The United States' return to the moon this time is really moving!
They're going to launch another probe to the south pole of the moon in search of water ice, and that's super big news! After all, the Peregrine Falcon is still fresh in my mind this year!
At 2:18 local time on January 8, 2024, the "Peregrine Falcon" lunar lander, developed by the American private enterprise Astrobotic, was launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Base in Florida on a Vulcan Centaur rocket to carry out a lunar landing mission.
This is the first lunar mission launched after the Apollo moon landing program of the United States in more than 50 years, and it is also the first time that a private enterprise in the United States has challenged the lunar landing mission.
After launch, the Peregrine Falcon successfully separated from the launch vehicle and sent back the first images in space. But just a few hours later, the Peregrine had a problem with its propulsion system, which prevented the lander from facing the sun, preventing the solar panels from charging and the battery level dropping rapidly.
Although engineers tried to solve the problem by updating the control algorithms, a failure within the propulsion system then led to a serious propellant leak and the Peregrine spacecraft was underpowered to achieve a controlled landing on the moon. Mission Launch then announced that landing on the moon was no longer possible, and expected the Peregrine Falcon to enter Earth from the South Pacific Ocean and crash in a sparsely populated area. At 15:30 EST on January 18, the Peregrine Falcon spacecraft crashed.
NASA had planned to use the experimental program on the Peregrine Falcon to prepare for a future manned lunar landing program, but due to the failure of this mission, NASA announced that the manned lunar mission would be postponed until September 2026.
In fact, the Peregrine carried some instruments for lunar exploration, but the plan had to be delayed because of the failure of the launch mission. In recent years, most of the human exploration of the moon has revolved around the water ice resources on the moon. In each mission, a probe searched for water ice near the landing site.
Is there really water on the moon? Why look for water ice?
This water ice is a key resource for humans to build a home on the moon in the future. With it, humans can be self-sufficient on the moon and no longer have to worry about running out of water to drink.
But is there water ice on the moon? Scientists have also been debating this issue.
Some scientists say that there must be water ice at the south pole of the moon, because the temperature is low and the environment is stable, which is a good place to preserve water ice.
But some scientists say that although the moon's south pole looks like there is water ice, no conclusive evidence has been found. South Korea once sent a probe, Danuri, to the south pole of the moon to look for water ice, although it was a South Korean probe, carrying out and carrying a NASA mission, and also brought a "ShadowCam instrument" to collect high-resolution images of the lunar PSR from lunar orbit to determine the distribution and accessibility of water ice and other volatiles, but it was not found for several years.
A month after the failure of the U.S. Peregrine Falcon, a more advanced probe, Odysseus, was launched to the south pole of the moon to find out. Odysseus is not only equipped with instruments to assess the water content of the regolith, but also carries a drone that can jump on the surface of the moon to look for water ice in the shadows.
The Odysseus probe was originally planned to land on the Shackleton Crater ridge at the moon's south pole, where the sun was abundant enough to provide enough power for the probe. But Odysseus landed and the probe landed on the moon. The six fulcrums of the probe, which are equivalent to the legs of the probe, are broken. So the probe was dumped on the surface of the moon.
Due to the angular deviation, part of the payload could not be recharged, and in the cold moonlit night that soon came, Odysseus was finally "frozen" to death on the surface of the moon.
Even so, the Americans have not lost their fighting spirit, and in the second half of 2024, the United States plans to launch another lunar probe called "Nova-C Lunar Lander", codenamed IM-2. The executive company is also the one that owns the Odysseus probe. It is planned to land on the Shackleton Crater ridge at the moon's south pole, an area that receives enough sunlight to power the lander for about 10 days.
The Nova-C lunar lander is planned to carry a propulsion drone funded by NASA, and it is worth mentioning that it is more of a robot than a drone, since in addition to flying, it can also make lunar surface jumps.
During the lunar activity, the neutron spectrometer provided by Hungary was turned on to collect data from the shadowed part of the active area to find out whether there was water ice in the area.
Once the Nova-C lunar lander program is successful, it will be of great significance to the future return of the United States to the moon, because the American return to the moon program is different from the Apollo program, Artemis plans to land at the south pole of the moon, and establish a long-term scientific research base, establish a normalized residency mechanism, and pave the way for future Mars manned landing missions.
According to the Artemis mission node, Artemis 2 was originally scheduled for 2024, but has been postponed to September 2025. The mission will have four astronauts flying around the moon, but will not land on the moon. The Artemis 3 mission is expected to take place in September 2026, when astronauts will land on the moon.
So where is our research on water ice in China? Uncle Circle learned that when Chang'e-7 was launched a few years later, there was a mission to go to the south pole of the moon to find water ice. And this time, although the United States took the lead this time, our Chang'e-7 will definitely be able to find the answer!