Breaking, Descent and Landing

Now here is where the fun really begins, it's not every day you land a robot on the moon! The Breaking Stage solid motor is used to reduce the spacecraft's speed on its approach. The direct descent landing trajectory chosen means the Lander can touch down just after lunar dawn allowing the maximum amount of time to complete the mission but also requires the timing of this burn to be very precise. To achieve this precision an on-board timer is used to trigger the ignition when the Lander passes through a specific lunar altitude. After the Lander separates from the Breaking Stage it follows a gravity turn trajectory (illustrated in the image) to the surface using its own rocket engine to control its descent. During the final approach to touchdown the Lander determines its altitude and vertical velocity using a small radar altimeter and its horizontal velocity by a landing camera coupled with the altimeter and rate gyros. Finally, after travelling a quarter of a million miles, the Lander touches down on the moon's surface and prepares to deploy the Rover and complete the GLXP mission.

Simon O'Reilly

Simon O'Reilly is the PR Manager for White Label Space and in that role he also looks after the team's social media presence.

Simon has a keen interest in astronautics, theoretical physics and astronomy and has read extensively on these subjects.

He received a First Class Honours Degree from Trinity College Dublin in Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering where he studied various modern manufacturing techniques and processes as well as their organization and management. His final year thesis was on "The Effects of Microjets on Jet Turbulence".

Simon's contact details are:

• email: simon.o.reilly@whitelabelspace.com
• twitter: @oreillsi

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Guidance and Navigation Control

Throughout the mission it is vital that the position and orientation of the spacecraft are precisely known so that it can be guided to the chosen landing site on the moon. Standard ground tracking techniques are used to accomplish this.

Soon after the Trans Lunar Injection burn and stage separation, a first Mid-Course Manoeuvre (MCM) is performed using the Braking Stage Reaction Control System. A sufficiently large delta-V for the MCM is provided for this burn that serves to compensate for injection inaccuracies of the solid motor. One or more subsequent MCM manoeuvres are performed throughout the rest of the lunar transit to accurately target the landing site. Following this the breaking stage is used to slow the spacecraft to a safe velocity for landing on the moon.

Attitude Control

The orientation or attitude of the spacecraft is critical at all stages of the mission. After the Trans Lunar Injection stage is complete the spacecraft stack begins its three day long journey to the moon. The difference in temperature between the side exposed to the sun and the side in the shade can be as high as 135 degrees. This temperature gradient can cause structural damage to the spacecraft and effect the performance of the Breaking Stage solid motor. To ensure that the temperature is distributed evenly a monopropellant Reaction Control System (RCS) is used to slowly spin the spacecraft about the flight axis.

The RCS is also used to perform any Mid-Course Manoeuvres (MCMs) needed during the lunar transit and to optimise the spacecraft's attitude for the breaking burn on approach to the lunar surface.

Lander Drop Test 1

The White Label Space engineering team conducted a first proof-of-concept test of a new concept for impact absorbing legs. Making best use of available hardware, the team integrated the new trial leg assembly on the existing mock-up of the lander. A sensor system was used to measure accelerations during the drop.

Trans Lunar Injection (TLI) Stage

The Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle can be used to launch the spacecraft stack into Geostationary Transfer Orbit (GTO) but then a second rocket impulse is needed to transfer from this orbit into the Lunar Transfer Orbit (LTO) required to complete the mission.

This part of the mission is referred to as the Trans Lunar Injection (TLI) stage and is accomplished using a Star30BP solid motor. The spacecraft is first stabilised by spinning it about its flight axis using a small motor which thrusts in the tangential direction before the Star30BP fires to inject the stack into LTO. A yo-yo de-spin mechanism is used to slow the craft's rotation after the TLI stage is complete, a video demonstrating a yo-yo de-spin can be viewed here. If either the Soyuz Fregat or Falcon 9 launch vehicle is used then the spacecraft stack is placed directly in LTO so the separate TLI stage rocket is not needed.

The Launch Vehicle

Every space mission begins with a rocket launch and the mission planned by White Label Space is no different. The launch will place the spacecraft in a parking orbit above the earth before it is propelled further to LTO (Lunar Transfer Orbit). From here the spacecraft follows an orbit which brings it increasingly under the effect of the moon’s gravity until, after a three day journey, it reaches the moon.

The launch will be carried out using one of three low-cost launch vehicles with which the spacecraft stack designed by White Label Space is compatible; the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-XL) developed in India, Russia’s Soyuz Fregat or SpaceX’s Falcon 9.

The larger size of the Soyuz Fregat and Falcon-9 launchers allows for additional payload capacity. These launch vehicles could carry one or more other passenger spacecraft to LTO, potentially including other GLXP competitors. This would considerably reduce the launch costs incurred by each organisation and so offers a clear financial advantage to any private or government funded missions.

While the Soyuz and Falcon launch vehicles can deliver a payload directly to LTO the PSLV-XL does not have this capability and so an additional rocket would be needed to perform what is known as a TLI procedure (Trans Lunar Injection). Once the TLI stage rocket has inserted the stack into LTO, it separates and is discarded, leaving the three remaining components of the spacecraft stack; the braking stage, Lander and Rover, to continue on their course to the lunar surface.

CubeSat Project With MINES ParisTech

Preliminary CAD Model of ThermoCS
by MINES ParisTech

White Label Space GLXP team has teamed up with MINES ParisTech, one  on their new CubeSat project, ThermoCS.

MINES ParisTech, also known as École Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Paris, is one of France's most prestigious engineering schools and provides post graduate education to some of France's top university students (see more information here).

The CubeSat is planned to contribute to the QB50 project, a constellation of 50 nanosatellites organized by the European Commission.

White Label Space will provide a secondary payload as part of its GLXP mission developments. The primary payload on the CubeSat will be the standard QB50 sensor suite designed to study the physical phenomena in the lower thermosphere, the of space and upper atmosphere in the  90-320km altitude range.

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Idea for a Lunar Night Survival Box

This video captures an introductory discussion about a battery powered lunar night survival box under investigation by the WLS engineering team for the GLXP bonus prize.

Engineering Meeting With Some Hardware

This video shows some of the action from last week's engineering meeting at the White Label Space HQ.

A number of hardware pieces are shown in various stages of development:

• new carbon fibre legs for the lander
• a custom PCB for data acquisition
• an omnidirectional camera that was repaired in the field at the Rio Tinto trials

Greatest Space Ads - China's Lenovo Stakes Claim in Commercial Space

Chinese electronics giant Lenovo has entered the commercial space race with a space-linked advertising campaign. Lenovo is supporting the YouTube Space Lab, a competition for teenagers to design experiments to be conducted in space.

Two winners of the competition will attend astronaut training in Russia and have their experiments performed aboard the International Space Station, and streamed to Earth. YouTube also joins the party by streaming the experiment down to Earth.

This is a keen marketing move by Lenovo, linking its brand the to dreams of today's youth while placing itself in the high-tech frontier of spaceflight. It should come as no surprise that Lenovo is interested in space since the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) is a major shareholder. The chief scientist of China's lunar exploration program, Ouyang Ziyuan, is in fact an academician at CAS (see here).

Andrea Gini is Editor-in-Chief of the Space Safety Magazine

White Label Space team member Andrea Gini is now Editor-in-chief of the Space Safety Magazine, a magazine published by the International Association for Advancement in Space Safety (IAASS) and the International Space Safety Foundation (ISSF), both non-profit organizations promoting the safe and sustainable use of space.

Starting in July, the Space Safety Magazine has evolved from a traditional document-based distribution to a paper magazine, complemented by a full-blown blog with daily updates on all the latest news and trends in the area of spaceflight safety.

We are very happy that Andrea is supporting the magazine whilst also remaining an active member of White Label Space. Indeed his work in that area is also relevant to the Google Lunar X PRIZE. Andrea describes the overlapping interests with the following comments:

"Poor attention, lack of technical progress in the field, cumulative effects, and weak or non-existent international rules are some of the risks that the space industry is facing nowadays."

"Safety risk in space missions refers to the general public safety (on ground, on air and at sea), safety of launch range personnel, and safety of humans on-board. Space safety is also generally defined in a wider sense as encompassing the safeguard of valuable facilities on ground (e.g. launch pads), of strategic and costly systems on orbit (i.e. global utilities), payloads as well as the safeguard of the space and Earth environment."

"Every space mission, especially those promoted by the the private sector like the GLXP, needs to take into account all these issues if they want to achieve the goal to lower the cost of access to space."

In his role as Chairman of IAASS Information and Communication Committee, Andrea developed the magazine to promote the IAASS and the ISSF, and their initiatives. Written by space safety specialists and by professional scientific journalists, the magazine targets the wider audience of those who have an interest, need or simple curiosity to know the current developments in the field of space safety and sustainability.

Andrea has even offered to mentor a White Label Space team members interested to bring some of his high-quality blogging and publishing know-how to the White Label Space blog. We are currently looking for volunteers interested to work with Andrea's to support and enhance this White Label Space blog.

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WLS Japan Engineering Meeting

The White Label Space Japan (WLS-J) team has started recruiting engineers to support the construction of a second rover prototype that will be dedicated to promotional activities such as the upcoming "Rover Challenge", a series of field demonstrations at famous Japanese sights.

The photos below show some of the action from the first engineering meeting.

The meeting included discussions about the specifications for the next prototype (no major modifications are foreseen) and the planning for the engineering work that needs to take place. The next step will be to agree on the form of the new WLS-J engineering unit that will be responsible for the new prototype's production and later the rover flight model for our GLXP mission.

From around March next year the new prototype will be available for the Rover Challenge promotional tour.

The existing rover prototype will remain with Tohoku University for further developments.

WLS-J is steadily growing, and has started to expand its weekly meetings in Tokyo into dedicated sub-teams covering issues such as promotion, business development and legal.

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Article by UK Institution of Engineering and Technology

E & T Magazine, the official publication of the UK's Institution of Engineering and Technology, has published this article about the White Label Space GLXP team.

The article includes comments from White Label Space Chairman, Andrew Barton, as well as some general information about the team's links to the UK.

The article was published in the "Students and Early Career" section of the E & T magazine, and makes special mention of the opportunities for students in the UK to get involved in the GLXP through the White Label Space team.

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WLS Japan Fun Meeting 3 - Part 1

This video (in Japanese) shows highlights of the White Label Space Japan Fun Meeting #3. The Fun Meetings, held at the Tokyo Culture Club, are a way for the Japanese public to learn about White Label Space and stay up to date with the team's progress on its Google Lunar X PRIZE mission.

In this video, chapter 1, Takeshi Hakamada, the CEO of White Label Space Japan, discusses the recent press conference that was organized in Tokyo to unveil the rover prototype, as well as explaining some of the background motivations of the GLXP.

Mark Bentley Talks Lunar Science

In this video White Label Space team scientist Mark Bentley discusses two recent lunar science topics that could be further investigated with experiments on GLXP missions.

He explains the "Two Moons Hypothesis" as well as a fluid drilling technique that could assist lunar science.

Lander Structural Model - CFRP Panels

The White Label Space GLXP Team is preparing a Structural Model of its lunar lander using Carbon Fibre Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) sandwich panels provided by the team's partner Airborne Composites.

This video shows some of the early development work;
1) a technical meeting to discuss the options for joining the panels
2) the machining of the panels
3) unpacking of the panels at the team's HQ

Rover POV Panoramas

Did you ever wonder what it would be like to be a hot new technology item on display at a Japanese press conference?

Well, probably not, but you can see what it looks like anyway in these awesome 360 degree scrolling panoramas taken by our rover's camera during the conference.

To scroll, just click on the image the move the mouse left or right. Your web browser will need shockwave flash installed and not blocked.

Upcoming MIT/Stanford VLAB event to Discuss Commercial Space

This weeks guest blog post, on the commercialisation of space exploration is from a our friend Ted Manning the Co-Chair for Space Events over at MIT/Stanford VLAB. 
The MIT/Stanford Venture Lab team will be holding a star-studded panel discussion on the commercialisation of the space industry and the entrepreneurial possibilities on September 20, 2011 at Stanford University. Book before midnight Friday (9/9/11) there's the possibility of grabbing a ticket for the discounted price of $30. For more details read on or register now at http://www.vlab.org/article.html?aid=423 

Commercial Space -- What's the Next Step?
The final flight of NASA’s space shuttle program, just concluded with the return of Atlantis, marks the end of an era. It is a milepost in the transition of space exploration from the realm of governments to that of private enterprise. Indeed, NASA now wishes the task of transporting its astronauts to low earth orbit--to such destinations as the International Space Station (ISS)--to be handed over such commercial outfits as SpaceX, Sierra Nevada, and Blue Origin. This way NASA will be able to focus more on “real exploration” deep into the solar system.

But the future of commercial space is not one-dimensional, to be limited to a service for government space needs. Granted, there always was a space market for large commercial interests, mainly for telecommunications, but the barriers to entry have always been monumental. Today, a shift in government policy, technology, and simply a critical mass by those seeking the new opportunities is underway that will ease space access and may make smaller private space concerns ever more possible.

The grand promises of space are well known: from low earth orbit any part of the planet can accessed from above for communications, earth imaging, and unlimited energy production. The weightlessness experienced in orbit has long been understood as one key to the development of exotic materials and pharmaceuticals. And space is the ultimate destination for humans, for the unbeatable view and unmatched experience.

There are a spectrum of new space-based business opportunities emerging and a surprising variety of players vying to grab a piece of space via a number of avenues. In an era where of everything needed in a satellite can be packaged in your iPhone (as micro-, nano-, even pico-satellites), getting to low earth orbit via established and new heavy launchers through “piggy-backing” or boosted off of upcoming suborbital vehicles powered by hybrid rockets may soon become de riguer. What can be done with fleets of tiny, low cost satellites? Space tourism may become another driver, where getting to space (if you include the suborbital variety) would no longer require $20 million+ and a year of astronaut training, be more down to earth with perhaps no more training than you would need for skydiving or scuba diving. Even your mom could enjoy the view, perhaps someday from a space hotel.

On September 20 at Stanford University, there will be a panel discussion involving a cross section of those seeking to gain from a reinvigorated commercial development of space. The panelists will show you how they are going to give you low cost access zero-g for your microgravity R&D, talk about the beginning of space tourism for the rest of us, show how we can mine the moon for a profit. If you want to find out how companies will thrive in space and what this means for our future, keep reading:



The New Space Race Is On!  Companies are launching in 10, 9, 8, 7 .......

Date/Time: Tuesday, September 20, 2011, 6pm reception, 7-8:30pm panel discussion.
Location: Stanford University Graduate School of Business, Cemex Auditorium
Event Details/Register: http://www.vlab.org/article.html?aid=423

NOTE: Early bird pricing $30 before midnight Friday, Sept. 9, $40 before midnight Friday Sept. 16, $50 thereafter.

Event Description:

With reduced government funding for space programs, the outlook is shifting away from traditional space organizations over to the funding of private entrepreneurs. The coming years are projected to see a dramatic growth in technological innovations and new business models – only paralleled by the Internet growth in the 1990s – and universal access to space.

Entrepreneurs are now exploring opportunities with new rocket launchers, novel uses of affordable small satellites, space tourism, and even space-based power generation and extraterrestrial mining.

How can entrepreneurs successfully launch new ventures in the space industry? Who will fund highly front-loaded capital requirements? What business models are effective? How will technology commercialization mesh with market windows? What about multi-national regulatory incompatibilities and industry incumbents?

Space has always been a petri dish to breed new technologies that later penetrate our everyday life. Discover the latest developments and learn how private investors and businesses are planning to overcome capital intensity and provide new solutions for our problems on Earth.

Moderator: Amaresh Kollipara, Managing Partner of Earth2Orbit, LLC and Strategic Consultant

Panel:
• William Pomerantz, Vice President, Special Projects, Virgin Galactic

• Jeffrey Manber, Managing Director, NanoRacks
• Bob Richards, Co-founder and CEO, Moon Express

• Al Tadros '88, Vice President of Civil and DoD Business, Space Systems / Loral

About VLAB:
The MIT/Stanford Venture Lab (VLAB: www.vlab.org) is the San Francisco Bay Area chapter of the MIT Enterprise Forum, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the growth and success of high-tech entrepreneurial ventures by connecting ideas, technology and people. We host the largest ongoing gathering of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and thought leaders at our monthly events at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, with an ecosystem that includes 25,000+ Bay Area influencers.

Researcher Sought for Lunar Regolith Project

White Label Space is looking for a researcher interested to do a feasibility study on lunar regolith anchoring technologies and lunar construction techniques.

This project will involve interaction with a partner organization that is developing a lunar regolith testbed and coming up with a conceptual design for a demonstrator payload to be flown on our Google Lunar X PRIZE mission. The demonstrator would have a scientific function as well as demonstrating novel techniques for regolith interactions.

The project would be ideal as a university project, but we are willing to work with anyone who has the time and knowledge to contribute. No funding will be provided for this project however the results will be promoted via our website and online media and the researcher will have access to technical support from the White Label Space engineers and scientists.

For more information, please send a CV and short description of the proposed modes of working to: payloads@whitelabelspace.com

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