space news update · indian prime minister narendra modi observed the landing attempt from a...
TRANSCRIPT
1 of 14
Space News Update — September 10, 2019 —
Contents
In the News
Story 1:
India’s First Attempt to Land on the Moon Appears to End in Failure
Story 2:
Insight Mission Seeking New Ways to Fix Heat Flow Probe
Story 3:
New Models Suggest Titan Lakes Are Explosion Craters
Departments
The Night Sky
ISS Sighting Opportunities
NASA-TV Highlights
Space Calendar
Food for Thought
Space Image of the Week
2 of 14
1. India’s First Attempt to Land on the Moon Appears to End in Failure
Update: The lander module from India's moon mission was located on the lunar surface on Sunday, one day after it
lost contact with the space station, and efforts are underway to try to establish contact with it, the head of the
nation's space agency said. The Press Trust of India news agency cited Indian Space and Research Organization
chairman K. Sivan as saying cameras from the moon mission's orbiter had located the lander. "It must have been a
hard landing," PTI quoted Sivan as saying. ISRO officials could not be reached for comment. (phys.org)
*****
Ground teams lost communication with India’s first lunar landing mission moments before its scheduled touchdown
on the moon Friday, and the robotic research craft apparently crashed during final descent.
The Indian Space Research Organization, or ISRO, said controllers lost contact with the Vikram lander in the final
minutes of its descent to a landing site near the moon’s south pole.
A live broadcast from the lander control center in Bengaluru showed tension rising as the spacecraft neared the
lunar surface, with excitement turning to despondency after engineers unexpectedly lost their radio link with
Vikram.
India was seeking to become the fourth country to achieve a soft landing on the moon, following successes by the
former Soviet Union, the United States and China.
The Vikram lander, part of India’s multi-part Chandrayaan 2 mission, was steering toward a landing zone at 70.9
degrees south latitude on the near side of the moon. Touchdown was set for 4:23 p.m. EDT (2023 GMT) Friday.
The spacecraft’s targeted landing site was closer to the moon’s south pole than any previous mission.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi observed the landing attempt from a gallery overlooking the Chandrayaan 2
control center in Bengaluru.
Video from the live broadcast showed K. Sivan, ISRO’s chairman, meeting with Modi soon after teams lost contact
with Vikram, apparently briefing the prime minister on the status of the landing attempt.
Vikram, named for the father of India’s space program, was in the final stages of a 15-minute powered descent to
the moon’s surface when teams lost contact with the spacecraft.
“The Vikram lander descent was as planned, and normal performance was observed up to an altitude of 2.1
kilometers (1.3 miles),” Sivan said in the control center after briefing Modi. “Subsequently, the communications
from the lander to the ground station was lost. The data is being analyzed.”
Artist’s illustration of the Vikram
lander during descent. Credit:
ISRO
3 of 14
Modi later visited ISRO teams, telling them to “be courageous” before meeting with Indian students invited to
witness the landing at the control center.
The somber mood inside the Chandrayaan 2 control center mirrored the appearance of Israeli engineers in April,
when the Beresheet lander crashed during an attempt to become the first privately-funded spacecraft to safely land
on the moon.
India’s landing attempt Friday was the third try to put a spacecraft on the moon’s surface this year. Before
Beresheet’s failed landing in April, China successfully landed the Chang’e 4 spacecraft on the far side of the moon in
January.
The Vikram lander ignited four of its retrorockets as designed at 4:07 p.m. EDT (2007 GMT) to begin a pre-
programmed descent sequence expected to last more than 15 minutes. The braking rockets were designed to slow
Vikram’s horizontal velocity from 3,600 mph (1.6 kilometers per second) to zero in preparation for landing.
The four throttleable liquid-fueled engines fired for 11 minutes, apparently as designed, to complete the Vikram
lander’s “rough braking phase” guiding the craft to an altitude of around 24,000 feet, or 7.4 kilometers. Then
Vikram was supposed to use a laser altimeter and hazard avoidance camera to scan the lunar surface, providing
inputs to the spacecraft’s navigation computer to control its descent rate.
Vikram was then supposed to head for an altitude of around 1,300 feet (400 meters), before proceeding down to
330 feet (100 meters). The four-legged spacecraft was programmed to hover momentarily to allow its landing
sensors to identify a safe, flat, boulder-free landing site before beginning the final descent.
A center engine was scheduled to ignite at an altitude of approximately 42 feet (13 meters) to control the final
seconds of the landing, a measure intended to reduce the amount of dust kicked up as Vikram reached the lunar
surface.
But the loss of communication suggested something went wrong during the final minutes of Vikram’s descent. ISRO
did not offer any additional details on the fate of the lander in the immediate hours after the preset landing time.
Less than half of the attempts to land on the moon since the dawn of the Space Age have been successful.
Source: Spaceflight Now Return to Contents
Screen capture of
the trajectory of the
Vikram lander at the
moment mission
control lost contact.
Note the down
range deviation at
the end of the path.
ISRO / Doordashan
News
4 of 14
2. Insight Mission Seeking New Ways to Fix Heat Flow Probe
An Aug. 17 image from NASA's InSight Mars lander shows the "mole" for its eat Flow and Physical Properties Package
instrument sticking out of the surface, having created a hole much wider than the mole as it struggled to penetrate
deeper into the surface. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Members of the InSight mission team are using a break in spacecraft operations to study new ways to get one
of the spacecraft’s key instruments to resume burrowing into the Martian surface.
Scientists and engineers involved with InSight’s Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package instrument have
been working for the last several months to get the instrument’s probe, or “mole,” to start moving into the
surface again. The mole, intended to hammer to a depth of five meters below the surface, stopped in early
March only about 30 centimeters below the surface.
In June, the mission decided to use the lander’s robotic arm to remove the support structure for the
instrument. That would allow the instrument team to get a better view of the condition of the mole and also
take new steps to get the mole moving again. Scientists believed that a lack of friction with the surrounding
regolith was preventing the mole from gaining traction as it attempted to hammer deeper into the surface.
Removal of the support structure confirmed that hypothesis. Images showed the top of the mole peeking out
above the surface in a hole about twice the diameter of the mole. A twist in the tether linking the mole to the
rest of the instrument suggested it had started to spin around, widening the hole, as it tried to hammer
deeper into the surface.
The instrument team then used InSight’s robotic arm again, pressing the scoop at the end of arm against the
surface around the hole to try and collapse it. In an Aug. 27 blog post, Tilman Spohn, principal investigator for
the instrument at the German space agency DLR, said that images taken after those attempts showed that the
pit was only, at best, partially collapsed on one side.
5 of 14
Spohn said it appears there is a layer of “duricrust,” or regolith that is mechanically strong, on the surface,
covered by about a centimeter of loose dust. Below that duricrust, which he estimated to be five to ten
centimeters thick, could be “cohesionless sand” that prevents the mole from penetrating.
InSight is currently on hiatus while it and other spacecraft at Mars are in solar conjunction, with the sun
between Mars and the Earth blocking communications. Spohn said that while the break is a time for some to
take a vacation, he and others are thinking about new ways to get the mole moving again.
One possibility would be to use the scoop on the robotic arm in a different way. “I am thinking towards
pinning the mole with the scoop such that the pinning and the pressing of the mole against the wall of the pit
would increase friction,” he wrote. “This will be more risky than the previous strategy, but with the
unexpectedly stiff duricrust, it may be worth a try.”
Spohn didn’t state when the mission would try a new approach to get the mole moving again. Andrew Good, a
spokesman at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said Aug. 29 that there will be no action immediately after the
solar conjunction period ends Sept. 7. It will take about a week after that to get all the data back from InSight
and other spacecraft at Mars.
“Even after that, the team is continuing to conduct testing and discuss the next move,” he said, and thus there
is no firm date for deciding what to do next with the mole.
The picture left shows the result of pushing with the tip - right is the result of the final push with a flat blade. Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech
Source: SpaceNews.com Return to Contents
6 of 14
3. New Models Suggest Titan Lakes Are Explosion Craters
This artist's concept of a lake at the north pole of Saturn's moon Titan illustrates raised rims and rampart-like features
such as those seen by NASA's Cassini spacecraft around the moon's Winnipeg Lacus. New research using Cassini radar
data and modeling proposes that lake basins like these are likely explosion craters, which could have formed when liquid
molecular nitrogen deposits within the crust warmed and quickly turned to vapor, blowing holes in the moon's crust. This
would have happened during a warming event (or events) that occurred in a colder, nitrogen-dominated period in Titan's
past. The new research may provide evidence of these cold periods in Titan's past, followed by a relative warming to
conditions like those of today. Although Titan is frigid compared to Earth, methane in the atmosphere provides a
greenhouse effect that warms the moon's surface. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Using radar data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft, recently published research presents a new scenario to
explain why some methane-filled lakes on Saturn's moon Titan are surrounded by steep rims that reach
hundreds of feet high. The models suggests that explosions of warming nitrogen created basins in the moon's
crust.
Titan is the only planetary body in our solar system other than Earth known to have stable liquid on its
surface. But instead of water raining down from clouds and filling lakes and seas as on Earth, on Titan it's
methane and ethane — hydrocarbons that we think of as gases but that behave as liquids in Titan's frigid
climate.
Most existing models that lay out the origin of Titan's lakes show liquid methane dissolving the moon's bedrock
of ice and solid organic compounds, carving reservoirs that fill with the liquid. This may be the origin of a type
of lake on Titan that has sharp boundaries. On Earth, bodies of water that formed similarly, by dissolving
surrounding limestone, are known as karstic lakes.
The new, alternative models for some of the smaller lakes (tens of miles across) turns that theory upside
down: It proposes pockets of liquid nitrogen in Titan's crust warmed, turning into explosive gas that blew out
craters, which then filled with liquid methane. The new theory explains why some of the smaller lakes near
Titan's north pole, like Winnipeg Lacus, appear in radar imaging to have very steep rims that tower above sea
level — rims difficult to explain with the karstic model.
7 of 14
The radar data were gathered by the Cassini Saturn Orbiter — a mission managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory in Pasadena, California — during its last close flyby of Titan, as the spacecraft prepared for its final
plunge into Saturn's atmosphere two years ago. An international team of scientists led by Giuseppe Mitri of
Italy's G. d'Annunzio University became convinced that the karstic model didn't jibe with what they saw in
these new images.
"The rim goes up, and the karst process works in the opposite way," Mitri said. "We were not finding any
explanation that fit with a karstic lake basin. In reality, the morphology was more consistent with an explosion
crater, where the rim is formed by the ejected material from the crater interior. It's totally a different process."
The work, published Sept. 9 in Nature Geosciences, meshes with other Titan climate models showing the
moon may be warm compared to how it was in earlier Titan "ice ages."
Over the last half-billion or billion years on Titan, methane in its atmosphere has acted as a greenhouse gas,
keeping the moon relatively warm — although still cold by Earth standards. Scientists have long believed that
the moon has gone through epochs of cooling and warming, as methane is depleted by solar-driven chemistry
and then resupplied.
In the colder periods, nitrogen dominated the atmosphere, raining down and cycling through the icy crust to
collect in pools just below the surface, said Cassini scientist and study co-author Jonathan Lunine of Cornell
University in Ithaca, New York.
"These lakes with steep edges, ramparts and raised rims would be a signpost of periods in Titan's history
when there was liquid nitrogen on the surface and in the crust," he noted. Even localized warming would have
been enough to turn the liquid nitrogen into vapor, cause it to expand quickly and blow out a crater.
"This is a completely different explanation for the steep rims around those small lakes, which has been a
tremendous puzzle," said Cassini Project Scientist Linda Spilker of JPL. "As scientists continue to mine the
treasure trove of Cassini data, we'll keep putting more and more pieces of the puzzle together. Over the next
decades, we will come to understand the Saturn system better and better."
Source: NASA Return to Contents
These six infrared images of Saturn's moon Titan represent some of
the clearest, most seamless-looking global views of the icy moon's surface produced so far. The views were created using 13 years of data acquired by the Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) instrument on board
NASA's Cassini spacecraft. Credit:
NASA/JPL
8 of 14
The Night Sky
Wednesday, Sept. 11
• You know that the season is changing; we've reached the time of year when, just after nightfall, Cassiopeia
has already climbed a little higher in the northeast than the Big Dipper has sunk in the northwest. ‘Cas’ rules in
early evening during the fall-winter half of the year. The Big Dipper takes over for the milder evenings of
spring and summer.
Midway between them stands Polaris, currently a little above the midpoint.
Thursday, Sept. 12
• Arcturus, the "Spring Star," shines a little lower in the west after dark each week. From Arcturus, the narrow
kite-shaped pattern of Bootes extends 24° to the upper right.
Friday, Sept. 13
• Full Harvest Moon (exact at 11:33 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time). The Moon rises in the east shortly after
sunset for North America, a lovely sight as twilight descends. After dark, look upper left of the Moon for the
Great Square of Pegasus balancing on one corner (outside the frame above). The Square is made of 2nd- and
3rd-magnitude stars.
And then watch for 1st-magnitude Fomalhaut rising to the Moon's lower right, by about two fists at arm's
length. How early can you see it? The farther south you live, the higher and easier Fomalhaut will be. The sky
scenes drawn here are always drawn for latitude 40° north.
Saturday, Sept. 14
• By the end of twilight the bright Moon, a day past full, has risen to shine low in the east. Look a couple of
fists to its upper left for the Great Square of Pegasus, tipped onto one corner. The Square's lower left side
points diagonally down at the Moon.
Source: Sky and Telescope Return to Contents
Tuesday, Sept. 10
• This evening the bright
gibbous Moon shines inside the
dim boat pattern of
Capricornus. The brightest star
high to the Moon's upper right
is Altair, with little Tarazed a
finger-width at arm's length
beyond.
Watch lower left of the Moon,
by some 20° or 30°, for
twinkly, 1st-magnitude
Fomalhaut to rise into view.
Shine on, shine on Harvest Moon. (It's full on the 13th.).
9 of 14
ISS Sighting Opportunities (from Denver)
Date Visible Max Height Appears Disappears
Wed Sep 11, 5:16 AM 3 min 24° 11° above NNW 23° above NE
Thu Sep 12, 4:29 AM 2 min 18° 16° above N 17° above NE
Thu Sep 12, 6:04 AM 6 min 83° 10° above NW 11° above SE
Fri Sep 13, 5:16 AM 6 min 54° 15° above NW 10° above ESE
Sat Sep 14, 4:30 AM 3 min 32° 32° above NE 10° above E
Sat Sep 14, 6:03 AM 5 min 27° 11° above WNW 10° above SSE
Sighting information for other cities can be found at NASA’s Satellite Sighting Information
NASA-TV Highlights (all times Eastern Time Zone)
September 10, Tuesday
4 p.m. – Video file of the International Space Station Expedition 61-62 crew’s departure from the Gagarin
Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia for the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan (Skripochka,
Meir, Almansoori) (Media Channel)
5 p.m. – Coverage of the launch of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) HTV-8 “Kounotori”
cargo craft to the International Space Station; launch scheduled at 5:33 p.m. EDT – Johnson Space Center
via the Tanegashima Space Center, Japan (All Channels)
September 12, Thursday
3 p.m. – NASA Science Live: A World of Fires (All Channels)
September 13, Friday
10:50 a.m. – International Space Station Expedition 60 In-Flight education event with the National STEM
Cell Foundation in Louisville, Kentucky, and NASA astronauts Nick Hague and Andrew Morgan (All
Channels)
12 p.m. – SpaceCast Weekly (All Channels)
Watch NASA TV online by going to the NASA website. Return to Contents
10 of 14
Space Calendar
Sep 10 - HTV-8/ AQT-D/ RWASAT 1/ NARSScube 1 H-2B Launch (International Space Station)
Sep 10 - Apollo Asteroid 2019 QY4 Near-Earth Flyby (0.006 AU)
Sep 10 - Apollo Asteroid 2019 RH Near-Earth Flyby (0.018 AU)
Sep 10 - Aten Asteroid 367943 Duende Closest Approach To Earth (0.190 AU)
Sep 10 - Lecture: In Search of the Ultimate Ruler - The Grand Challenge of Distances in Astronomy, Kamuela, Hawaii
Sep 10 - Lecture: The Origin of the Moon Within a Terrestrial Synestia, Tucson, Arizona
Sep 10-12 - Wernher von Braun Memorial Symposium: Exploration is the Work of Generations, Huntsville, Alabama
Sep 10-12 - 2019 Fall Meeting of the Committee on Astrobiology and Planetary Sciences (CAPS), Pasadena, California
Sep 10-12 - Climate Intervention Strategies that Reflect Sunlight to Cool Earth - Research Governance Workshop, Stanford, California
Sep 10-16 - Conference on Recent Developments in Strings and Gravity, Corfu, Greece
Sep 11 - Lecture: The UK Space Science Programmes, London, United Kingdom
Sep 11 - Colloquium: Efficient Computation of Timing Residuals Induced by Eccentric Black Hole Binaries, Sydney, Australia
Sep 11-13 - Planetary Exploration Horizon 2061 Synthesis Workshop, Toulouse, France
Sep 11-13 - Asteroid Impact Deflection Assessment (AIDA) International Workshop, Rome, Italy
Sep 11-13 - 11th European CubeSat Symposium, Luxembourg
Sep 11-13 - Astro2020 Meeting: Panel on Exoplanets, Astrobiology, and the Solar System, Washington DC
Sep 11-13 - Astronomical Society of Japan 2019 Fall Meeting, Kumamoto, Japan
Sep 12 - Apollo Asteroid 2019 RJ1 Near-Earth Flyby (0.028 AU)
Sep 12 - Lecture: A Mud Matter - The Recent Discovery of Organic Matter Preserved in 3-billion-year-old Mudstones on Mars, Washington DC
Sep 12 - Colloquium: The Globular Cluster System of NColloquim: Getting Under Europa's Skin, Ithaca, New York GC 4258 - A Relic of Cosmic High Noon?, Ithaca, New York
Sep 12 - Colloquium: Critical Tests of Theory of the Early Universe using the Cosmic Microwave Background, Barcelona, Spain
Sep 12 - Colloquium: Conformal Field Theory - From Boiling Water to Quantum Gravity, Princeton, New Jersey
Sep 12 - Colloquia: Critical Tests of Theory of the Early Universe using the Cosmic Microwave Background, Barcelona, Spain
Sep 12-13 - 11th Summit on Earth Observation Business, Paris, France
Sep 12-13 - Workshop: Supergravity 2019, Padova, Italy
Sep 13 - Mercury Passes 0.3 Degrees From Venus
Sep 13 - Apollo Asteroid 2013 CV83 Near-Earth Flyby (0.041 AU)
Sep 13 - Conference: Accelerating Geospatial Intelligence through Earth Observation, Harwell, United Kingdom
Sep 13-15 - European Rover Challenge, Kielce, Poland
Source: JPL Space Calendar Return to Contents
11 of 14
Food for Thought
ESA Spacecraft Dodges Large Constellation
Predicted conjunction between Aeolus and Starlink 44
For the first time, ESA has performed a 'collision avoidance manoeuvre' to protect one of its spacecraft from
colliding with a satellite in a large constellation.
On Monday morning, the Agency's Aeolus Earth observation satellite fired its thrusters, moving it off a
potential collision course with a SpaceX satellite in the Starlink constellation.
Constellations are fleets of hundreds up to thousands of spacecraft working together in orbit. They are
expected to become a defining part of Earth’s space environment in the next few years.
As the number of satellites in space dramatically increases, close approaches between two operated spacecraft
will occur more frequently. Compared with such 'conjunctions' with space debris – non-functional objects
including dead satellites and fragments from past collisions – these require coordination efforts, to avoid
conflicting actions.
12 of 14
Today, the avoidance process between two operational satellites is largely manual and ad hoc – and will no
longer be practical as the number of alerts rises with the increase in spaceflight.
“This example shows that in the absence of traffic rules and communication protocols, collision avoidance
depends entirely on the pragmatism of the operators involved,” explains Holger Krag, Head of Space Safety at
ESA.
“Today, this negotiation is done through exchanging emails - an archaic process that is no longer viable as
increasing numbers of satellites in space mean more space traffic.”
ESA is proposing an automated risk estimation and mitigation initiative as part of its space safety activities.
This will provide and demonstrate the types of technology needed to automate the collision avoidance process,
allowing machine generated, coordinated and conflict-free manoeuvre decisions to speed up the entire process
– something desperately needed to protect vital space infrastructure in the years to come.
What happened?
Data is constantly being issued by the 18th Space Control Squadron of the US Air Force, who monitor objects
orbiting in Earth’s skies, providing information to operators about any potential close approach.
With this data, ESA and others are able to calculate the probability of collision between their spacecraft and all
other artificial objects in orbit.
About a week ago, the US data suggested a potential ‘conjunction’ at 11:02 UTC on Monday, 2 September,
between ESA’s Aeolus satellite and Starlink44 – one of the first 60 satellites recently launched in SpaceX’s
mega constellation, planned to be a 12 000 strong fleet by mid-2020.
Experts in ESA’s Space Debris Office worked to calculate the collision probability, combining information on the
expected miss distance, conjunction geometry and uncertainties in orbit information.
As days passed, the probability of collision continued to increase, and by Wednesday 28 August the team
decided to reach out to Starlink to discuss their options. Within a day, the Starlink team informed ESA that
they had no plan to take action at this point.
Experts in ESA’s Space Debris Office worked to calculate the collision probability, combining information on the
expected miss distance, conjunction geometry and uncertainties in orbit information.
As days passed, the probability of collision continued to increase, and by Wednesday 28 August the team
decided to reach out to Starlink to discuss their options. Within a day, the Starlink team informed ESA that
they had no plan to take action at this point.
ESA’s threshold for conducting an avoidance manoeuvre is a collision probability of more than 1 in 10 000,
which was reached for the first time on Thursday evening.
An avoidance manoeuvre was prepared which would increase Aeolus’ altitude by 350 m, ensuring it would
comfortably pass over the other satellite, and the team continued to monitor the situation.
On Sunday, as the probability continued to increase, the final decision was made to implement the manoeuvre,
and the commands were sent to the spacecraft from ESA’s mission control centre in Germany.
At this moment, chances of collision were around 1 in 1000, 10 times higher than the threshold.
On Monday morning, the commands triggered a series of thruster burns at 10:14, 10:17 and 10:18 UTC, half
an orbit before the potential collision.
About half an hour after the conjunction was predicted, Aeolus contacted home as expected. This was the first
reassurance that the manoeuvre was correctly executed and the satellite was OK.
13 of 14
Since then, teams on the ground have continued to receive scientific data from the spacecraft, meaning
operations are back to normal science-gathering mode.
Left, Aeolus – understanding Earth’s winds (ESA). Right: Starlink Spacecraft
Contact with Starlink early in the process allowed ESA to take conflict-free action later, knowing the second
spacecraft would remain where models expected it to be.
New space
Since the first satellite launch in 1957, more than 5500 launches have lifted over 9000 satellites into space. Of
these, only about 2000 are currently functioning, which explains why 90% of ESA’s avoidance manoeuvres are
the result of derelict and uncontrollable ‘space debris’.
In the years to come, constellations of thousands of satellites are set to change the space environment, vastly
increasing the number of active, operational spacecraft in orbit.
This new technology brings enormous benefits to people on Earth, including global internet access and precise
location services, but constellations also bring with them challenges in creating a safe and sustainable space
environment.
Space rules
“No one was at fault here, but this example does show the urgent need for proper space traffic management,
with clear communication protocols and more automation,” explains Holger.
“This is how air traffic control has worked for many decades, and now space operators need to get together to
define automated manoeuvre coordination.”
Autonomous spaceflight
As the number of satellites in orbit rapidly increases, today's 'manual' collision avoidance process will become
impossible, and automated systems are becoming necessary to protect our space infrastructure.
Collision avoidance manoeuvres take a lot of time to prepare – from determining the future orbital positions of
functioning spacecraft, to calculating the risk of collision and the many possible outcomes of different actions.
Source: ESA Return to Contents
14 of 14
Space Image of the Week
Raindrops of Sand in Copernicus Crater Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
Explanation: The dark features here look like raindrops, but are actually sand dunes. This spot was targeted by Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) because the dunes are rich in the mineral olivine. Olivine-rich dunes are very rare on Earth, as olivine rapidly weathers to clays in a wet environment. There is also olivine-rich bedrock in the central peaks of Copernicus Crater on the Moon. There is only a handful of very important scientists, like Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) who have craters named after them on both Mars and the Moon.
Source: HiRISE Operations Center Return to Contents