¶Queqiao-2. China’s 1.2 metric ton Queqiao-2 lunar orbiter is scheduled to launch this month (currently 3/20), having recently arrived at the launch pad. The communication and navigation satellite wields a 4.2-meter parabolic antenna to relay comms from Chang’e-6, -7, and -8, as well as the future International Lunar Research Station (ILRS). Its predecessor, Queqiao-1, is a relay satellite in a halo orbit around Earth-Moon L2, supporting the ongoing, and quite successful, lunar farside Chang’e 4 mission. Queqiao-2 will instead enter a more stable, inclined, elliptical frozen orbit which loiters over the Moon’s south pole (24-hr period for Chang’e-6, moving it to a 12-hr orbit for CE-7 and CE-8). Due to the orbit’s stability and the spacecraft’s fuel supply, it is expected to have an >8-year lifespan. China is offering its communications services to other countries as well. The mission will deploy two experimental CubeSats, Tiandu-1 (61 kg) and Tiandu-2 (15 kg), to test lunar navigation and comms technologies including satellite-to-ground laser ranging and inter-satellite microwave ranging. Queqiao-2 also carries its own scientific payloads: an extreme ultraviolet camera, a neutral atom imager, and a very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) experiment. |
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¶PY4. A four-cubesat swarm of PyCube-powered spacecraft launched on Transporter-10 last week. Developed by Carnegie Mellon’s Robotic Exploration Lab with funding from NASA AMES, this mission seeks to demonstrate spacecraft-to-spacecraft ranging, in-orbit navigation, and coordinated simultaneous multi-point radiation measurements—all with low size, weight, power, and cost. These spacecraft, each just 1.5U, are built on top of PyCubed which offers a rad-tested avionics board for a mere $250. To simplify software development, the entire PyCubed system is programmable in Python (hence the name) and runs in MicroPython, a real-time interpreter that is specifically designed for low-power, embedded systems. PY4 is also saving cost and space by forgoing reaction wheels and propulsion, relying solely on magnetorquers for 3-axis attitude control. The mission also has a stretch goal of differential drag maneuvering, which would be an impressive feat given the under-actuated pointing mechanisms. PY4 is the third mission to use the PyCubed platform, with previous flight heritage found on the V-3RX mission and on a suborbital test flight in a commercial high-altitude balloon. With contact already established, PY4 is well on its way to breaking ground in rapid turn-around swarm technology while also proving the merits of the platform’s cost and space efficiency. — by Orbital Index Assistant Editor Sarajane Crawford, who works on CubeSats in Colorado and spends the rest of her time outside. |
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 | PY4’s 1.5U CubeSats awaiting flight in NASA’s Small Spacecraft Technology Lab. |
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¶Chang’e-6: the first lunar farside sample return. Under the national Chinese Lunar Exploration Program (widely known as Chang’e or CE), the CE-6 sample return mission is progressing towards its launch, potentially as soon as early May. CE-6 is the first of three missions in the program’s final Phase IV which aims to culminate with the establishment of a research station near the Moon’s south pole. To date, the Chang’e program’s seven missions have boasted a 100% success rate. Nearly identical to CE-5, the ~8.2-ton CE-6 space probe consists of an orbiter, return capsule, lander, and ascender. Within a 48-hour period after landing, up to 2 kg of regolith from a depth of up to 2 meters will be collected, transferred to the ascent vehicle, and propelled into lunar orbit. From there, rendezvous with the orbiter stage and sample transfer to the Earth return and reentry module will follow. CE-6 will communicate via its dedicated relay satellite Queqiao-2 (item above). The candidate CE-6 landing site is near the southern edge of the 3.9-billion-year-old Apollo impact crater within the South Pole-Aitken (SPA) basin (map below). CE-5 returned the youngest lunar sample ever collected with material from its 1.731-kg Oceanus Procellarum collection site, estimated to be ~2 billion years old. It is likely that the CE-6 sample will include SPA ejecta materials including lower crust or possibly mantle, as well as basaltic material of different ages. Successfully returned samples will provide insights into the evolution and composition of the lunar farside. International payloads for the mission were solicited in April 2019, and four were selected: ICECUBE-Q, a cubesat developed in Pakistan; Detection of Outgassing Radon (DORN) from France; Negative Ions on Lunar Surface (NILS) from Sweden; and, the INstrument for landing-Roving laser Retroreflector Investigations (INRRI) which was developed by Italy and is similar to the one flown on Schiaparelli. |
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 | Chang’E-6 will attempt to collect the first lunar farside samples, landing in the South-Pole-Aitken basin. Credit: CNSA, CSA |
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| ¶News in brief. NASA will receive $24.875B in FY 2024, 8.5% less than requested and 2% below what was received in 2023 ● Crew-7 is home after 6 months in space ● Starship IFT-3 is targeting a launch attempt tomorrow, on Pi Day, with a planned splashdown in the Indian Ocean—SpaceX hopes to reach orbit, test in-space fuel transfer, open Starship’s payload door, and perform an in-space engine re-ignition ● SpaceX launched three Falcon 9s in 20 hours (imagine what Starship cadence could look like in 10 years!) ● Iridium is acquiring Satelles for $115M, a GPS backup provider that uses satellites in LEO to generate PNT solutions ● Blue Origin is projecting a first Blue Moon launch in 2025 ● New Glenn completed initial cryogenic testing at LC-36 ● As an alternative to bankruptcy, co-founders Chris Kemp and Adam London took Astra private for $0.50/share, down 99% from its peak valuation ● Kurs Orbital, an Italy-based satellite rendezvous, docking, and servicing startup founded by the former head of Ukraine’s space agency, closed a $4M seed round ● The most massive object ever tossed overboard from the ISS (a three-ton hunk of old nickel-hydrogen batteries) mostly burned up in the Earth’s atmosphere after being jettisoned from the station three years ago ● Stratolaunch’s massive aircraft Roc took its first flight with a real release payload: the Talon-A vehicle, which came close to reaching its intended hypersonic speed ● Lumen Orbit, a new Seattle-based startup raised $2.4M to develop a VLEO constellation that will process data in space to reduce downlink times ● JPL finished building the CADRE trio of moon rovers that will fly on IM’s third lunar mission next year. |
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¶Etc.- Now’s your chance to apply to become a NASA astronaut candidate.
- ‘China to debut large reusable rockets in 2025 and 2026.’
- Russia is considering putting a nuclear power plant on the Moon in partnership with China (presumably as part of ILRS) with a target launch of 2033-2035—the goal is to overcome the challenge of powering a lunar base solely on solar electricity. NASA has also developed lunar reactor plans, most notably KRUSTY, a 2018 demonstration that delivered continuous power via a thermal-to-Stirling-engine design. The Kilopower program that developed KRUSTY has since evolved into the agency's Fission Surface Power program, which is targeting 40 kW of continuous power with a demonstration by the end of the decade. Roscosmos claims that all the technical questions concerning their project have been solved apart from “finding a solution on how to cool the nuclear reactor.” You don’t say.
- Among their many projects, this job posting for a Space Vehicle Abort Thrusters Integrated Product Team (IPT) Lead makes it seem like Blue Origin is getting serious about developing a human spacecraft.
- Meanwhile, with a launch nominally scheduled for April 22, maybe, just maybe, Boeing’s Starliner will finally fly astronauts this spring.
- ESA’s Copernicus Climate Pulse provides daily charts and maps of global surface air and sea temperatures updated close to real-time.
- After 16 years of studying Earth’s highest, coldest, and rarest clouds, known as noctilucent or “night-shining” clouds, NASA’s Aeronomy of Ice (AIM) mission ended recently due to battery failure.
- A quasar, e.g. a supermassive black hole with an energetic accretion disk at the center of a galaxy, was recently spotted that emits 2e41 W—more energy than 500 trillion Sols. It is the brightest (continuously emitting) object in the known Universe (paper). More staggering facts: This quasar’s central black hole weighs 17 billion Sols and eats a new one every day, and its brightly glowing accretion disk is 7 light-years in diameter, the largest known.
- NASA just dropped a mixed sci-fi/actual science tabletop role-playing game, The Lost Universe. Oddly, it claims to work with “your preferred tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG) system.” So yes, this means everyone should go run a Cthulhu version of it. 🎲🐙🚀🎲
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A fully stacked Starship (B10 & S28) stands tall ahead of the monster rocket’s third flight test, set to take off in the coming days (streamed in low quality only on X/Twitter, unfortunately). |  |
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