Page 2 of 2 India, Russia squeeze Google Moon racers
By Peter J Brown
Work has commenced on mission conceptual designs as well as a lunar lander, and
several successful high-altitude balloon tests of various mission components -
as a prelude to space-qualification have taken place in Spain
"Team FREDNET is actively working to develop formal partnerships with several
major universities, and pursuing launch opportunities with multiple providers,"
said Bourgeois.
The recent rule changes that concern Markus Bindhammer, leader of Team Selene
based in Shanghai, involve insurance and mobility.
"Some GLXP rule changes are not acceptable for us. For
example, we are indirectly responsible for one significant rule change
involving mobility. In April 2009, we announced our so-called spiral lunar
lander/rover concept. At the time, this concept was allowed under the 2008 GLXP
rules," said Bindhammer. "A short time later, after the 2009 GLXP team summit,
the GLXP mobility rules were revised so that, in effect it ruled out our spiral
rover/lander concept."
Bindhammer has forged a strong relationship with the Nanjing University of
Aeronautics and Astronautics, and worked closely with the School of Aeronautics
at Beihang University.
Effective and even aggressive partnering will play an important role in the
outcome of this competition. Dr. Andrew Barton who is in charge of engineering activities for Netherlands-based Team White Label Space., for example, has devoted considerable time and energy to team-building. He is not really concerned by the impact of government
missions. Like Milliron, Barton was unaware of the proposed $5 million cut
until Asia Times Online brought it to his attention.
"The GLXP is not competing directly with government programs, nor should it.
GLXP is a parallel effort, and it will actually benefit government space
programs. Equally the efforts of governments can benefit the efforts of GLXP
teams who are able to access the technologies," said Barton.
The pattern to date strongly suggests that any government moon-landing missions
in the time frame of GLXP will involve development efforts for some of the more
difficult technologies and systems.
"Normally, when government agencies finance space technology, the development
work is done by industry, and industry also retains the intellectual property,"
said Barton. "Thus, in principle, GLXP teams should be able to partner with the
companies involved in a government mission and this could reduce the costs and
risks for investors and sponsors of a GLXP mission."
In the case of the joint Chandryaan-2 mission, attention must be paid to the
fact that the Russians will provide the lander for the mission.
"They will not need to develop many new technologies since they already
executed a number of successful moon landings during the 1960s and 1970s using
what appears to be the same lander design. Thus, the biggest potential impact
on GLXP will be the new moon rover technologies to be developed in India," said
Barton.
He sees signs that the pace of lunar exploration is picking up considerably on
a global basis.
"ESA has its own lunar lander project currently in Phase B and due for launch
late in this decade. Also, NASA is trying to get funding for a lunar lander
under the recently announced 'xScout' missions," said Barton. "China has not
released such detailed plans, although it has expressed a long-term interest in
human lunar landings which would probably require a program of robotic
precursors."
Team White Label Space formed a partnership two years ago with Tohoku
University's Department of Aerospace Engineering. Headed by professor Yoshida
Kazuya it is one of world's leading robotic research organizations. Among other
things, not only has Japan recently approved year-round launches at two
facilities where prior longstanding restrictions prevented this from happening,
but the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) opened the door to several
recent "piggyback" launch opportunities for micro-satellites in 2009.
"Such increased opportunities to access space will expand the number of
private, and even academic players. Access to the Moon is somewhat different
and more difficult, but it will be great if we can get piggyback flight
opportunities to the Moon," said Yoshida.
So far, Yoshida has counted 7 piggyback payloads including 6 non-government satellites created by universities and private companies which were launched in 2009 as well as another university payload known as Unitec-1 which was launched toward Venus with JAXA's "Akatsuki" Venus probe in 2010.
Barton describes Japan's massive H-IIA launcher as "not on our short list right
now, mainly for reasons of cost".
"However, if the Japanese government decides to provide us with some financial
support to reduce the price of an H-IIA launch, it might change the situation,"
said Barton. "Such support is permitted under the GLXP rules, so long as the
total government contribution does not exceed 10% of the total mission cost. In
that case, the change to 12-months operations at the Tanegashima launch
facility in particular would certainly give us extra flexibility in our
mission."
The Japanese government has initiated discussions which intend to promote lunar
missions over the next 20 years including unmanned landing and robotic
precursor missions by 2020, and the first manned mission by 2030.
"The Selene 2 mission - Japan's first lunar landing and rover mission - will
not happen earlier than 2013. This means that the private GLXP teams might
perform some basic rover tasks on the Moon earlier than the Japanese
government's project. Private space mission initiatives such as GLXP will
certainly impact government missions, rather than being impacted by them," said
Yoshida.
JAXA is not alone in terms of exhibiting a shift in the wind that might affect
GLXP teams. In early August, NASA's Lunar Lander Project Office started
reaching out to the private space sector including GLXP teams by declaring that
it will be purchasing, "specific data resulting from industry efforts to test
and verify vehicle capabilities through demonstrations of small robotic
landers. The purpose is to inform the development of future human and robotic
lander vehicles."
Specifically, NASA is seeking, "information about the design and demonstration
of an end-to-end lunar landing mission. This includes data associated with
hardware design, development and testing; ground operations and integration;
launch; trajectory correction maneuvers; lunar braking, burn and landing; and
enhanced capabilities."
Furthermore, NASA seeks "information related to landing using a human mission
profile; identification of hazards during landing; precision landing; and
imagery and long-duration surface operations." Contracts totaling approximately
$30 million through 2012 are planned. [1]
This news from NASA has certainly excited other US-based teams including Team
Micro-Space, Team Next Giant Leap and Team Astrobotic - Astrobotic Technology
Inc is a Carnegie Mellon University spin-off company - because this calls for
NASA to spend as much as $1.5 million for any vital data derived from advance
work including simulations done on the ground, that is, well before a US GLXP
team actually pushes the launch button.
Will any new GLXP teams emerge in Asia? If this is going to happen, it better
happen fast because the registration deadline for new teams is December 31,
2010.
"The registration fee has grown from the original $10,000 to the current
$50,000 over time. Note that $50,000 is on the order of one tenth of one
percent of the total mission cost for most teams," said Pomerantz. "There may
be new teams forming in Asia, but none that have begun the registration
process. We do not expect too many new teams, although we are tracking a few
organizations that we know are considering it. Actually, we already have far
more teams than we ever expected: our initial expectation was that we would get
at most a dozen competitors."
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