NASA’s Robotic Refueling Mission 3 (RRM3) completed an initial set of tool operations designed by the Satellite Servicing Projects Division, making the idea of using water ice, oxygen or methane from other worlds as fuel for spacecraft seem plausible.
The ability to store and transfer cryogenic fuels will help enable interstellar voyages in the far future.
Currently, any spacecraft to far away destinations such as the Moon and Mars must carry all of its propellants with it from launch to termination.
NASA had to learn about this the hard way in April when a hardware issue during a Refueling Mission caused the cryogenic tanks to heat up unexpectedly and the gas had to be released.
“NASA’s proven experience and unique facilities are helping commercial companies mature their technologies at a competitive pace,” Jim Reuter, associate administrator of NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) said in a NASA statement.
“We’ve identified technology areas NASA needs for future missions, and these public-private partnerships will accelerate their development so we can implement them faster.”
After NASA’s Apollo 11 in 1969 which carried the first laser reflectors to the Moon, ISRO launched 2 tiny microlaser reflectors to the moon through Chandrayaan 2 from Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota on 22 July 2019 at 2.43 PM IST (09:13 UTC).
He referred lunar mission as a symbol of ” faith and fearlessness”, also praised how ISRO scientists dealt with technical snag while addressing Indians from ” Man ki Baat”
Chandrayaan which means ” Moon vehicle ” in Sanskrit is aimed to deliver rover on the plane close to the uncharted lunar South Pole with the intention of investing water and other sources of energy on the moon.
The payloads that include terrain mapping cameras to prepare a 3D map to analyze specific areas while a collimated large array soft x-ray spectrometer will map the majority of major rock-forming elements.
Along with orbiter and rover, the lander wholly built with homegrown technology.
Chandrayaan 2 consists of three segments: Orbiter, Rover, and Lander.
NASA’s ambitious plan to put humans back on the moon by 2024 means there’s plenty of prep work ahead for the space agency.
An important part of that work is ensuring that the Orion spacecraft, which is set to transport the astronauts to Earth’s nearest neighbor, can handle every conceivable scenario during its challenging journey of more than 220,000 miles.
A test earlier this week at White Sands Test Facility near Las Cruces, New Mexico, saw NASA put Orion’s propulsion system through its paces for a full 12 minutes in a simulation of what the space agency described as “one of the most taxing situations the spacecraft’s engines could encounter after launch.”
Known as an “abort-to-orbit scenario,” it’s what would happen if the spacecraft failed to get on the correct path toward the moon, and requires the Orion service module’s main engine to fire in an effort to take the spacecraft into a safe, temporary orbit around Earth.
Such an orbit would give Mission Control and the astronauts enough time to evaluate the situation before deciding whether to continue with an alternate mission profile or set a course for a return to Earth.
The ground-based test involved firing Orion’s main engine on the service module, as well as all eight of its auxiliary engines simultaneously.
