Hitchhiking to the Moon
Based on the significant number of robotic lunar missions of the last decade, a dramatically increased interest in exploration of the Moon for the purpose of developing a permanent human and robotic presence, both for science and space exploration objectives can be expected for the next decades. This renewed interest is broad and international, involving space agencies from the USA, Europe, China, India, Japan, Russia, Germany, UK, and others. Efforts like NASA Lunar Science Institute's (NLSI) rapidly growing global network of affiliates - academic and research institutions which each act as nodes within an existing network of their own partners - create demands for additional payload and flight opportunities, particularly from countries which just started their involvement in lunar exploration and science. In the future, it is expected that there will be more opportunities for ride-sharing or secondary or tertiary payload opportunities to be flown to the Moon, even as part of commercial enterprises like Google Lunar X-PRIZE missions. Examples from recent years are ESA's SMART-1 mission launched as a co-passenger opportunity from GTO, ISRO‘s Chandrayaan spacecraft offering its platform as an opportunity to fly international instruments to the Moon or NASA‘s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft providing an opportunity for a secondary payload to the Moon, in the form of the LCROSS lunar impactor mission. This session provides a forum for the exchange of ideas for such small payloads to be demonstrated at the Moon, by =Hitch-hiking a ride‘ to the Moon. Examples of such payloads or missions include but are not limited to: micro-spacecraft orbiters, CubeSats, small probes, penetrators, micro-landers, hard landers, micro-rovers, secondary payload surface science instruments, distributed network landers, and many more. The focus of this session is on new mission concepts, technology readiness and ride-sharing requirements.
2012-10-05
Chairman: Dr. Leon Alkalai, Mandala Space Ventures, United States;
Chairman: Prof. Rene Laufer, Luleå University of Technology, Sweden;
Rapporteur: Dr. Adam Baker, Rocket Engineering Ltd., United Kingdom;
Order | Time | Paper title | Selection result | Mode | Presentation status | Speaker | Affiliation | Country |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | accepted | 30' | withdrawn | Dr. Louis Friedman | The Planetary Society | United States | ||
2 | accepted | 15' | confirmed | Ms. Amanda Stiles | SpaceX | United States | ||
3 | State of the art of Team Italia AMALIA mission for the Google Lunar X Prize race | accepted | 15' | confirmed | Prof. Michèle Lavagna | Politecnico di Milano | Italy | |
4 | Getting to the Moon via the JURBAN Google Lunar X PRIZE team | accepted | 15' | no-show | Mr. Blaze Sanders | JURBAN | United States | |
5 | The Penn State Lunar Lion: A University Mission to Explore the Moon | accepted | 15' | confirmed | Prof. David B. Spencer | Pennsylvania State University | United States | |
6 | SPACEIL - ISRAELI LUNAR EXPLORATION AS A TOOL TO ENGAGE THE YOUTH IN SPACE RESEARCH AND EDUCATION | accepted | 15' | no-show | Mr. Yonatan Winetraub | SpaceIL | Israel | |
7 | Interdisciplinary design towards a rack motion lunar micro-rover | accepted | 15' | confirmed | Mr. Vidal Baudet Jarque | UPM | Spain | |
8 | accepted | 15' | confirmed | Mr. Alexander Wolf | University of Stuttgart | Germany | ||
9 | accepted | 15' | withdrawn | Dr. James Burke | The Planetary Society | United States | ||
10 | Electrolysis Propulsion Systems for Interplanetary CubeSat Missions | accepted | 15' | withdrawn | Mr. Rodrigo Zeledon | Cornell University | United States | |
11 | An affordable paradigm of hitchiker lunar and planetary spacecraft for exploration and commerce | accepted | 15' | confirmed | Mr. David Dunlop | National Space Society | United States | |
12 | The incorporation of transdisciplinary thinking into the development of hitchhiking payloads | accepted | 15' | confirmed | Ms. Joanna Griffin | University of Plymouth, Transtechnology Research Group | United Kingdom | |
13 | accepted | 15' | confirmed | Mr. David Lehman | Caltech/JPL | United States |