Launch

The Googol is launched atop a Minotaur V launch vehicle from Cape Canaveral AFS, FL.

Time:              21 July 2012 14:52:26 UTCG
Location:         28.4472°LAT, -80.5649°LON
Azimuth:          90.5°
Burnout:          600 s
                     2932.26 km downrange
                     300 km parking orbit
Payload:          31.162 kg (dry)
                     110 kg (PSAM fuel)

Coast

Following launch, the Googol and the Minotaur V upper stage coast in a 300 km parking orbit until translunar injection.

Duration:         67.89 min

Translunar Injection

The translunar injection places Googol on a near minimum-energy (Hohmann Transfer) transfer orbit to the Moon. This sizeable burn is performed by the upper stage of the Minotaur V.

DV = 3.11251 km/s

 

 

Lunar Transit

Following translunar injection, Googol coasts along its transfer orbit for 3 days, 10 hours, and 28 minutes before injecting into lunar orbit.

Orbit Insertion Burn

Upon reaching the periapsis of Googol’s intended lunar parking orbit, the PSAM performs a burn to slow Googol enough to be captured into lunar orbit.

DV:                                   0.859152 km/s
Est. Burn Duration:              14.32 s
Est. PSAM Fuel Used:           63.6313 kg
Remaining PSAM  fuel:          46.3687 kg

Parking orbit:                      h = 100 km
                                        i = 172°
                                        e = 0

 

 

Adjust Inclination to Over-fly Target

After insertion, Googol coasts to the descending node where it engages the PSAM to perform a plane change maneuver in order to adjust its orbital inclination to that of the landing site.

DV:                                   0.1642 km/s
Est. Burn Duration:               2.27 s
Est. Fuel PSAM Used:           10.0957 kg
Remaining PSAM  fuel:          36.273 kg

Achieved inclination:             i = 177.803°

 

Deorbit

After maneuvering into the proper inclination, Googol coasts for approximately 1.5 orbits before initiating its landing sequence at 28.8739°LON—409.583 km from the landing site. Upon reaching this longitude, the PSAM is fired for the last time to deorbit the vehicle before being jettisoned. Googol begins its landing sequence on 25 July 2012 at 05:58:51.

DV:                                  0.685 km/s
Est. Burn Duration:              8.17 s
Est. Fuel PSAM Used:          36.273 kg

Remaining PSAM  fuel:          0 kg

 

Terminal Descent and Landing

Following the deorbit burn from the PSAM, the landing sequence consists of two phases. First, Googol simply coasts and loses altitude. Second, Googol initiates a gravity turn terminal guidance algorithm coupled with its monopropellant hydrazine descent engine, which brings the vehicle to the surface at the desired landing site. To commemorate the first manned Moon landing, the Apollo 11 landing site was chosen as the landing site for this mission.

Landing site:                           Sea of Tranquility (0.67408°N LAT, 23.47297°E LON)
Landing time:                          25 July 2012 06:08:32 UTCG

 

Delta-V Budget

As a summary of the above sequence of mission events, the delta-V budget for the mission is displayed below in tabular form.