Moon landings remain hard; and a truly comprehensive testing regime non-optional for success.
Note the following about four recent Moon landing attempts.
- ISRO attributes emphasis on demonstrating the lander system’s performance down to its specifics as the principal reason for Chandrayaan 3’s triumphant touchdownon the Moon after Chandrayaan 2’s failure.
- Both of Intuitive Machines’ landers part of NASA’s CLPS program hard-landed on the Moon due to inadequate testing and checkoutsof their laser rangefinders.
- Astrobotic’s first CLPS lander Peregrine failed because of skipping comprehensive launch environmental testing of its propulsion system.
- In contrast, Firefly proactively kept ample margins in terrestrial testing as well as for spaceflight deviances and anomalies to achieve Blue Ghost’s soft landing for NASA CLPS earlier this year.
As indispensable as comprehensive testing is, another hard fact is that private companies don’t have the kind of high budgets or time afforded by government space agencies. This necessarily implies lesser overall redundancy in their robotic lander designs as well as a testing regime that’s always battling cost and schedule — all leading to greater risks. Even fuel margins on privately built landers tend to be on the lower side because every kilogram of added fuel reserve would take away at least several hundred thousand dollars worth of commercial payload capacity. But alas, the closer a lander is to the surface during lunar descent, the lesser its ability to self-correct with depleting fuel reserves.
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– Published as part of Moon Monday #228: The need for resilience in private lunar landing missions through expansive and collaborative testing
