeSat has a cubic shape measuring 10 × 10 × 10 cm (1 unit or 1U), and can be fabricated of multiple cubic units such as 2U, 3U and 6U, and weighing 1.33 kg per unit. Because of the high cost incurred by launching them to orbit, ELa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New Glenn
New Glenn is a heavy-lift orbital launch vehicle in development by Blue Origin. Named after NASA astronaut John Glenn, design work on the vehicle began in 2012. Illustrations of the vehicle, and the high-level specifications, were initially publicly unveiled in September 2016. New Glenn is a two-stage rocket with a diameter of . Its first stage will be powered by seven BE-4 engines that are also being designed and manufactured by Blue Origin. Like the New Shepard suborbital launch vehicle that preceded it, the New Glenn's first stage has been designed to be reusable since its inception in 2016. In 2021, the company initiated conceptual design work on approaches to potentially make the second stage reusable as well, with the project codenamed Project Jarvis. Originally aiming for first launch of New Glenn in 2020, Blue Origin has publicly announced delays on three occasions: to 2021 in late 2018, to fourth quarter of 2022 in early 2021, and to no earlier than Q4 2023 in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
EscaPADE
Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers (EscaPADE) is a planned spacecraft mission to Mars consisting of two spacecraft known as ''Blue'' and ''Gold''. The mission, expected to launch in August 2024, is part of NASA's SIMPLEx program. Mission EscaPADE is led by Principal Investigator Dr. Robert Lillis and colleagues at the University of California, Berkeley. At a cost of US$79 million (including launch vehicle), the mission will demonstrate low cost planetary space exploration. The twin spacecraft will study Mars' unique magnetosphere and how solar wind contributed to the loss of most of the planet's atmosphere over solar system history. In February 2023, Blue Origin won a contract to launch the mission in 2024. Instruments and science goals The science goals of EscaPADE are to: * understand the processes controlling the structure of Mars' hybrid magnetosphere and how it guides ion flows; * understand how energy and momentum are transported from the solar w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lunar Trailblazer
Lunar Trailblazer is a planned small (class D) lunar orbiter, part of NASA's SIMPLEx program, that will detect and map water on the lunar surface to determine how its form, abundance, and location relate to geology. Its mission is to aid in the understanding of lunar water and the Moon's water cycle. Lunar Trailblazer is currently slated to launch in 2023 as a secondary payload on the IM-2 mission, with the satellite scheduled to be completed in early 2023. The Principal Investigator (PI) of the mission is Bethany Ehlmann, a professor at Caltech. Mission Lunar Trailblazer was selected to be part of NASA's SIMPLEx (Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration) program in 2019. The goal of the planned mission is to use a small satellite to map water on the Moon. The mission has four scientific objectives: * measure and map the amount, location and form (hydroxyl, H2O, or ice) of lunar water and determine any correlation to latitude and surface makeup * study the time-v ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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