{"id":9472,"date":"2024-12-30T09:49:35","date_gmt":"2024-12-30T14:49:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spaceandplanetarynewswire.com\/?p=9472"},"modified":"2024-12-30T09:49:35","modified_gmt":"2024-12-30T14:49:35","slug":"nasas-micro-mission-lunar-trailblazer-will-make-macro-measurements-of-the-lunar-surface-in-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spaceandplanetarynewswire.com\/?p=9472","title":{"rendered":"NASA\u2019s Micro-Mission Lunar Trailblazer Will Make Macro-Measurements of the Lunar Surface in 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"
Lunar Trailblazer is planned to launch in early 2025. Lockheed Martin Space<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

NASA\u2019s upcoming Artemis II mission<\/a> is slated to return astronauts to the Moon no sooner than April 2026. Astronauts were last on the Moon in 1972 during the Apollo 17 mission<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Artemis II will utilize NASA\u2019s Space Launch System<\/a>, which is an extremely powerful rocket that will enable human space exploration beyond Earth\u2019s atmosphere. The crew of four will travel in an Orion spacecraft<\/a>, which the agency launched around the Moon and successfully returned during the Artemis I mission<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But before Artemis II, NASA will send two missions to scout the surface of the lunar south pole for resources that could sustain human space travel and enable new scientific discoveries.<\/p>\n

Planetary geologists like me<\/a> are interested in data from Lunar Trailblazer, one of these two scouting missions. The data from this mission will help us understand<\/a> how water forms and behaves on rocky planets and moons.<\/p>\n

Starting with scientific exploration<\/strong><\/p>\n

PRIME-1<\/a>, or the Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment, will be mounted on a lunar lander. It\u2019s scheduled for launch in January 2025.<\/p>\n

Aboard the lander are two instruments: The Regolith and Ice Drill for Exploring New Terrain<\/a>, TRIDENT, and the Mass Spectrometer for Observing Lunar Operations<\/a>, MSOLO. TRIDENT will dig down up to 3 feet (1 meter) and extract samples of lunar soil, and MSOLO will evaluate the soil\u2019s chemical composition and water content.<\/p>\n

Joining the lunar mining experiment is Lunar Trailblazer, a satellite launching on the same Falcon 9 rocket<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Think of this setup as a multimillion-dollar satellite Uber pool<\/a>, or a rideshare where multiple missions share a rocket and minimize fuel usage while escaping Earth\u2019s gravitational pull.<\/p>\n

Bethany Ehlmann, a planetary scientist<\/a>, is the principal investigator of Lunar Trailblazer and is leading an operating team of scientists and students from Caltech\u2019s campus<\/a>. Trailblazer is a NASA Small, Innovative Mission for PLanetary Exploration, or SIMPLEx<\/a>.<\/p>\n

These missions intend to provide practical operations experience at a lower cost. Each SIMPLEx mission is capped at a budget of US$55 million \u2013 Trailblazer is slightly over budget at $80 million. Even over budget, this mission will cost around a quarter of a typical robotic mission from NASA\u2019s Discovery Program<\/a>. Discovery Program missions typically cost around $300 million, with a maximum budget of $500 million.<\/p>\n

Building small but mighty satellites<\/strong><\/p>\n

Decades of research and development into small satellites<\/a>, or SmallSats<\/a>, opened the possibility for Trailblazer. SmallSats take highly specific measurements and complement data sourced from other instruments.<\/p>\n

\n
\"A
Missions like NASA\u2019s TROPICS use a network of small satellites to take more data than one satellite would be able to do alone. NASA Applied Sciences<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/figure>\n

Multiple SmallSats working together in a constellation can take various measurements simultaneously for a high-resolution view of the Earth\u2019s or Moon\u2019s surface.<\/p>\n

SIMPLEx missions can use these SmallSats. Because they\u2019re small and more affordable, they allow researchers to study questions that come with a higher technical risk<\/a>. Lunar Trailblazer, for example, uses commercial off-the-shelf parts<\/a> to keep the cost down.<\/p>\n

These low-cost, high-risk experimental missions may help geologists further understand the origin of the solar system, as well as what it\u2019s made of and how it has changed over time. Lunar Trailblazer will focus specifically on mapping the Moon.<\/p>\n

A brief timeline of water discoveries on the Moon<\/strong><\/p>\n

Scientists have long been fascinated by the surface of our closest celestial neighbor, the Moon. As early as the mid-17th century, astronomers mischaracterized ancient volcanic eruptions as lunar mare<\/a>, derived from the Latin word for \u201cseas.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nearly two centuries later, astronomer William Pickering\u2019s calculations<\/a> suggested that the Moon had no atmosphere. This led him to conclude the Moon could not have water on its surface, as that water would vaporize.<\/p>\n

However, in the 1990s, NASA\u2019s Clementine mission<\/a> detected water on the Moon. Clementine was the first mission to completely map the surface of the Moon, including the lunar poles. This data detected the presence of ice<\/a> within permanently shadowed regions<\/a> on the Moon in low resolution.<\/p>\n

Scientists\u2019 first water detection prompted further exploration. NASA launched the Lunar Prospector<\/a> in 1998 and the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter<\/a> in 2009. The India Space Research Organization launched its Chandrayaan-1 mission<\/a> with the Moon Mineralogy Mapper<\/a>, M3, instrument in 2008. M3, although not designed to detected liquid water, unexpectedly did find it in sunlit areas on the Moon.<\/p>\n

These missions collectively provided maps showing how hydrous minerals<\/a> \u2013 minerals containing water molecules in their chemical makeup \u2013 and ice water are distributed on the lunar surface, particularly in the cold, dark, permanently shadowed regions.<\/p>\n

Novel mission, novel science<\/strong><\/p>\n

But how does the temperature and physical state of water on the Moon change from variations in sunlight and crater shadows?<\/p>\n

Lunar Trailblazer will host two instruments<\/a>, the Lunar Thermal Mapper<\/a>, LTM, and an evolution of the M3 instrument, the High-resolution Volatiles and Minerals Moon Mapper<\/a>, HVM3.<\/p>\n

The LTM instrument will map surface temperature, while the HVM3 will measure how lunar rocks absorb light. These measurements will allow it to detect and distinguish between water in liquid and ice forms.<\/p>\n

In tandem, these instruments will provide thermal and chemical measurements of hydrous lunar rock. They\u2019ll measure water during various times of the lunar day<\/a>, which is about 29.5 Earth days, to try to show how the chemical composition of water varies depending on the time of day and where it is on the Moon.<\/p>\n

These results<\/a> will tell researchers what phase \u2013 solid or liquid \u2013 the water is found in.<\/p>\n

Scientific significance and what\u2019s next<\/strong><\/p>\n

There are three leading theories for where lunar water came from. It could be water that\u2019s been stored inside the Moon since its formation, in its mantle layer<\/a>. Some geologic processes may have allowed it to slowly escape to the surface over time.<\/p>\n

Or, the water may have arrived on asteroids and comets<\/a> that collided with the lunar surface. It may even have been created by interactions<\/a> with the solar wind<\/a>, which is a stream of particles that comes from the Sun.<\/p>\n

Lunar Trailblazer may shed light on these theories and help researchers make progress on several other big science questions, including how water behaves on rocky bodies like the Moon<\/a> and whether future astronauts will be able to use it.\"The<\/p>\n

C\u00e9sar Le\u00f3n Jr.<\/a>, Ph.D. Student of Planetary Geology, Washington University in St. Louis<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NASA\u2019s upcoming Artemis II mission is slated to return astronauts to the Moon no sooner than April 2026. Astronauts were last on the Moon in 1972 during the Apollo 17 mission. Artemis II will utilize NASA\u2019s Space Launch System, which is an extremely powerful rocket that will enable human space exploration beyond Earth\u2019s atmosphere. The…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71,"featured_media":9474,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/images.theconversation.com\/files\/637769\/original\/file-20241211-15-uvv1nt.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[216],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-discovery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceandplanetarynewswire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceandplanetarynewswire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceandplanetarynewswire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceandplanetarynewswire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/71"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceandplanetarynewswire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9472"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/spaceandplanetarynewswire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9472\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9475,"href":"https:\/\/spaceandplanetarynewswire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9472\/revisions\/9475"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceandplanetarynewswire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceandplanetarynewswire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceandplanetarynewswire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceandplanetarynewswire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}