Even if it landed correctly, why would they plan a solar powered mission to the moon when our next lunar eclipse is in like 5 days?
That’s just private-sector efficiency taking control.
Weight == $$$
Wait, I thought Eggs == $$$
🤔
Yes, and eggs have weight.
So they couldn’t use eggs as a power supply.
Therefore, the only alternative was to rely entirely on solar.
Meanwhile, they now have nuclear diamond batteries. Hell, the Voyagers have been running on aging plutonium for nearly 50 years.
You’d figure a modern expensive system like that might have a modern secondary power source, at least enough juice to run for two weeks FFS…
Who has nuclear diamond batteries? Those are a total myth drummed up to get investor money. They don’t actually exist.
Sure the concept exists, in the form of betavoltaic batteries, those have been around for decades. They are tough and last dozens of years if not longer. The only problem is, they put out microwatts. You can use them in very niche applications, but those are few and far between. It’s hard to convey how little power a microwatt is, it’s basically nothing.
What you care about when going to space is energy density, and the proposed energy density of nuclear diamond batteries is very poor.
Rtgs are very useful for longterm missions, but are crazy expensive. They also aren’t being made anymore, so getting a hold of one is hard. The weight is an issue as well, they are super heavy.
These commercial moon missions are primarily demonstrator missions. They aren’t meant to last, they don’t really have a goal and often don’t do something useful. The idea is to show you can do it, so you can sell a product. Other people that do want to do useful stuff can then pay to get their stuff to the moon. So if the mission is over when the sun sets in two weeks time, that’s perfectly fine.
‘They aren’t being made anymore’
Yep, I think we’ve identified at least part of the problem. Once humans figure out a technology that can last decades, we test it, verify it works, and then stop using it in favor of cheaper shit meant to fail as fast as a dozen eggs rot…
What other power source? There is only solar and nuclear in space. And not even NASA does nuclear unless absolutely required for the mission.
We have uranium in our tap water here. As long as it remains less that 43 parts per million, they consider it ‘safe’. With hundreds of millions of dollars to throw around, it can’t be all that difficult to filter enough uranium out for the energy for a two week mission.
And it was a private spacecraft, not made by NASA (although it carried some of their sensors and equipment).
You don’t know how nuclear power works.
Eclipses end, though. Being tipped over does not.
Quite true. Strangely, here on Earth they have smart robots that you can literally kick over sideways, and their sensors and hydraulics and stuff kick right in and set them back upright.
If you’re gonna dump hundreds of millions of dollars into such a project, why not utilize all known, available, and proven technology?
Weight. That’s the only actual answer.
It’s extremely expensive to send weight to the moon, everything you list is more weight.
More weight but functioning vs multi-million-paperweight?
You’re looking at it with hindsight. Sure it feels like spending another million $ designing, testing, and adding additional weight, along with removing weight from other parts looks like the right decision now.
Every design makes compromises, and every failure looks stupid when looking at the end result. The team had decisions to make and if they had the extra time and money, then making the existing design more robust with more testing and reliability would have been the better solution.
How would a secondary power source save it from being tipped over? That’s a mission ending failure no matter how many redundant power sources you have.
