On February 23, the Nova-c lander of the American Intuition Machine Company overcame equipment failure and landed near the south pole of the moon. In the early morning of February 29, the company announced at a press conference that the work on the lander would be over and released photos of its arrival on the lunar surface. Photos show that one of the lander's six landing legs broke at the moment of contact with the lunar surface. Nonetheless, this moon landing still marked the first successful U.S. commercial lunar landing mission, and was also the first time a U.S. spacecraft landed on the moon after more than 50 years.
▲One of the six landing legs of the Nova-c lander broke
So what mission goals and significance has the US aerospace community given to the Nova-c lander? What are the novelties of application technologies and program concepts in the commercial lunar exploration model? What innovative results and market prospects are expected to be promoted?
Playing the important role of opening up the field
"Nova-c" is the model name of the lander that "difficultly succeeded" in this moon landing mission. The name of this lander is "Odysseus", and the mission code is im-1. It means "Intuition Machine Company's first moon mission".
Previously, the United States' first commercial moon landing mission failed, and the Peregrine Falcon detector re-entered the atmosphere and burned up. According to the photos taken by the U.S. Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and the image data returned by "Nova-c", the outside world determined that "Nova-c" softly landed on the lunar surface at 80.13 degrees south latitude, 1.44 degrees east longitude, and 2,579 meters above sea level, setting a new record The record set by India's Chandrayaan-3 probe last year became the closest lander to the lunar south pole so far.
This type of lander is 4.3 meters high and 1.6 meters wide. Its overall appearance is a cylinder with a hexagonal cross-section. After the six landing legs are deployed one after another, the diameter of the lander can reach 4.6 meters.
▲Schematic diagram of Nova-c lander rollover
This lander carries about 130 kilograms of payload, 6 of which belong to NASA and are used for key technology verification. For example, the landing site of "Nova-c" is one of the 13 pre-selected landing sites for the "Artemis-3" mission. Its landing process and topographic and geological survey results will directly affect the process of American astronauts "returning to the moon" . Currently, the "Artemis-3" manned lunar landing mission has been postponed to early 2027. Whether the two astronauts can safely set foot on the lunar surface by then depends largely on a series of detections such as the Nova-c lander. The results of the machine's work.
Generally speaking, the Nova-c lander undertakes three major mission objectives, and its significance cannot be underestimated.
First, open up the field of commercial lunar exploration. Although the success of "Nova-c" is not perfect, it still shows that commercial space forces have made significant progress in the field of lunar exploration. This year, the United States plans to carry out at least six commercial lunar exploration missions, initially demonstrating the huge potential and efficiency advantages of commercial aerospace. As each lunar exploration mission reaps results, commercial aerospace is expected to play a more important role in future lunar exploration and development missions.
Second, explore the south pole region of the moon. "Nova-c" chose to land near the south pole of the moon, aiming to explore the hidden resources in the area, especially the water ice resources in the permanent shadow zone. Through the results of a series of commercial lunar probes, scientists can better understand the geological composition and resource distribution of the moon, which is crucial for the planned construction of lunar bases and remote deep space exploration missions.
Third, help scientific research. Relying on radio spectrometers, laser reflector arrays, lidar, stereo cameras and other instruments and equipment, "Nova-c" originally planned to carry out scientific research on lunar geology and lunar environment. By collecting and analyzing samples and data from the lunar surface, scientists can delve into the lunar evolution.
Flexible concepts promote innovation
As the name suggests, one of the biggest features of commercial lunar exploration is the introduction of commercial thinking and operating models into the space exploration industry. In other words, it encourages space missions to implement business concepts and use business models and market mechanisms to promote progress in the space industry.
▲Nova-c moon landing process image
Traditionally, space exploration has been mainly funded by government agencies and international cooperation organizations, and generally does not consider direct profit.Commercial aerospace has injected new vitality and impetus into space exploration by introducing commercial investment, driven by profit expectations and market vision. Commercial lunar exploration is a further expansion of commercial aerospace activities in low-Earth orbit. In terms of business content,
’s commercial aerospace activities currently carried out or about to be carried out involve suborbital and space tourism, extraterrestrial resource extraction, commercial purpose scientific research and other fields, in order to attract more private enterprises and investors to participate in space missions , providing more business opportunities and development space for private enterprises.
For example, some companies are exploring the launch of private lunar tourism services, and may also try to transport personnel to the lunar space station or even the lunar surface in the near future, which will inevitably promote a series of aerospace research and development and experiments.
Some other commercial lunar exploration plans have put forward the goal of resource extraction, hoping to survey the lunar resources in a more detailed and comprehensive manner, try to utilize the resources in situ, build a lunar base, and transport high-value results back to the earth. This is expected to promote the development of lower-cost, higher-frequency cislunar space transportation and lunar landing technology, and will also be of great help to the research and development of lunar orbit and lunar surface working spacecraft, thereby stimulating more commercial aerospace forces to invest in innovation and entrepreneurship activities. Promote the rapid development of the space industry.
Special scientific research activities often also have commercial purposes. For example, the load of the Nova-c lander includes equipment from a sports equipment company, and it plans to test heat reflection technology on the lunar surface.
In terms of operation mode, since commercial lunar exploration usually involves cooperation between multiple parties, including government agencies, private enterprises, military and civilian scientific research institutions, and investment institutions, the collaboration and project management of all parties need to overcome greater challenges. Through cooperation and sharing of resources by all parties, it is expected to maximize resource utilization and minimize costs, promoting a win-win situation for all parties. For example, some commercial lunar exploration missions in the United States are jointly funded by government agencies and private enterprises, sharing the costs and risks of space exploration.
In terms of technological innovation, in order to achieve profitability, commercial lunar exploration usually actively develops and applies novel technical equipment while striving to obtain benefits from management. These new technology equipment have both high performance indicators and high risk difficulty. Their research and development and application will not only promote the progress of space technology, but also drive the innovation and progress of related industries.
In order to cope with various challenges in the cislunar space environment, some commercial lunar exploration programs have proposed new space vehicle and lander design concepts, exploring the deployment of comprehensive constellations with diverse functions in the cislunar space, and using space tugs to "ferry" loads wait. Many innovative researches will surely promote the progress and popularization of space technology.
Promote a win-win market technology
Based on the transformation and application of the results of previous lunar exploration missions, aerospace professionals believe that commercial lunar exploration activities will attract a wider range of social capital participation, thereby accelerating the development of aerospace technology and scientific research progress, and promoting the aerospace industry market Expand, ultimately reduce the difficulty of lunar exploration activities and promote sustainable development.
First of all, lunar exploration missions and cislunar space activities will lead to advances in rocket and spacecraft technology and research progress in orbit selection and electromagnetic spectrum. Commercial lunar exploration missions will significantly increase launch opportunities, increase mission frequency, and strive to try new designs and new ideas in order to improve the success rate and mission cost-effectiveness.
It is expected that as commercial lunar exploration activities gradually reach a climax, new technologies such as high-efficiency cislunar space vehicles, intensive high-precision landers, jumping and flying lunar surface detectors, lunar resource mining equipment, lunar surface energy supply and construction models will be launched. Concept technology solutions are likely to accelerate application, and these achievements are inseparable from scientific research and innovation in basic fields such as new aerospace engines, advanced spacecraft designs and materials, and autonomous navigation systems. They are expected to provide more complex and far-reaching space exploration activities. Efficient and more reliable technical support.
Secondly, commercial lunar exploration is expected to open up new resource utilization research fields and application markets. By exploring and developing lunar water ice resources, rare minerals, etc., commercial aerospace forces have the possibility to achieve stable profits, thereby providing an important material foundation for the development of the space industry.
In fact, commercial lunar exploration and even commercial aerospace activities are not based on "getting rich overnight". Reasonable business plans generally pursue stable profits, which provides the possibility for sustainable progress in lunar exploration and even more complex space missions. The frequent implementation of commercial space activities with various goals will drive down the cost of space launch and transportation, thereby accelerating the lowering of the "threshold" for the popularization of emerging industries such as space tourism and services. For example, as more and more units participate in commercial lunar exploration and other space missions, space services such as satellite maintenance and space logistics will surely provide new and broad business opportunities.
What's more, the "main business" of commercial lunar exploration - the development and utilization of lunar resources, and the establishment and improvement of a "closed-loop management" cislunar space industry chain are expected to contribute solutions to earth's resource shortages and environmental problems, and promote the development of human society. progress towards the goal of sustainable development.
Finally, some people may still have doubts about the near-term profit prospects of commercial lunar exploration, so they might as well return to the basic goal-promoting scientific research and space exploration. With more missions to explore the moon and even distant deep space, scientists can gain a deeper understanding of the mysteries of the universe and provide new impetus for scientific development and technological innovation.
(Source: China Aerospace News)
