Which launch was this? Was it the crewed mission?

YellowPot_97 said:

---

Which launch was this? Was it the crewed mission?

---

Yes

Premium said:

---

NASAg03 said:

---

LTV mockups due today from the three competitors. Functional prototypes due in November. Here's the rollout for Intuitive Machines.

Apollo astronauts made history by driving the Lunar Roving Vehicle across the Moon’s surface. Now, their insights are helping push the frontier further with the Moon RACER team’s next-gen Lunar Terrain Vehicle. The team is delivering a static mock-up to @NASA_Johnson for… pic.twitter.com/nq5c8rosni

— Intuitive Machines (@Int_Machines) September 27, 2024

---

Nice marketing but that lunar rover looked lame. They should make one that is enclosed with oxygen for longer treks.

---

Other companies are developing a pressurized lunar rover, but that's significantly more expensive, heavier, and requires far more complexity. No matter the vehicle, astronauts are going to want to get boots on the ground.

Making a rover that doesn't require EVA suits means you need a design that allows for astronauts to put it on while also keeping lunar dust out of the vehicle. That's a huge challenge. NASA has some developmental mockups for such a design.

At the very least you need a docking port to dock with a lunar lander or a space habitat, and again a method to clean the port before mating and opening.

For these three proposed rovers, all you need is an extra set of EVA O2 tanks to extend the range. Ours has a truck bed and trailer for such storage.

The orbital part of the mission went as planned. To avoid unnecessary space debris, SpaceX deorbits the upper stage to crash into the ocean. When the engines relit to deorbit there was some sort of anomaly and it hit the ocean outside of the target range.

ULA is rolling Vulcan out to the pad today for their second launch.

NASAg03 said:

---

Premium said:

---

NASAg03 said:

---

LTV mockups due today from the three competitors. Functional prototypes due in November. Here's the rollout for Intuitive Machines.

Apollo astronauts made history by driving the Lunar Roving Vehicle across the Moon’s surface. Now, their insights are helping push the frontier further with the Moon RACER team’s next-gen Lunar Terrain Vehicle. The team is delivering a static mock-up to @NASA_Johnson for… pic.twitter.com/nq5c8rosni

— Intuitive Machines (@Int_Machines) September 27, 2024

---

Nice marketing but that lunar rover looked lame. They should make one that is enclosed with oxygen for longer treks.

---

Other companies are developing a pressurized lunar rover, but that's significantly more expensive, heavier, and requires far more complexity. No matter the vehicle, astronauts are going to want to get boots on the ground.

Making a rover that doesn't require EVA suits means you need a design that allows for astronauts to put it on while also keeping lunar dust out of the vehicle. That's a huge challenge. NASA has some developmental mockups for such a design.

At the very least you need a docking port to dock with a lunar lander or a space habitat, and again a method to clean the port before mating and opening.

For these three proposed rovers, all you need is an extra set of EVA O2 tanks to extend the range. Ours has a truck bed and trailer for such storage.

---

Thanks for all of the detailed reply. Do you know why dust is so important to not bring back in other than annoyance?

NASAg03 said:

---

Premium said:

---

NASAg03 said:

---

LTV mockups due today from the three competitors. Functional prototypes due in November. Here's the rollout for Intuitive Machines.

Apollo astronauts made history by driving the Lunar Roving Vehicle across the Moon’s surface. Now, their insights are helping push the frontier further with the Moon RACER team’s next-gen Lunar Terrain Vehicle. The team is delivering a static mock-up to @NASA_Johnson for… pic.twitter.com/nq5c8rosni

— Intuitive Machines (@Int_Machines) September 27, 2024

---

Nice marketing but that lunar rover looked lame. They should make one that is enclosed with oxygen for longer treks.

---

Other companies are developing a pressurized lunar rover, but that's significantly more expensive, heavier, and requires far more complexity. No matter the vehicle, astronauts are going to want to get boots on the ground.

Making a rover that doesn't require EVA suits means you need a design that allows for astronauts to put it on while also keeping lunar dust out of the vehicle. That's a huge challenge. NASA has some developmental mockups for such a design.

At the very least you need a docking port to dock with a lunar lander or a space habitat, and again a method to clean the port before mating and opening.

For these three proposed rovers, all you need is an extra set of EVA O2 tanks to extend the range. Ours has a truck bed and trailer for such storage.

---

I'm not aware of anyone designing a pressurized rover outside of JAXA.

NASA rover concept where you use a suit like the Orlan that has a rear entry hatch. The crew member then mates the back of their suit to the back of the rover allowing the crew to open the rear suit hatch and crawl inside the pressurized rover's airlock, leaving most of the dust outside the rover.

Lunar dust is highly abrasive. Think glass powder than hasn't been worn down by wind and water. It's also highly irritant to skin and lungs and may be carcinogenic.

Toyota and Mitsubishi Heavy are teaming up to support NAsA and JAXA. Looks promising but only an artists / proposal concept.



https://www.spacescout.info/2024/06/meet-the-pressurized-rover/

Best imagined rover

NASAg03 said:

---

Toyota and Mitsubishi Heavy are teaming up to support NAsA and JAXA. Looks promising but only an artists / proposal concept.



https://www.spacescout.info/2024/06/meet-the-pressurized-rover/

---

Looks like the Armageddon Armadillo, sans drill rig.

NASAg03 said:

---

Lunar dust is highly abrasive. Think glass powder than hasn't been worn down by wind and water. It's also highly irritant to skin and lungs and may be carcinogenic.

---

It's also electrostatic and clings to everything. Gene Cernan said it would be the #1 challenge to long term lunar operations. I'd say he was probably correct.

One of the best threads on Texags… not even sure why it's in the politics forum but I'm ok with it .. Elon just keeps rolling with his projects

Curiosity needs AAA. Where's Elon Musk when you need him?

Also, who goes 11 years without replacing their tires? NASA needs to up their maintenance game!

Interesting. I'm assuming it's not rubber since the temps there are so low. I bet most plastic would become brittle and break after years of that kind of exposure.

I don't know if it is, but looks like carbon fiber

I always thought they were aluminum. Will go try to find some details.

will25u said:

---

Curiosity needs AAA. Where's Elon Musk when you need him?

Also, who goes 11 years without replacing their tires? NASA needs to up their maintenance game!

---

Doesn't seem to be smart to keep the soundstage that cold. High utility cost and wear and tear on gear.

That makes sense. Thanks!!

Wow so even metal couldn't hold up. Goes to show how hard it'll be to live there if we ever do try.

I get it.

This just in. It's very cold on Mars. And cold metal is brittle metal.

Every set of wheels on every rover had these issues.

Was listening to a podcast that talked about using AI for metallurgy the other day and seems like this would be a perfect use case for that.

Sea Speed said:

---

Was listening to a podcast that talked about using AI for metallurgy the other day and seems like this would be a perfect use case for that.

---

Metallurgy (and materials sciences broadly) and AI make a lot of sense to me, looking forward. Drug companies have sort of pioneered this with their compound research already, but metallurgy will require more integration/heat/component mixes to validate theories and systematically advance.

It could impact the space race, for sure, and I would hazard a guess SpaceX will be one of the leaders, though Sierra and others have definitely expressed an intent to invest in it as well.

I'm guessing those were made of aluminum 7075-T7351, which is a very high-strength alloy. And it gets stronger at colder temperatures. However, aluminum does suffer from fatigue failure, which is most likely the failure you see.

Considering Curiosity was designed for a 2-year mission (and is on year 12), this failure isn't a surprise or a knock against the design. You don't design a race car to survive 10 races. You design to just finish one race - otherwise that's wasted mass.

This especially applies to hardware that's sent to Mars. You design to the minimum margins to maximize payload mass for the mission duration. If anything you could argue these wheels were overdesigned.

https://www.matweb.com/search/datasheet_print.aspx?matguid=6653b72914864cc0a0ff7adf5b720167

Great video, the Atlan and AN-225 discussion are in particularly excellent.



Of course, in most/all respects the An-225 was a Ukrainian creation, very sad end.

What a great diagram, had no clue the first stage was so small pic.twitter.com/RuhuHTjqVF

— ben jamin (@jamin_ben1235) September 30, 2024

Is Vulcan really potentially launching this am?

We are "go" for the launch of the #VulcanRocket on the #Cert2 flight test! The launch window opens Friday at 6 a.m. EDT (1000 UTC) from Cape Canaveral, FL. https://t.co/eWLyIiIUE6 pic.twitter.com/kWQ1nIvZ1b

— ULA (@ulalaunch) October 2, 2024

Unless something is done about the bureaucratic smothering of America, humanity will never reach the stars.

That is my biggest showstopper issue for why Trump must win, as the alternative is continued expansion of oppressive big government, making progress impossible.

Unless… https://t.co/hhNQDrAOCm

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 4, 2024

Looks like they made it:

There go the solids. pic.twitter.com/MPiTyl9jFO

— Chris Bergin - NSF (@NASASpaceflight) October 4, 2024

Second time this year we've seen someone dodge a bullet.

Did anyone see the booster engine on Vulcan go boom during the launch? About 30-40 seconds in.

Yeah that was apparently a pretty close call.

Vulcan during the "observation" seen during ULA's Cert-2 mission this morning. Watch how the rocket moves to adjust after the flash.

📸 - @NASASpaceflight
📺 - https://t.co/uzKGo20deK pic.twitter.com/5z3vXxDwhY

— D Wise (@dwisecinema) October 4, 2024

Kept running afterward, must have been something digested by a turbo pump getting fired through?

I am sure a ULA mishap investigation is forthcoming. And will ground Vulcan for months. /s