Latest news with #MatthewGialich
Yahoo
01-03-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
1st private spacecraft to attempt to travel beyond the moon appears to be in trouble
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. The first commercial spacecraft headed beyond the moon is on its way to deep space, but the mission is suffering from unknown issues as the team scrambles to get in contact with the probe. Odin, a small spacecraft built by U.S. space mining company AstroForge, piggybacked on the launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on Wednesday (Feb. 26) that sent the private Intuitive Machines' Athena lander toward the moon. The 265-pound (120 kilograms) Odin is designed to obtain imagery of asteroid 2022 OB5 for a follow-up mission, named Vestri, which will aim to land on the asteroid. The missions are part of AstroForge's plans to make space resources available on Earth. Initially the signs were good for Odin, with AstroForge posting an image of the spacecraft attached to the upper stage in space. The team is, however, still working to understand how the spacecraft is operating. "We don't fully understand the state of the vehicle," Matthew Gialich, AstroForge co-founder and CEO, said in a video update on the state of the Odin mission posted on X on Friday (Feb. 28). Odin is thought to be in a "sun safe mode," which means the spacecraft is in a thermally safe and power positive attitude. "We do believe we're in a power-positive state, though we don't have telemetry coming down to confirm that. Hopefully we can get that tonight," Gialich said. The spacecraft is also almost exactly where it was predicted to be, allowing for tracking using high-gain antennas, Gialich added. The team believes there are two possibilities for the issues. The first is that everything is fine with the spacecraft but there are issues back on Earth, such as AstroForge's ground receivers not being configured correctly. Alternatively, the spacecraft could be in a really slow, uncontrolled tumble, though the team believes it has information to suggest this is not the case. RELATED STORIES: — SpaceX rocket launches private moon lander and NASA 'trailblazer' to hunt for lunar water (video) — Space mining company AstroForge identifies asteroid target for Odin launch next month — Space mining startup AstroForge aims to launch historic asteroid-landing mission in 2025 Next steps, at the time of the update, included sending a command to the spacecraft to turn on a power amplifier, which would then send a high-gain signal back to Earth, providing vital data. AstroForge is providing a livestream of its operations as the mission progresses. For now, Odin is on its way. "We will be in deep space, and we'll be on the other side of the moon in about two days. And nothing is going to stop us unless we hit something," Gialich said.
Yahoo
28-02-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
NASA's brand-new Lunar Trailblazer probe suffers glitch on way to the moon
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. NASA's Lunar Trailblazer probe could be in trouble. Lunar Trailblazer launched atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 on Feb. 26 alongside Intuitive Machine's Athena moon lander on the IM-2 mission. The 11.5-foot (3.5-meter), 440-pound (200-kilogram) probe was designed to orbit low over the lunar surface to hunt for and map where water might be found in permanently shadowed regions on the moon. While its launch went smoothly, things do not appear to be going well for the spacecraft, according to a NASA update. Lunar Trailblazer powered up and began transmitting data after launch, but its operators began noticing power issues and subsequently lost communication with the probe some 12 hours after launch. Mission operators at Caltech and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory were able to reestablish contact with the spacecraft hours later, but are still "working with NASA ground stations to reestablish telemetry and commanding to better assess the power system issues and develop potential solutions," NASA wrote in the update. Lunar Trailblazer was built by Lockheed Martin and carries two sophisticated instruments to help it hunt for lunar water. One, the Lunar Thermal Mapper (LTM), was designed to map the surface temperature of the moon using infrared light, which could help it map mineral distribution on the lunar surface. Another instrument aboard the probe, the High-resolution Volatiles and Minerals Moon Mapper (HVM3), built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, was designed to measure how much sunlight reflects off the surface of the moon to help it hunt for the chemical "fingerprints" of any water hiding on the lunar surface. Finding water on the moon is a high priority for NASA as the agency works to establish a sustainable human presence there through its Artemis program. Recent moon-mapping missions have found evidence that water exists in permanently shadowed craters near the lunar south pole, the same region where NASA plans to land astronauts with its Artemis 3 mission. RELATED STORIES: — SpaceX rocket launches private moon lander and NASA 'trailblazer' to hunt for lunar water (video) — 1st map of moon water could help Artemis astronauts live at the lunar south pole — Can NASA's Artemis moon missions count on using lunar water ice? It remains uncertain how much water might be found there, but scientists hope that it could be used to support a human presence on the moon or even be used to produce resources such as rocket fuel. Another probe that launched alongside Lunar Trailblazer appears to be in trouble. Astroforge, a private company that hopes to one day mine asteroids for precious resources, launched its Odin probe on the same rocket in order to study asteroid 2022 OB5 ahead of a follow-up mission that will land there. Odin has yet to phone home, and mission controllers "don't fully understand the state of the vehicle," Astroforge CEO Matthew Gialich posted on X on Friday (Feb. 28).
