Sky & Telescope - November 2024 - 8

NEWS NOTES
TELESCOPES
Meade and Orion Cease Operations - Maybe
turers of telescopes and accessories for
amateur astronomers, particularly with
its line of Schmidt-Cassegrain telescopes
as well as its Coronado line of
solar telescopes. Meade manufactured
most of its telescopes and electronics
in a plant in Tijuana, Mexico, and
had worked closely with independently
owned and operated retailers to serve
amateur astronomers.
Orion Telescopes & Binoculars,
RUMORS ARE SWIRLING after two
former giants in the astronomy industry
closed their doors earlier this week.
Optronic Technologies, Inc., better
known to backyard astronomers
as the parent company of both Orion
Telescopes & Binoculars and Meade
Instruments, has shut its offices and
storefront in Watsonville, California.
Sources have told Sky & Telescope that
all of the staff were let go at the end
of the business day on July 9th, but as
of press time, the company has not yet
filed for bankruptcy.
For much of its five decades in business,
Meade Instruments was one of the
world's largest designers and manufacSPACE
NASA
Cancels VIPER
Lunar Rover
THE VIPER LUNAR ROVER, short for
the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration
Rover, was originally designed
to search for ice and other potential
resources in the cold, dark, and rugged
conditions at the south pole of the
Moon. It would have touched down on
the surface aboard the Griffin lander,
developed by the aerospace company
Astrobotic as part of NASA's Commercial
Lunar Payload Services program.
The team was aiming to drive VIPER
some 20 kilometers (12 miles) on the
lunar surface over 100
days, going in and out
of permanently shadowed
regions.
But now, it won't
be doing any of those
things. In a July 17th
press conference,
NASA announced
it was canceling the
rover; Astrobotic's
Griffin lander, on the
other hand, is still
moving forward.
While praising
VIPER team members
8
NOVEMBER 2024 * SKY & TELESCOPE
owned by Optronic, made a name for
itself in the late 1990s as a source of
quality gear for the budget-minded amateur
astronomer. Some of its popular
scopes include the ShortTube 80 and the
StarBlast 4.5 Astro Reflector Telescope.
for their persistence and ingenuity,
Joel Kearns (NASA HQ) notes that the
rover, originally scheduled for launch
in 2023, was haunted by supply-chain
issues. " The delays occurred over and
over for several key components, " he
adds. Those delays pushed back the
assembly, integration, and testing of the
golf cart-size vehicle. While the assembly
was completed, the rover is only now
beginning environmental testing.
When VIPER was due to land on the
Moon in 2023, its cost had been budgeted
at $433.5 million. NASA delayed
launch until no earlier than November
2024 so that Astrobotic could conduct
propulsion tests on its lander. That
upped VIPER's budget
to $505.4 million -
and $450 million of
that has already been
spent to assemble the
rover. However, the
delays related to supply-chain
issues were
about to necessitate
another push back,
to September 2025.
(That timing is in part
NASA's VIPER rover
sits assembled inside the
cleanroom at the agency's
Johnson Space Center.
Shortly after Optronic Technologies
won a 2019 antitrust lawsuit against
Sunny Electronics, Meade's parent
company at the time, Meade filed for
Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection (S&T:
Apr. 2020, p. 11). The company was
subsequently purchased by Optronic
Technologies in 2021. But Optronic was
encountering supply-chain challenges
and had difficulty maintaining stock.
As of press time, telescope.com and
meade.com - the primary websites for
Meade and Orion products - are still
accepting orders.
Neither Meade nor Orion has
responded to multiple inquiries or
issued an official announcement. Visit
https://is.gd/MeadeOrion for updates
on this developing story.
¢SEAN WALKER
constrained by the solar-powered rover,
which needs to operate during " summer "
at the lunar south pole, when the
Moon's slight tilt makes more sunlight
available.) The delay to 2025 would
have entailed another budget increase
to $609.6 million as well as unknown
future costs such as those that can crop
up during testing. In addition to the
cost increase, the change could have
set off a chain reaction for subsequent
commercial missions, says Nicola Fox,
associate administrator of the Science
Mission Directorate.
" We are in a highly constrained
science budget environment at NASA, "
Kearns says. " Science at NASA was
$1 billion less in the current fiscal year
than what was requested from Congress
. . . and we're getting indications that
the environment will also be constrained
in the next fiscal year. "
Yet VIPER may see a second life:
NASA has called for proposals for the
use of its scientific instruments and/or
the vehicle itself. Meanwhile, the Griffin
lander is still due to launch in late
2025. Also, companies Firefly Aerospace
and Intuitive Machines are intending
to launch missions carrying NASA
payloads to the Moon no earlier than
late 2024.
¢MONICA YOUNG
NASA
http://www.telescope.com http://www.meade.com https://www.is.gd/MeadeOrion
Sky & Telescope - November 2024

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Sky & Telescope - November 2024
