Scientists Search Lunar Landscape for Lost Moon Probes

"The moon is the final resting ground for
scads of landed and crashed spacecraft,
many of which have been pinpointed recently
by sleuthing scientists.

Using observations by NASA's sharp-eyed
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, for example,
researchers have located and imaged Apollo
moon landing leftovers, old Soviet-era
spacecraft and, more recently, the impact
locales of NASA's twin Grail spacecraft
that were deliberately driven into a
mountain near the moon's north pole.

But the search is ongoing to find the
exact location of several pioneering moon
landers."

See:

http://news.yahoo.com/scientists-sea...112355911.html

the article didnt mention the apollo 11 ascent LM stage. it must of crashed on the moon somewhere....

its too bad it wasnt placed in heliospheric orbit for historical reasons

On Saturday, June 29, 2013 8:24:06 PM UTC-4, wrote:
"The moon is the final resting ground for

scads of landed and crashed spacecraft,

many of which have been pinpointed recently

by sleuthing scientists.



Using observations by NASA's sharp-eyed

Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, for example,

researchers have located and imaged Apollo

moon landing leftovers, old Soviet-era

spacecraft and, more recently, the impact

locales of NASA's twin Grail spacecraft

that were deliberately driven into a

mountain near the moon's north pole.



But the search is ongoing to find the

exact location of several pioneering moon

landers."



See:



http://news.yahoo.com/scientists-sea...112355911.html

fred has been looney tunes forever

On Saturday, June 29, 2013 5:24:06 PM UTC-7, wrote:
"The moon is the final resting ground for

scads of landed and crashed spacecraft,

many of which have been pinpointed recently

by sleuthing scientists.



Using observations by NASA's sharp-eyed

Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, for example,

researchers have located and imaged Apollo

moon landing leftovers, old Soviet-era

spacecraft and, more recently, the impact

locales of NASA's twin Grail spacecraft

that were deliberately driven into a

mountain near the moon's north pole.



But the search is ongoing to find the

exact location of several pioneering moon

landers."



See:



http://news.yahoo.com/scientists-sea...112355911.html

The lunar surface is crystal dry, at least meters deep in extremely fine dust that has likely consumed those items, as their having sunk below the surface unless they got lucky and landed on protruding bedrock.

On Sunday, June 30, 2013 12:24:06 PM UTC+12, wrote:
"The moon is the final resting ground for

scads of landed and crashed spacecraft,

many of which have been pinpointed recently

by sleuthing scientists.



Using observations by NASA's sharp-eyed

Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, for example,

researchers have located and imaged Apollo

moon landing leftovers, old Soviet-era

spacecraft and, more recently, the impact

locales of NASA's twin Grail spacecraft

that were deliberately driven into a

mountain near the moon's north pole.



But the search is ongoing to find the

exact location of several pioneering moon

landers."



See:



http://news.yahoo.com/scientists-sea...112355911.html

Fabulous photos. Thanks

I recently posted some information about a course I took at the Ohio State University from Dr. vonEschen and his work with tri-propellant rockets that produced exhaust velocities in excess of 5.3 km/sec.

I mentioned that the Gibbs free energy of Lithium-Fluoride is such that exhaust speeds of 6.34 km/sec might be achieved by reducing the amount of hydrogen working fluid used.

I even pointed out that if fine powders of lithium are produced in vacuo and mixed with cryogenic hydrogen and fluoride crystals are also mixed with hydrogen, a stable compound results as long as it is kept near freezing point of hydrogen.

This mixture detonates easily by simply heating it in any number of ways.

Though the original reported work in 1967 said that liquid lithium and liquid fluorine are hypergolic, the ability to premix a sort of monopropellant and cause it to detonate has tremendous advantage.

http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchi...0-%200069.html

Graphite powder and hydrogen-peroxide are already mixed in this way to create a high density monopropellant.

http://www.rocketlab.co.nz/propulsio...onopropellant/

Now the graphite H2O2 combination is 1.53x the density of water and has a 3..1 km/sec exhaust speed.

A Fluoride/Lithium/Hydrogen combination 0.52x the density of water has a 6.34 km/sec exhaust speed.

Leaving Earth it takes 10.85 km/sec delta vee to make it to the Moon. Then it takes another 2.4 km/sec to zero out your velocity at the lunar surface.. To remove yourself from the Moon and return to Earth it takes another 2.4 km/sec at least. Arriving at Earth use aerobraking to slow down and land..

This is a total of 15.65 km/sec. With air drag and gravity losses during initial ascent, and requirements for course correction, a total delta vee of 16.5 km/sec is required.

This means that 92.6% of the vehicle must be propellant, assuming a one stage system. A structure fraction of 4.4% is higher than that of the S-IVB stage on the Saturn V. This system uses LOX/LH with a propellant density less than that of the proposed system. Thus, 3.0% is the resulting payload fraction.

Russia landed Lunar 9 on Moon 3 February 1966 at 18:44:52 GMT, Latitude 7.08 N, Longitude 295.63 E - Oceanus Procellarum. The Luna 9 spacecraft was the first spacecraft to achieve a lunar soft landing and to transmit photographic data to Earth.

Luna 9 had a mass on release from the upper stage of 1602 kg. The KTDU main engine had a thrust of 4500 kgf and 847 kg of propellant was loaded. A total of 6 seconds of burn time was allocated for mid-course maneuvers and 45 seconds for the lunar landing braking maneuver. After the braking maneuver, with the probe some distance over the lunar surface, the burn-out mass of the entire spacecraft was 430 kg. After the impact air bag had cushioned the final bouncing impact on the surface, the final mass of the probe on the surface was 79.5 kg

So, if we build an 80 kg rover to land at the same location as Luna 9, and arrange to replace the new rover with the old Luna 9, and return it to Earth we can say the following;

(1) 80 kg divided by 3% implies a take off weight of 2,667 kg.
(2) This means there is 2,470 kg of propellant and
(3) 117 kg of structure and
(4) 4,900 litres of propellant volume so
(5) A spherical tank 2.1 meters in diameter
(6) With a pressure of 350kPa, 1,000 cm2 of MEMS rocket array
(7) Produce 1.33 gee at lift off,
(8) and mass only 3.6 kg
(9) has a mechanism to hold release and pick up spacecraft up to 2 m in diameter.

So,

the spacecraft leaves Earth,
navigates to the moon,
hovers at the Luna 9 site near the original lander.
Releases the Rover it brought along.
Hovers directly over the original lander,
settles on top of it.
Secures the lander to the spacecraft.
The spacecraft departs carrying the old lander.
Navigates back to Earth.
Lands on Earth shielding the Luna 9 from re-entry.
Executes a powered touchdown.
Releases the Luna 9.

The vehicle is ready to repeat the exercise.

There were a dozen E-6 type spacecraft launched by Russia to the Moon. Many of these could be recovered and auctioned off to pay for the development of the spacecraft. The rovers, equipped with UHDTV 3D cameras and other features provide additional revenue.