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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] |
Private Company
A privately held company (or simply a private company) is a company whose Stock, shares and related rights or obligations are not offered for public subscription or publicly negotiated in their respective listed markets. Instead, the Private equity, company's stock is offered, owned, traded or exchanged privately, also known as "over-the-counter (finance), over-the-counter". Related terms are unlisted organisation, unquoted company and private equity. Private companies are often less well-known than their public company, publicly traded counterparts but still have major importance in the world's economy. For example, in 2008, the 441 list of largest private non-governmental companies by revenue, largest private companies in the United States accounted for $1.8 trillion in revenues and employed 6.2 million people, according to ''Forbes''. In general, all companies that are not owned by the government are classified as private enterprises. This definition encompasses both publ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Hindu
''The Hindu'' is an Indian English-language daily newspaper owned by The Hindu Group, headquartered in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. It was founded as a weekly publication in 1878 by the Triplicane Six, becoming a daily in 1889. It is one of the Indian Newspaper of record, newspapers of record. , ''The Hindu'' is published from 21 locations across 11 states of India. ''The Hindu'' has been a family-owned newspaper since 1905, when it was purchased by S. Kasturi Ranga Iyengar from the original founders. It is now jointly owned by Iyengar's descendants, referred to as the "Kasturi family", who serve as the directors of the holding company. Except for a period of around two years, when Siddharth Varadarajan, S. Varadarajan held the editorship of the newspaper, senior editorial positions of the paper have always been held by members of the original Iyengar family or by those appointed by them under their direction. In June 2023, the former chairperson of the group, Malini Parthasarathy, w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Monopropellant
Monopropellants are propellants consisting of chemicals that release energy through exothermic chemical decomposition. The molecular bond energy of the monopropellant is released usually through use of a catalyst. This can be contrasted with bipropellants that release energy through the chemical reaction between an oxidizer and a fuel. While stable under defined storage conditions, monopropellants decompose very rapidly under certain other conditions to produce a large volume of its own energetic (hot) gases for the performance of mechanical work. Although solid deflagrants such as nitrocellulose, the most commonly used propellant in firearms, could be thought of as monopropellants, the term is usually reserved for liquids in engineering literature. Uses The most common use of monopropellants is in low-impulse monopropellant rocket motors, such as reaction control thrusters, the usual propellant being hydrazine, p. 230 which is generally decomposed by exposure to an irid ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rocket Propellant
Rocket propellant is used as reaction mass ejected from a rocket engine to produce thrust. The energy required can either come from the propellants themselves, as with a chemical rocket, or from an external source, as with ion engines. Overview Rockets create thrust by expelling mass rear-ward, at high velocity. The thrust produced can be calculated by multiplying the mass flow rate of the propellants by their exhaust velocity relative to the rocket (specific impulse). A rocket can be thought of as being accelerated by the pressure of the combusting gases against the combustion chamber and nozzle, not by "pushing" against the air behind or below it. Rocket engines perform best in outer space because of the lack of air pressure on the outside of the engine. In space it is also possible to fit a longer nozzle without suffering from flow separation. Most chemical propellants release energy through redox chemistry, more specifically combustion. As such, both an oxidizing agen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hydrogen Peroxide
Hydrogen peroxide is a chemical compound with the formula . In its pure form, it is a very pale blue liquid that is slightly more viscosity, viscous than Properties of water, water. It is used as an oxidizer, bleaching agent, and antiseptic, usually as a dilute solution (3%–6% by weight) in water for consumer use and in higher concentrations for industrial use. Concentrated hydrogen peroxide, or "high-test peroxide", decomposes explosively when heated and has been used as both a monopropellant and an oxidizer in rocketry. Hydrogen peroxide is a reactive oxygen species and the simplest peroxide, a compound having an oxygen–oxygen single bond. It decomposes slowly into water and elemental oxygen when exposed to light, and rapidly in the presence of organic or reactive compounds. It is typically stored with a Stabilizer (chemistry), stabilizer in a weakly acidic solution in an opaque bottle. Hydrogen peroxide is found in biological systems including the human body. Enzymes that u ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
High-test Peroxide
High-test peroxide (HTP) is a highly concentrated (85 to 98%) solution of hydrogen peroxide, with the remainder consisting predominantly of water. In contact with a catalyst, it decomposes into a high-temperature mixture of steam and oxygen, with no remaining liquid water. It was used as a propellant of HTP rockets and torpedoes, and has been used for high-performance vernier engines. Properties Hydrogen peroxide works best as a propellant in extremely high concentrations (roughly over 70%). Although any concentration of peroxide will generate some hot gas (oxygen plus some steam), at concentrations above approximately 67%, the heat of decomposing hydrogen peroxide becomes large enough to completely vaporize all the liquid at standard pressure. This represents a safety and utilization turning point, since decomposition of any concentration above this amount is capable of transforming the liquid entirely to heated gas (the higher the concentration, the hotter the resulting gas). Thi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Toroid
In mathematics, a toroid is a surface of revolution with a hole in the middle. The axis of revolution passes through the hole and so does not intersect the surface. For example, when a rectangle is rotated around an axis parallel to one of its edges, then a hollow rectangle-section ring is produced. If the revolved figure is a circle, then the object is called a torus. The term ''toroid'' is also used to describe a toroidal polyhedron. In this context a toroid need not be circular and may have any number of holes. A ''g''-holed ''toroid'' can be seen as approximating the surface of a torus having a topological genus, ''g'', of 1 or greater. The Euler characteristic χ of a ''g'' holed toroid is 2(1−''g''). The torus is an example of a toroid, which is the surface of a doughnut. Doughnuts are an example of a solid torus created by rotating a disk, and are not toroids. Toroidal structures occur in both natural and synthetic materials. Equations A toroid is specified by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mighty Eagle
The Mighty Eagle (also known as the Ethan Chapman) was a prototype robotic lander developed by NASA at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The vehicle is an autonomous flying testbed that is used for testing hardware, sensors and algorithms. These sensors and algorithms include such things as onboard cameras that, with specialized guidance, navigation and control software, could aid in the capture of orbiting space debris, in-space docking with a fuel depot, docking of a robotic lander with an orbiting command module and the rendezvous of multiple unmanned stages for deep space human exploration of the Solar System. History Initial software and hardware development were done on a precursor vehicle called the Cold Gas Test Article which used compressed air as a propellant and had about 10 seconds of flight time. The knowledge gained from this development and testing was used in the design of the Mighty Eagle. The Mighty Eagle prototype lander was developed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paul Spudis
Paul D. Spudis (1952–2018) was an American geologist and lunar scientist. His specialty was the study of volcanism and impact processes on the planets, including Mercury and Mars. Spudis was well known as a leading advocate of a return to the Moon to use its resources to establish and supply a cislunar space transportation system. Early life and education In 1976 he earned a B.S. in geology at the Arizona State University. Following his graduation he spent several months working with Dr. Ronald Greeley at Ames Research Center studying various aspects of Lunar and Martian geology, before transitioning to an internship at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, during the Mars landing of that year. The following year he went to Brown University to study planetary geology, with a focus on the Moon. A year later he earned his master's degree and moved back to Arizona where he started working for Dr. Greeley who had just joined the faculty at Arizona State University. In 1982 he earned ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dynetics
Dynetics is an American applied science and information technology company headquartered in Huntsville, Alabama. Its primary customers are the United States Department of Defense (DoD), the United States Intelligence Community, and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). History Herschel Matheny and Steve Gilbert founded Dynetics in 1974. During the 1980s, Dynetics expanded to include electro-optic and infrared sensors, missile systems analysis and design, software development, modeling and simulation, and foreign materiel exploitation of radars, missiles, and missile seekers. In the 1990s, Dynetics continued to grow its core business and expanded into the automotive supply industry as a provider of electrical test systems. Since 2000, Dynetics has been selling information technology (IT) and cybersecurity services, including winning a contract to provide IT services to NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC). The company entered the space business with the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rocket City Space Pioneers
The Rocket City Space Pioneers (RCSP) was one of 29 teams from 17 different countries officially registered and in the competition for the Google Lunar X PRIZE (GLXP) during 2010–2012. The RCSP was drawn from Alabama businesses, educational institutions, and non-profit organizations. It announced entry into the competition on 7 September 2010, and departed from the competition after the team was acquired by Moon Express in December 2012. History In December 2012, the Rocket City Space Pioneers team was acquired by one of the other Google Lunar X-Prize teams, Moon Express, from Dynetics for an undisclosed sum. The new agreement makes Tim Pickens, the former lead of the RCSP team, the Chief Propulsion Engineer for MoonEx. Mission The Rocket City Space Pioneers' stated primary mission was to capture the GLXP $20 million Grand Prize, as well as the $4 million Apollo Heritage Bonus Prize. The RCSP was developing a low-cost lunar lander/rover system for conducting commercial and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
