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Commercial Lunar Payload Services
Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) is a NASA program to contract transportation services able to send small robotic landers and rovers to the Moon's south polar region mostly with the goals of scouting for lunar resources, testing in situ resource utilization (ISRU) concepts, and performing lunar science to support the Artemis lunar program. CLPS is intended to buy end-to-end payload services between Earth and the lunar surface using fixed priced contracts. The program was extended to add support for large payloads starting after 2025. NASA's Science Mission Directorate operates the CLPS program in conjunction with the Human Exploration and Operations and Space Technology Mission Directorates. NASA expects the contractors to provide all activities necessary to safely integrate, accommodate, transport, and operate NASA payloads, including launch vehicles, lunar lander spacecraft, lunar surface systems, Earth re-entry vehicles and associated resources. To date, eight mi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Astrobotic Technology
Astrobotic Technology is an American privately held company that is developing space robotics technology for lunar and planetary missions. It was founded in 2007 by Carnegie Mellon professor Red Whittaker and his associates with the goal of winning the Google Lunar X Prize. The company is based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The first launch of one of its spacecraft, the ''Peregrine'' lunar lander, is expected to take place in late 2022. On June 11, 2020, Astrobotic received a second contract for the Commercial Lunar Payload Services program. NASA will pay Astrobotic US$199.5 million to take the VIPER rover to the moon, targeting a landing in November 2024. History The team stated a goal from the start in 2007: to be the first commercial operation to land their ''Red Rover'' on the Moon, using their ''Artemis Lander''. The company's first running prototype of ''Red Rover'' was completed the same year, and the concept lander was renamed ''Griffin''. On July 28, 2008, NASA awa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Resource Prospector (rover)
Resource Prospector is a cancelled mission concept by NASA of a rover that would have performed a survey expedition on a polar region of the Moon. The rover was to attempt to detect and map the location of volatiles such as hydrogen, oxygen and lunar water which could foster more affordable and sustainable human exploration to the Moon, Mars, and other Solar System bodies. The mission concept was still in its pre-formulation stage,Resource Prospector Advanced Exploration Systems, NASA 2017 when it was scrapped in April 2018.NASA scraps a lunar surface missio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cedar Park, Texas
Cedar Park is a city and a major suburb of Austin in the state of Texas, approximately to the north-west of the center of Austin. According to the 2020 U.S. Census, the city's population was 77,595. History Before the arrival of European settlers in the 19th century, the Cedar Park area was inhabited by Native American tribes including the Tonkawa, the Lipan Apache, and the Comanche. A paleo-American archaeological site (named the Wilson-Leonard site) was discovered in Cedar Park in 1983 that showed evidence of continual habitation of the area since circa 5000 BC. In the mid-19th century the community was known as Running Brushy, named after a spring that formed the headwaters of a creek of the same name. In 1873 George and Harriet Cluck, after having run cattle up the Chisholm Trail for many years, bought of land that included the Running Brushy spring. Their ranch formed the core of the community that would one day become Cedar Park. Ten years later, the railroad came t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Falcon 9
Falcon 9 is a partially reusable medium lift launch vehicle that can carry cargo and crew into Earth orbit, produced by American aerospace company SpaceX. The rocket has two stages. The first (booster) stage carries the second stage and payload to a certain altitude, after which the second stage lifts the payload to its ultimate destination. The rocket evolved through several versions. V1.0 flew from 2010–2013, V1.1 flew from 2013–2016, while V1.2 Full Thrust first launched in 2015, encompassing the Block 5 variant, flying since May 2018. The booster is capable of landing vertically to facilitate reuse. This feat was first achieved on flight 20 in December 2015. Since then, SpaceX has successfully landed boosters over 100 times. Individual boosters have flown as many as 15 flights. Both stages are powered by SpaceX Merlin engines, using cryogenic liquid oxygen and rocket-grade kerosene ( RP-1) as propellants. The heaviest payloads flown to geostationary transfer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
PRIME-1
Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment-1 (PRIME-1) is a NASA Lunar project, initially expected to launch and be deployed in December, 2022, but likely to be launched in 2023. PRIME-1 will be the first on-site resource utilization demonstration on Earth's Moon. Additionally, for the first time, NASA will robotically sample and analyze for ice from below the surface. Two components make up PRIME-1, both of which will be mounted to a commercial lunar lander: * The Regolith and Ice Drill for Exploring New Terrain (TRIDENT): TRIDENT will drill up to three feet deep, extracting lunar regolith, or soil, up to the surface. The instrument can drill in multiple segments, pausing and retracting to deposit cuttings on the surface after each depth increment. * Mass Spectrometer observing lunar operations (MSolo): This modified-for-spaceflight, commercial-off-the-shelf mass spectrometer will evaluate the drill cuttings for water and other chemical compounds. Soil samples from multiple depths ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
VIPER (rover)
''VIPER'' (Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover) is a lunar rover developed by NASA (Ames Research Center), and currently planned to be delivered to the surface of the Moon in November 2024. The rover will be tasked with prospecting for lunar resources in permanently shadowed areas in the lunar south pole region, especially by mapping the distribution and concentration of water ice. The mission builds on a previous NASA rover concept called Resource Prospector, which was cancelled in 2018. On 11 June 2020, NASA awarded Astrobotic Technology of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, US$199.5 million to launch ''VIPER'' to the lunar south pole. ''VIPER'' will be carried aboard Astrobotic's Griffin lander as part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative. Astrobotic is responsible for end-to-end services for delivery of ''VIPER'', including integration with its Griffin lander, launch from Earth, and landing on the Moon. Overview The ''VIPER'' rover, cur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems
Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems was an American company designing and building satellites. It started as a designer, builder and provider of nanosatellite and CubeSat space vehicle products and services for government and commercial customers. Tyvak was based in Irvine, California. It was a subsidiary of Terran Orbital Corporation. In 2022, it was announced that Tyvak would transition into larger satellites from nanosats and cubesats and the name Tyvak would be phased out in favor of the name of the parent company Terran Orbital. In 2011, Jordi Puig-Suari, co-inventor of the CubeSat design, and Scott MacGillivray, former manager of nanosatellite programs for Boeing Phantom Works, established Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems in San Luis Obispo, California, to sell miniature avionics packages for small satellites, with the goal to increase the volume available for payloads. On 18 November 2019, Tyvak was one of five companies selected to be eligible to bid for the NASA Commercial Luna ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
SpaceX
Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) is an American spacecraft manufacturer, launcher, and a satellite communications corporation headquartered in Hawthorne, California. It was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk with the stated goal of reducing space transportation costs to enable the colonization of Mars. The company manufactures the Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, and Starship launch vehicles, several rocket engines, Cargo Dragon and Crew Dragon spacecraft, and Starlink communications satellites. SpaceX is developing a satellite internet constellation named Starlink to provide commercial internet service. In January 2020, the Starlink constellation became the largest satellite constellation ever launched, and as of December 2022 comprises over 3,300 small satellites in orbit. The company is also developing Starship, a privately funded, fully reusable, super heavy-lift launch system for interplanetary and orbital spaceflight. It is intended to become SpaceX's prima ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sierra Nevada Corporation
Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) is an American, privately held aerospace and national security contractor specializing in aircraft modification and integration, space components and systems, and related technology products for cybersecurity and health. The company contracts with the United States Armed Forces, NASA, and private spaceflight companies. SNC is headquartered in Sparks, Nevada and has 33 locations in 19 U.S. states, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Turkey. The company was involved in over 400 successful space missions and built the cargo Dream Chaser, which will resupply the International Space Station with both pressurized and unpressurized cargo. As of July 2020, SNC has taken part in 14 different missions to Mars. History The company was founded in 1963 by John Chisholm with a few employees working out of an airplane hangar in the Reno Stead Airport. It was acquired in 1994 by husband and wife Fatih Ozmen and Eren Ozmen. Fatih Ozmen was one of the original emp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ceres Robotics
Ceres Robotics Inc. is a private, commercial company dedicated to the development and manufacturing of robotic lunar landers and rovers. In November 2019, Ceres Robotics was granted the right to bid on contracts by NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) to support the lunar Artemis program. The company was founded in 2017 by Michael Sims, who was previously vice president at Moon Express
Moon Express (MoonEx; vehicle model prefix: MX) is an American privately held early-stage company f ...
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Blue Origin
Blue Origin, LLC is an American privately funded aerospace manufacturer and sub-orbital spaceflight services company headquartered in Kent, Washington. Founded in 2000 by Jeff Bezos, the founder and executive chairman of Amazon, the company is led by CEO Bob Smith and aims to make access to space cheaper and more reliable through reusable launch vehicles. Rob Meyerson led Blue Origin from 2003 to 2017 and served as its first president. Blue Origin is employing an incremental approach from suborbital to orbital flight, with each developmental step building on its prior work. The company's name refers to the blue planet, Earth, as the point of origin. Blue Origin develops orbital technology, rocket-powered vertical takeoff and vertical landing (VTVL) vehicles for access to suborbital and orbital space. Initially focused on suborbital spaceflight, the company has designed, built and flown multiple testbeds of its New Shepard vehicle at its facilities in Culberson County, Texas. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lunar Water
Lunar water is water that is present on the Moon. Diffuse water molecules can persist at the Moon's sunlit surface, as discovered by NASA's SOFIA observatory in 2020. Gradually water vapor is decomposed by sunlight, leaving hydrogen and oxygen lost to outer space. Scientists have found water ice in the cold, permanently shadowed craters at the Moon's poles. Water molecules are also present in the extremely thin lunar atmosphere. Water (H2O), and the chemically related hydroxyl group (-OH), exist in forms chemically bound as hydrates and hydroxides to lunar minerals (rather than free water), and evidence strongly suggests that this is the case in low concentrations as for much of the Moon's surface. In fact, of surface matter, adsorbed water is calculated to exist at trace concentrations of 10 to 1000 parts per million. Inconclusive evidence of free water ice at the lunar poles had accumulated during the second half of the 20th century from a variety of observations sugge ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
