ESA funds Danish lunar orbiter
The European Space Agency (ESA) has agreed to fund the first Danish-built interplanetary probe, a smallsat lunar orbiter dubbed Mani that will launch in ’29 and map the Moon’s surface.
The Máni mission is a lunar mission that will use a satellite to map the Moon’s surface with high-resolution images and create detailed 3D maps. The goal is to make it safer for astronauts and lunar rovers to land and move around on the Moon. The satellite will orbit the Moon’s north and south poles, which are key areas for future human missions.
The mission will also map how light reflects from areas on the Moon that are used to study Earth’s ability to reflect sunlight onto the lunar surface – the so-called earthshine. This knowledge could improve our understanding of how Earth’s climate will evolve.
The University of Copenhagen leads the mission and is responsible for the mission’s Science Operations Center, which will plan which areas to map and analyze the vast number of images generated.[emphasis mine]
I love how this European press release about a lunar orbiter somehow makes its most important mission studying climate change on Earth. Utterly idiotic.
Mani will use the changing shadows to create detailed topographic maps. As it is unlikely it will be capable of providing better data than produced over the past sixteen years by Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), this mission is mostly an engineering demo by Denmark and the Danish startup, Space Inventor, that is building the satellite for a consortium of universities. If successful the satellite will possibly be able to replace LRO (which is going to fail sooner or later), and provide data on any lunar surface changes that occur in the future.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
The European Space Agency (ESA) has agreed to fund the first Danish-built interplanetary probe, a smallsat lunar orbiter dubbed Mani that will launch in ’29 and map the Moon’s surface.
The Máni mission is a lunar mission that will use a satellite to map the Moon’s surface with high-resolution images and create detailed 3D maps. The goal is to make it safer for astronauts and lunar rovers to land and move around on the Moon. The satellite will orbit the Moon’s north and south poles, which are key areas for future human missions.
The mission will also map how light reflects from areas on the Moon that are used to study Earth’s ability to reflect sunlight onto the lunar surface – the so-called earthshine. This knowledge could improve our understanding of how Earth’s climate will evolve.
The University of Copenhagen leads the mission and is responsible for the mission’s Science Operations Center, which will plan which areas to map and analyze the vast number of images generated.[emphasis mine]
I love how this European press release about a lunar orbiter somehow makes its most important mission studying climate change on Earth. Utterly idiotic.
Mani will use the changing shadows to create detailed topographic maps. As it is unlikely it will be capable of providing better data than produced over the past sixteen years by Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), this mission is mostly an engineering demo by Denmark and the Danish startup, Space Inventor, that is building the satellite for a consortium of universities. If successful the satellite will possibly be able to replace LRO (which is going to fail sooner or later), and provide data on any lunar surface changes that occur in the future.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Actually, digging into it, it looks like Máni might offer a bit more than that. According to its website, “The Máni mission can map the Moon’s topography with a resolution as high as 20 cm per pixel.” Keeping in mind that qualifier “as high as,” it is still worth noting that LRO only manages 50 cm per pixel at its maximum. Also, LRO’s weak spot is deeply shadowed craters in the high polar regions, which is actually a focus for Máni.
So, it looks like it might be some (modest) net benefit to the imminent human presence on the lunar south pole — though I am sure its data will be superseded by even more superior technical means before too long….
Best of luck to the Danes. (I am wondering how they will launch this mission, since none of the information I can find about the mission even hints at this. I sense that they haven’t selected a launch provider yet.)
If Biden or Harris had been elected in 2024 (God help us), we’d still be getting press releases like this from NASA, too.