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Raumfahrt - Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter Danuri Mission -Update 2

20.12.2022

Danuri succeeds in 1st lunar flyby maneuver

Researchers at the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) monitor the Danuri's first lunar orbit insertion maneuver at the institute's operation control room in Daejeon, Dec. 17. Courtesy of KARI
The Danuri lunar orbiter, Korea's domestically developed lunar orbiter, succeed in the first of five planned maneuvers for a lunar orbit flyby on Saturday, the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) said Monday.

"The KARI carried out the Danuri's first lunar orbit insertion (LOI) maneuver as planned at 2:45 a.m., Dec. 17," the space agency said.

"The first maneuver was the most important one to ensure that the Danuri is stably captured by the moon's gravity and does not overshoot the moon," it added.

The space agency previously said the LOI process was carried out by automatically executing commands sent to the Danuri in advance at a set time. But the progress before and after the LOI was monitored in real time on the ground.

After the first LOI, the KARI analyzed orbit information for about two days and confirmed Monday that the Danuri reduced its speed from about 8,000 kilometers per hour to 7,500 kilometers per hour.

Researchers at the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) monitor the Danuri's first lunar orbit insertion maneuver at the institute's operation control room in Daejeon, Dec. 17. Courtesy of KARI
Researchers at the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) review data after carrying out the Danuri's first lunar orbit insertion maneuver at the institute's operation control room in Daejeon, Dec. 17. Courtesy of KARI

The Danuri is scheduled to perform five LOI maneuvers until Dec. 28 to settle into orbit 100 kilometers above the moon. Whether the space vehicle has entered lunar orbit properly will be confirmed on Dec. 29.
"The Danuri was captured by lunar gravity and now we can say it truly became a lunar orbiter that orbits the moon," the KARI said. The lunar orbiter's next four LOIs will be carried out on Dec. 21, 24, 26 and 28.
Carried by SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket, the unmanned Danuri was launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on Aug. 5.
After being launched into space, it headed to the moon using a ballistic lunar transfer trajectory method that uses the gravities of the Earth, the moon and the sun to enter lunar orbit.
Once the lunar orbiter is confirmed to successfully settle into the moon's orbit, it will conduct the initial operation of the payload and the function test in January. From February, it will carry out scientific observation, the KARI said.
The Danuri is equipped with five pieces of observation equipment developed in Korea and a ShadowCam device from the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) that can observe the darkest parts of the moon's surface.
Quelle: The Korea Times
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Update: 21.12.2022
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South Korean spacecraft enters lunar orbit with deceleration maneuver

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SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea’s first robotic lunar orbiter, Danuri, entered the lunar orbit after conducting its first lunar orbit insertion maneuver Dec. 16.

The orbiter is circling the moon in an elliptic orbit every 12.3 hours, with a perigee of 109 kilometers and an apogee of 8,920 kilometers, said the science ministry in a Dec. 19 statement.

The first maneuver, done with the firing of thrusters for thirteen minutes from 12:45 p.m. Eastern, “reduced the speed of Danuri from about 8,000 kilometers per hour to 7,500 kilometers per hour,” the ministry said in the statement. “It was confirmed that Danuri had been trapped in lunar gravity in a stable manner, which means it has become a genuine lunar orbiter.”

The ministry said the spacecraft would conduct four more propulsive maneuvers with its thrusters by Dec. 28 to steer it into a circular, low-altitude orbit about 100 kilometers from the lunar surface by Dec. 29. If successful, the 678-kilogram orbiter will go through a brief period of commissioning and tests to begin its yearlong mission from January, with six scientific instruments aboard, including NASA-funded hypersensitive optical camera ShadowCam. The camera is set to collect images of permanently shadowed regions near the moon’s poles to search for evidence of ice deposits, observe seasonal changes, and measure the terrain inside the craters. Collected data will be shared with NASA, which aims to send humans to the moon in the coming years under its Artemis program.

The Korean orbiter, also known as Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO), launched into space Aug. 4 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Launch Complex 40. It flew to the moon on a ballistic lunar transfer trajectory, which initially took the spacecraft toward the sun and looped it back to the moon. The route, while much longer than traveling directly toward the moon, allows more fuel efficiency as it leverages the sun’s gravity for travel.

While going to the moon, the orbiter demonstrated “space internet” by sending video and photo files, including a popular Korean band’s music video, at a distance of more than 1.2 million kilometers to Earth. The demonstration was conducted twice — Aug. 25 and Oct. 28 — using a space internet demonstrator developed by the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) here, validating an interplanetary internet connection using delay-disruption tolerant networking.

The spacecraft also sent photos of the Earth and the moon’s orbit it took between Sept. 15 and Oct. 15 using a built-in high-resolution camera at a distance of between 1.46 million kilometers and 1.548 million kilometers to Earth.

The Danuri mission marks the beginning of South Korea’s deep space exploration initiative. The country’s leader recently pledged to land a robotic spacecraft on the moon in 2032 and on Mars in 2045. To that end, the government is planning to invest 2.13 billion won ($1.63 billion) in developing a next-generation rocket, KSLV-3, a two-stage vehicle capable of putting up to seven tons of payload into sun-synchronous orbit, 3.7 tons into geostationary transfer orbit, and 1,8 tons into Earth-Moon transfer orbit. As part of this, the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) is working to develop kerosene-fueled 100-ton thrust engines in five years.

The leader also promised to double the government’s space development budget in the next five years and funnel at least 100 trillion won ($76.7 billion) into the space sector by 2045. South Korea’s space budget for 2022 is 734 billion won ($563 million).

Quelle: SN

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Update: 6.01.2023

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South Korea's moon mission snaps stunning Earth pics after successful lunar arrival

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An image of Earth and the moon captured by South Korea's Danuri mission on Dec. 28, 2022. (Image credit: KARI)

South Korea's first moon mission is beaming back images of home from its position in low lunar orbit.

Danuri, also known as the Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO), launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in early August last year and arrived in lunar orbit four months later, in mid-December. The milestone adds South Korea to the exclusive club of nations with successful moon missions, which also includes Japan, China and India, among others.

The Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) has now released images from the $180 million Danuri showing the crater and textured lunar surface in the foreground with the distant Earth behind. 

The images were taken on Dec. 24 and Dec. 28 respectively by the Lunar Terrain Imager (LUTI), which was developed by KARI. Engineers will use images from the camera to help identify sites for a robotic South Korean lunar landing mission targeting launch around 2032. 

 
 

The 1,495-pound (678 kilograms) KPLO completed a series of burns during mid- and late December, with the spacecraft entering its planned orbit with an average altitude of 60 miles (100 kilometers) above the lunar surface on Dec. 26, according to a KARI statement.

The orbiter is currently undergoing commissioning before starting its official science mission, which is scheduled to last about a year.

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An image of Earth and the moon captured by South Korea's Danuri mission on Dec. 24, 2022. (Image credit: KARI)

Five of Danuri's six payloads were developed by KARI, but NASA also has an instrument on board. ShadowCam was designed to scope out permanently shadowed regions at the lunar poles for hints of water-ice deposits, potentially providing valuable data for future missions in NASA's Artemis program, which aims to land astronauts on the moon in 2025 or 2026.

Quelle: SC

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Update: 13.01.2023

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NASA moon camera on South Korean probe takes a peek where the sun doesn't shine

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