Craters on the Moon
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Sending space craft to crash landings on the Moon (or even on Mars) has become a new competition between a couple of nations. Let's collect some examples here.
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is the latest entry of a crater producer. Luna-25 succesfully created one. But when you look at the phots from NASA... The could of made a larger impact, what a tiny scratch only!
NASA’s LRO Observes Crater Likely from Luna 25 Impact
NASA’s LRO – the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter – spacecraft imaged a new crater on the Moon’s surface that is likely the impact site of Russia’s Luna 25 mission.
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@BernieTheBernie That’s because they had to make the craft a lot lighter by removing many of its chips for recycling into things that make craters in Ukraine.
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Current edition of Nature has a news article on India's succesful landing on the moon. I.e. they succesfully failed to create a new crater.
Anyway, the article mentions the previous crash of Chandrayaan-2, and process changes when the current version was developed:ISRO engineers added many back-up systems to Chandrayaan-3, and tested more rigorously how the spacecraft could respond if things went wrong.
In other words, earlier versions were produced Kevin-style: they work great if everything follows the happy path, but as soon as minor deviation occurs, it's fücked.
And now they asked "what can go wrong?", and "how can we react then?". And it worked.
But doom is looming over us when Indians learn how to produce reliable machinery and software...
Possibly paywalled articles:
India’s Moon landing is a stellar achievement — and a win for science
Nature - When Chandrayaan-3 touched down, India pulled off a huge win for its own space programme and for international efforts to understand the Moon.
India lands on the Moon! Scientists celebrate as Chandrayaan-3 touches down
Nature - The craft has performed a technically challenging descent at the lunar south pole.
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@BernieTheBernie said in Craters on the Moon:
they work great if everything follows the happy path, but as soon as minor deviation occurs, it's fücked.
And now they asked "what can go wrong?", and "how can we react then?".I don’t think that’t quite what it said.
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Lemme guess. Next you'll be telling him to read the article, as well?
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@Gurth @Zerosquare Did you?
about e.g.The Chandrayaan-2 lander crashed in September 2019, when its software could not diagnose and correct a problem with its thrusters as the craft descended to the lunar surface. ISRO engineers added many back-up systems to Chandrayaan-3, and tested more rigorously how the spacecraft could respond if things went wrong.
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@BernieTheBernie said in Craters on the Moon:
they work great if everything follows the happy path, but as soon as minor deviation occurs, it's fücked.
Modern software development in a nutshell, it would seem.
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@BernieTheBernie said in Craters on the Moon:
@Gurth @Zerosquare Did you?
about e.g.What I mean is that you imply there were no backup systems or testing at all, while the article implies they added/did more than on the last one. Of course, if the last one really did have none, then any they did for this one counts as “more”
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@Gurth Does observing what happened to the last one count as testing?
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The next crater is about to be created by Astrobotic. The Peregrine lander will surely not make a smooth landing (if it reaches the moon at all, that is):
Peregrine 1 has ‘no chance’ of landing on moon due to fuel leak
Astrobotic company says goal is now to get US spacecraft as far as possible before it loses power
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@BernieTheBernie said in Craters on the Moon:
The next crater is about to be created by Astrobotic. The Peregrine lander will surely not make a smooth landing (if it reaches the moon at all, that is):
Peregrine 1 has ‘no chance’ of landing on moon due to fuel leak
Astrobotic company says goal is now to get US spacecraft as far as possible before it loses power
We're all going to rue the day when the Moon People develop their own IPBBMs and retaliate against us.
