| Industry |
|
|---|---|
| Founded | March 2015 |
| Founder | Ewan Reid |
| Headquarters | 162 Elm Street West Ottawa, Ontario K1R 6N5 |
| Services | Robotics, Autonomous Vehicles, Planetary Rovers, STEM Education & Outreach |
| Website | missioncontrolspaceservices |
| Industry |
|
|---|---|
| Founded | March 2015 |
| Founder | Ewan Reid |
| Headquarters | 162 Elm Street West Ottawa, Ontario K1R 6N5 |
| Services | Robotics, Autonomous Vehicles, Planetary Rovers, STEM Education & Outreach |
| Website | missioncontrolspaceservices |
Mission Control Space Services (Mission Control) is a Canadian company that focuses on developing advanced software for space, including AI. [1]
Mission Control was founded in 2015 by Ewan Reid. [2] Located in Ottawa, Ontario, is an 8200 square foot facility, including two laboratories, an Orbital Autonomy Lab for autonomous on-orbit robotic operations, a 4000 square foot lunar analogue terrain facility and more. [3] Mission Control was the first in the world to deploy deep learning AI in lunar orbit [4]
2015 - Mission Control won its first contract with the Canadian Space Agency to develop ASAS: the Autonomous Soil Assessment System. [5]
2018/2019 - Mission Control secured funding from the Canadian Space Agency through their Lunar Exploration Accelerator Program (LEAP) for the development of an operations and autonomy framework for upcoming lunar exploration missions. [6] Mission Control's Spacefarer software was prepared to help guide the Rashid Lunar Rover, a component of the Emirates Lunar Mission, scheduled to launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in 2022. [7] [8]
2023 - M1 of the Emirates Lunar Mission did not successfully land. [9] Although this was upsetting for the Mission Control team, the company is now the first organization in the world to deploy deep-learning Artificial Intelligence (AI) in lunar orbit. [10]
A lander is a spacecraft that descends towards, then comes to rest on the surface of an astronomical body other than Earth. In contrast to an impact probe, which makes a hard landing that damages or destroys the probe upon reaching the surface, a lander makes a soft landing after which the probe remains functional.
The physical exploration of the Moon began when Luna 2, a space probe launched by the Soviet Union, made a deliberate impact on the surface of the Moon on September 14, 1959. Prior to that the only available means of lunar exploration had been observations from Earth. The invention of the optical telescope brought about the first leap in the quality of lunar observations. Galileo Galilei is generally credited as the first person to use a telescope for astronomical purposes, having made his own telescope in 1609, the mountains and craters on the lunar surface were among his first observations using it.
The Chinese Lunar Exploration Program, also known as the Chang'e Project after the Chinese Moon goddess Chang'e, is an ongoing series of robotic Moon missions by the China National Space Administration (CNSA).
A rover is a planetary surface exploration device designed to move over the rough surface of a planet or other planetary mass celestial bodies. Some rovers have been designed as land vehicles to transport members of a human spaceflight crew; others have been partially or fully autonomous robots. Rovers are typically created to land on another planet via a lander-style spacecraft, tasked to collect information about the terrain, and to take crust samples such as dust, soil, rocks, and even liquids. They are essential tools in space exploration.
SELENE-2, or the Selenological and Engineering Explorer 2, is a cancelled Japanese robotic mission to the Moon that would have included an orbiter, a lander and a rover. It was intended as a successor to the 2007 SELENE (Kaguya) lunar orbiter.
Astrobotic Technology, Inc., commonly referred to as Astrobotic, is an American private company that is developing space robotics technology for lunar and planetary missions. It was founded in 2007 by Carnegie Mellon professor Red Whittaker and his associates with the goal of winning the Google Lunar X Prize. The company is based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Their first launch occurred on January 8, 2024, as part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. The launch carried the company's Peregrine lunar lander on board the first flight of the Vulcan Centaur rocket from Florida's Space Force Station LC-41. The mission was unable to reach the Moon for a soft or hard landing. On June 11, 2020, Astrobotic received a second contract for the CLPS program. NASA would pay Astrobotic US$199.5 million to take the VIPER rover to the Moon, targeting a landing in November 2024. In July 2024, NASA announced that VIPER had been cancelled.
A lunar rover or Moon rover is a space exploration vehicle designed to move across the surface of the Moon. The Apollo program's Lunar Roving Vehicle was driven on the Moon by members of three American crews, Apollo 15, 16, and 17. Other rovers have been partially or fully autonomous robots, such as the Soviet Union's Lunokhods, Chinese Yutus, Indian Pragyan, and Japan's LEVs. Five countries have had operating rovers on the Moon: the Soviet Union, the United States, China, India, and Japan.
The (Japanese) Lunar Exploration Program is a program of robotic and human missions to the Moon undertaken by the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and its division, the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS). It is also one of the three major enterprises of the JAXA Space Exploration Center (JSPEC). The main goal of the program is "to elucidate the origin and evolution of the Moon and utilize the Moon in the future".
Chang'e 6 was the sixth robotic lunar exploration mission by the China National Space Administration (CNSA) and the second CNSA lunar sample-return mission. Like its predecessors in the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program, the spacecraft is named after the Chinese moon goddess Chang'e. It was the first lunar mission to retrieve samples from the far side of the Moon; all previous samples were collected from the near side.
The UAE Space Agency (UAESA) is the space agency of the United Arab Emirates government responsible for the development of the country's space industry. It was created in 2014 and is responsible for developing and regulating the space sector in the UAE.
The future of space exploration involves both telescopic and physical explorations of space by robotic spacecraft and human spaceflight. Near-term physical exploration missions, focused on obtaining new information about the Solar System, are planned and announced by both national and private organisations.
Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) is a NASA program to hire companies to send small robotic landers and rovers to the Moon. Most landing sites are near the lunar south pole where they will scout for lunar resources, test in situ resource utilization (ISRU) concepts, and perform lunar science to support the Artemis lunar program. CLPS is intended to buy end-to-end payload services between Earth and the lunar surface using fixed-price contracts. The program achieved the first landing on the moon by a commercial company in history with the IM-1 mission in 2024. The program was extended to add support for large payloads starting after 2025.
ispace Inc. is a publicly traded Japanese company developing robotic spacecraft and other technology to compete for both transportation and exploration mission contracts from space agencies and other private industries. ispace's mission is to enable its clients to discover, map, and use natural lunar resources.
The Artemis program is a Moon exploration program led by the United States' National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), formally established in 2017 via Space Policy Directive 1. It is intended to reestablish a human presence on the Moon for the first time since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972. The program's stated long-term goal is to establish a permanent base on the Moon to facilitate human missions to Mars.
Chandrayaan-3 is the third mission in the Chandrayaan programme, a series of lunar-exploration missions developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). The mission consists of a Vikram lunar lander and a Pragyan lunar rover was launched from Satish Dhawan Space Centre on 14 July 2023. The spacecraft entered lunar orbit on 5 August, and India became the first country to touch down near the lunar south pole, at 69°S, the southernmost lunar landing on 23 August 2023 at 18:04 IST, ISRO became the first agency to land on the south pole of the moon in its first attempt and overall the fourth space agency to successfully land on the Moon, after USSR, NASA and the CNSA.
The International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) (Chinese: 国际月球科研站, Russian: Международная научная лунная станция) is a planned lunar base currently being led by Roscosmos and the China National Space Administration (CNSA). The ILRS will serve as a comprehensive scientific experiment base built on the lunar surface or in lunar orbit that can carry out multi-disciplinary and multi-objective scientific research activities including exploration and utilization, lunar-based observation, basic scientific experiment and technical verification, and long-term autonomous operation. Statements from Roscosmos and CNSA underline that the project will be "open to all interested countries and international partners." ILRS construction missions are expected to begin after the completion of the Chang'e 8 mission in 2028.
Queqiao relay satellite (Chinese: 鹊桥号中继卫星; pinyin: Quèqiáo hào zhōngjì wèixīng; lit. 'Magpie Bridge relay satellite'), is the first of the pair of communications relay and radio astronomy satellites for the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program. The China National Space Administration (CNSA) launched the Queqiao relay satellite on 20 May 2018 to a halo orbit around the Earth–Moon L2 Lagrangian point Queqiao is the first communication relay and radio astronomy satellite at this location.