Sunday, January 3, 2016

List of proposed missions to the Moon

The subject of proposed missions to the Moon have been mentioned before, still the beginning of a year is probably a good time to bring it up again.

I mentioned that maybe Disney would like to help fund the government direction to make a space habitat and it has been suggested that it might better be done for some commercial lunar enterprise proposal.

It might be interesting to look at some of the future space proposals from the idea of what is in it for yourself. 
Below a snippet of the Wikpedia article on proposed missions to the Moon.
We shall see what the new year brings.

- LRK -

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List of proposed missions to the Moon
Under development
CountryNameLaunch dueNature of mission
(Private)GLXP Astrobotic Technology2016[1]landing and roving
(Private)GLXP Moon Express2017[2]mining
(Private)GLXP SpaceIL2017[3]landing and roving
 RussiaLuna-Glob 12024[4][5]planning the creation of a lunar base
 IndiaChandrayaan-22017[6][7]landing, roving, sample analyzing
 ChinaChang'e 52017[8]sample return
 USALunar Flashlight2018[9]searching for water ice deposits
 RussiaLuna-Glob 2 (Luna-Resurs)2018[10][11]planning the creation of a lunar base
 USAILN Node 12018[12]first node of a lunar network
 JapanSLIM[13]2019[14]pinpoint landing, roving[15][16]
 ChinaChang'e 4"Before 2020"[17]landing and roving
 ChinaChang'e 62020[18]sample return


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Proposed Lunar Mission One would like to send your foot prints to the Moon.

- LRK -
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At Lunar Mission One, we believe the Moon is for everyone. It’s our driving force, our core belief, our mission. We want to give everyone on Earth the chance to make their mark on the Moon with us. So upload a photo of your footprints, feet or shoes below. We plan to send all your photos to the Moon on the Astrobotic Lander in 2017, so you can make a stand on the Moon with us.

Lunar Mission One is a mission to the Moon for everyone.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Mission_One
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Will Russia help send some folks toward the Moon?
2008 has come and gone and I am not getting any younger. 
- LRK -

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DSE Alpha
Russian manned lunar flyby spacecraft. Study 2005. Potential commercial circumlunar manned flights were offered in 2005, using a modified Soyuz spacecraft docked to a Block DM upper stage.

The customer would be shot around the moon as early as 2008 at a price of $100 million. Soyuz had already been proven for this role under the L1 program in the 1960's.

In August 2005 Energia, in collaboration with Space Adventures / Deep Space Expeditions announced the potential offering of flights around the moon to millionaires able to afford the $ 100 million price tag. Dusting off the work of the 1960's that resulted in the Soyuz being qualified for manned circumlunar flight, the new version proposed two mission profiles:

The baseline Direct Staged Mission would run as follows:

Day 1: Launch of a Soyuz TMA spacecraft by a Soyuz 11A511U booster into low earth orbit.
Day 2: Launch of Block DM upper stage by a Zenit-3 launch vehicle. After the Block DM's parking orbit parameters were verified, the Soyuz TMA began to maneuver to rendezvous with the upper stage.
Day 3: The Soyuz docked with the Block DM. After check-out, the Block DM fired to propel the Soyuz on a trans-lunar trajectory. After burn-out, the Soyuz undocks from the upper stage and continues on its ballistic course toward the moon.
Days 4-5: Coast to the moon. The Soyuz makes mid-course maneuvers as necessary.
Day 6: Loop around the moon at a considerable altitude. The Soyuz did not have the propellant capacity to enter lunar orbit, so the surface passed by below in an encounter of just a few hours.
Days 7-8: The long fall back towards earth, with midcourse corrections as needed.
Day 9: Re-entry in the earth's atmosphere. Presumably the Soyuz would make the double-dip trajectory over one of the earth's poles perfected by the L1 Zond spacecraft in the 1960's.

Another, more expensive variant of the mission foresaw the Soyuz spending two weeks at the International Space Station prior to the lunar mission - a total of 3 weeks in space, in earth orbit, and around the moon.----

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Deep Space Expedition Alpha (DSE-Alpha), is the name given to the mission proposed in 2005 to take the first space tourists to fly around the Moon. The mission is organized by Space Adventures Ltd., a commercial spaceflight company. The plans involve a modified Soyuz capsule docking with a booster rocket in Earth orbit which then sends the spacecraft on a free return circumlunar trajectory that circles around the Moon once. While the price was originally announced in August 2005 to cost US$100 million per seat, Space Adventures founder Eric Anderson announced in January 2011 that one of the two available seats had been sold for $150 million. Launch is currently being targeted for 2018.[1][2]

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Up, up and away, someday MAYBE, further than the ISS, YES?
- LRK -


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Space tourism is space travel for recreational, leisure or business purposes. A number of startup companies have sprung up in recent years, such as Virgin Galactic and XCOR Aerospace, hoping to create a sub-orbital space tourism industry. Orbital space tourism opportunities have been limited and expensive, with only the Russian Space Agency providing transport to date.
The publicized price for flights brokered by Space Adventures to the International Space Station aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft have been US $20–40 million, during the period 2001–2009 when 7 space tourists made 8 space flights. Some space tourists have signed contracts with third parties to conduct certain research activities while in orbit.
Russia halted orbital space tourism in 2010 due to the increase in the International Space Station crew size, using the seats for expedition crews that would have been sold to paying spaceflight participants.[1][2] Orbital tourist flights are planned to resume in 2015.[3]
As an alternative term to "tourism", some organizations such as the Commercial Spaceflight Federation use the term "personal spaceflight". The Citizens in Space project uses the term "citizen space exploration".[4]
As of September 2012, multiple companies are offering sales of orbital and suborbital flights, with varying durations and creature comforts.[5]

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Thanks for looking up with me, 
- LRK -
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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK -
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