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Modular Common Spacecraft Bus
The Modular Common Spacecraft Bus (MCSB) is a fast-development, low-cost, general purpose spacecraft platform. Its modular design is intended to reduce the cost, complexity, and lead time on missions by providing a reliable, well-characterized system that can carry a variety of payloads. According to NASA, "the spacecraft is roughly one tenth the price of a conventional uncrewed mission and could be used to land on the Moon, orbit Earth, or rendezvous with near-Earth objects." History The MCSB supervisor, Alan Weston, obtained from NASA Ames Research Center $4 million in internal funding to get the project started. Using that money, the prototype was built in about 15 months during 2007–2008. The fast concept development time is due in part to the preliminary use of repurposed SCUBA air tanks and an engine that uses cold gas, in place of a conventional rocket engine. This allowed the team to perform indoor flight tests as fast as every 40 minutes in their laboratory, rather ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lithium-ion Battery
A lithium-ion or Li-ion battery is a type of rechargeable battery that uses the reversible intercalation of Li+ ions into electronically conducting solids to store energy. Li-ion batteries are characterized by higher specific energy, energy density, and energy efficiency and a longer cycle life and calendar life than other types of rechargeable batteries. Also noteworthy is a dramatic improvement in lithium-ion battery properties after their market introduction in 1991; over the following 30 years, their volumetric energy density increased threefold while their cost dropped tenfold. In late 2024 global demand passed per year, while production capacity was more than twice that. The invention and commercialization of Li-ion batteries has had a large impact on technology, as recognized by the 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Li-ion batteries have enabled portable consumer electronics, laptop computers, cellular phones, and electric cars. Li-ion batteries also see signifi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Deimos (moon)
Deimos (; astronomical naming conventions#Natural satellites, systematic designation: Mars II) is the smaller and outer of the two moons of Mars, natural satellites of Mars, the other being Phobos (moon), Phobos. Deimos has a mean radius of and takes 30.3 hours to orbit Mars. Deimos is from Mars, much farther than Mars's other moon, Phobos. It is named after Deimos (deity), Deimos, the Greek mythology, Ancient Greek god and personification of dread and terror. Discovery and etymology Deimos was discovered by Asaph Hall at the United States Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C., on 12 August 1877, at about 07:48 Coordinated Universal Time, UTC. Hall, who also discovered Phobos (moon), Phobos shortly afterwards, had been specifically searching for Martian moons at the time. The moon is named after Deimos (deity), Deimos, a figure representing fear, dread in Greek mythology. The name was suggested by academic Henry George Madan, Henry Madan, who drew from Book XV of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phobos (moon)
Phobos (; astronomical naming conventions, systematic designation: ) is the innermost and larger of the two moons of Mars, natural satellites of Mars, the other being Deimos (moon), Deimos. The two moons were discovered in 1877 by American astronomer Asaph Hall. Phobos is named after Phobos (mythology), the Greek god of fear and panic, who is the son of Ares (Mars) and twin brother of Deimos (deity), Deimos. Phobos is a small, irregularly shaped object with a mean radius of . It orbits from the Martian surface, closer to its Primary (astronomy), primary body than any other known natural satellite to a planet. It orbits Mars much faster than Mars rotates and completes an orbit in just 7 hours and 39 minutes. As a result, from the surface of Mars it appears to rise in the west, move across the sky in 4 hours and 15 minutes or less, and set in the east, twice each Mars sol, Martian day. Phobos is one of the least reflective bodies in the Solar System, with an albedo of 0.071. Su ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phobos And Deimos & Mars Environment
Phobos And Deimos & Mars Environment (PADME) is a low-cost NASA Mars orbiter mission concept that would address longstanding unknowns about Mars' two moons Phobos and Deimos and their environment. The PADME mission competed for Discovery Program funding, but lost to the ''Psyche'' and ''Lucy'' missions. The Principal Investigator is Anthony Colaprete. Other principals include Pascal Lee (Deputy Principal Investigator) and Butler Hine (Project Manager). Objectives The origin of Mars' moons, which were discovered by astronomer Asaph Hall, remains unknown. PADME would advance the scientific understanding of the origin of Phobos and Deimos by studying: * Composition of surface and near-surface materials * Internal structure * Dynamics (transport) of surface materials on, and between, Deimos and Phobos. In addition, PADME would assess potential resources (water, organics, regolith) and potential hazards (dust) that Phobos and Deimos might present for future human exploration in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Google Lunar X Prize
The Google Lunar X Prize (GLXP) was a 2007–2018 inducement prize space competition organized by the X Prize Foundation, and sponsored by Google. The challenge called for privately funded teams to be the first to land a lunar rover on the Moon, travel 500 meters, and transmit back to Earth high-definition video and images. The original deadline was the end of 2014, with additional prize money for a landing by 2012. In 2015, XPRIZE announced that the competition deadline would be extended to December 2017 if at least one team could secure a verified launch contract by 31 December 2015. Two teams secured such a launch contract, and the deadline was extended. In August 2017, the deadline was extended again, to 31 March 2018. Entering 2018, five teams remained in the competition: SpaceIL, Moon Express, Synergy Moon, TeamIndus, and Team Hakuto, having secured verified launch contracts with Spaceflight Industries, Rocket Lab, Interorbital Systems, and ISRO (jointly f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Moon Express
Moon Express (MoonEx; vehicle model prefix: MX) is an American privately held company formed in 2010 by a group of Silicon Valley and space entrepreneurs. It had the goal of winning the $30 million Google Lunar X Prize, and of ultimately mining the Moon for natural resources of economic value. The company was not able to make a launch attempt to reach the Moon by March 31, 2018, the deadline for the prize. Since late 2018, and , Moon Express focused on supporting NASA under its Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) contract. History In August 2010, Robert D. Richards, Naveen Jain, and Barney Pell co-founded Moon Express, a Mountain View, California-based company that plans to offer commercial lunar robotic transportation and data services with a long-term goal of mining the Moon for resources, including elements that are rare on Earth, including niobium, yttrium and dysprosium. Beginning in 2010, Moon Express based itself at the NASA Ames Research Center. Moon Express and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Near Earth Object
A near-Earth object (NEO) is any small Solar System body orbiting the Sun whose closest approach to the Sun (Apsis, perihelion) is less than 1.3 times the Earth–Sun distance (astronomical unit, AU). This definition applies to the object's orbit around the Sun, rather than its current position, thus an object with such an orbit is considered an NEO even at times when it is far from making a close approach of Earth. If an NEO's orbit crosses the Earth's orbit, and the object is larger than across, it is considered a potentially hazardous object (PHO). Most known PHOs and NEOs are asteroids, but about a third of a percent are comets. There are over 37,000 known #Near-Earth asteroids, near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) and over 120 known short-period #Near-Earth comets, near-Earth comets (NECs). A number of solar-orbiting meteoroids were large enough to be tracked in space before striking Earth. It is now widely accepted that collisions in the past have had a significant role in shaping ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Newton (unit)
The newton (symbol: N) is the unit of force in the International System of Units (SI). Expressed in terms of SI base units, it is 1 kg⋅m/s2, the force that accelerates a mass of one kilogram at one metre per second squared. The unit is named after Isaac Newton in recognition of his work on classical mechanics, specifically his second law of motion. Definition A newton is defined as 1 kg⋅m/s2 (it is a named derived unit defined in terms of the SI base units). One newton is, therefore, the force needed to accelerate one kilogram of mass at the rate of one metre per second squared in the direction of the applied force. The units "metre per second squared" can be understood as measuring a rate of change in velocity per unit of time, i.e. an increase in velocity by one metre per second every second. In 1946, the General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) Resolution 2 standardized the unit of force in the MKS system of units to be the amount need ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reaction Wheel
A reaction wheel (RW) is an electric motor attached to a flywheel, which, when its rotation speed is changed, causes a counter-rotation proportionately through conservation of angular momentum. A reaction wheel can rotate only around its center of mass; it is not capable of moving from one place to another ( translational force). Reaction wheels are used primarily by spacecraft for three-axis attitude control, and do not require rockets or external applicators of torque, which reduces the mass fraction needed for fuel. They provide a high pointing accuracy, and are particularly useful when the spacecraft must be rotated by very small amounts, such as keeping a telescope pointed at a star. A reaction wheel is sometimes operated at a constant (or near-constant) rotation speed, to provide a satellite with a large amount of stored angular momentum. Doing so alters the spacecraft's rotational dynamics so that disturbance torques perpendicular to one axis of the satellite (the axis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Three-axis Stabilization
Spacecraft attitude control is the process of controlling the orientation of a spacecraft (vehicle or satellite) with respect to an inertial frame of reference or another entity such as the celestial sphere, certain fields, and nearby objects, etc. Controlling vehicle attitude requires actuators to apply the torques needed to orient the vehicle to a desired attitude, and algorithms to command the actuators based on the current attitude and specification of a desired attitude. Before and during attitude control can be performed, spacecraft attitude determination must be performed, which requires sensors for absolute or relative measurement. The broader integrated field that studies the combination of sensors, actuators and algorithms is called '' guidance, navigation and control'', which also involves non-attitude concepts, such as position determination and navigation. Motivation A spacecraft's attitude must typically be stabilized and controlled for a variety of reasons. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Z Axis
In geometry, a Cartesian coordinate system (, ) in a plane is a coordinate system that specifies each point uniquely by a pair of real numbers called ''coordinates'', which are the signed distances to the point from two fixed perpendicular oriented lines, called '' coordinate lines'', ''coordinate axes'' or just ''axes'' (plural of ''axis'') of the system. The point where the axes meet is called the ''origin'' and has as coordinates. The axes directions represent an orthogonal basis. The combination of origin and basis forms a coordinate frame called the Cartesian frame. Similarly, the position of any point in three-dimensional space can be specified by three ''Cartesian coordinates'', which are the signed distances from the point to three mutually perpendicular planes. More generally, Cartesian coordinates specify the point in an -dimensional Euclidean space for any dimension . These coordinates are the signed distances from the point to mutually perpendicular fixed hype ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
