Sunday, August 28, 2022

10 wildly different cube sats (very small satelites/space robots) will launch on the Artemis I tomorrow (29Aug)


 Here they are hiding in the Artemis space craft until they are ready to escape.

https://spacenews.com/cubesats-to-hitch-rides-on-artemis-1/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_1#Payloads

Artemis will test our new technology for launching people to the moon. it will send a test module to the moon and back to see how it works. on the way it will launch these 10 tiny space robots:

    ArgoMoon, from Italy, will watch the propuslion stage of the Orion space module  

    BioSentinel will go into orbit round the sun and grow yeast for 18 months to monitor how deep space environment affects life 

    CubeSat for Solar Particles will test the idea of a fleet of cubesats monitoring the solar wind 

    EQUULEUS, from Japan will test steam proplsion for maneuvering between earth and moon and study the plasma environment with many instruments packed in there, and watch for meteorites striking the moon

    Lunar IceCube, will reach lunar orbit in 3 months and search for signs of ice

    Lunar Polar Hydrogen Mapper will also orbit the moon in a polar orbit for 2 months and search for ice and hydrated minerals

    Near-Earth Asteroid Scout will do 2 lunar orbits and then thrust out to find a near earth asteroid. it will also test solar sailing (yes actual sail on the solar wind) for maneuvering towards the asteroid

    OMOTENASHI, from japan will head directly for the moon and use 3 stages to test hard landing on the moon with such a small craft. will also measure radiation.

    LunIR is a spacecraft will test electrospray propuslsion. and flyby the moon doing some spectrographic study

    Team Miles will fly to heliocentric orbit and test a hybrid ion thruster. It will also test communications from tiny satelite

these are all designed and built by different teams, not necessarily NASA

they may not necesarily all work.

Wild adventures, no?

imagine sending a dozen of these every few months to REALY start exploring out there!

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