NASA’s latest technology advances are on their way to the Moon, poised to answer lingering questions ahead of America’s next crewed lunar landing and provide important data on lunar resources.
The work is being facilitated through NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS), a program to partner the US space agency with private companies to deliver science and technology to the lunar surface, and the Artemis campaign, the agency’s project to establish a long term human presence on the Moon.
At 7:16 p.m. EST, February 26, the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying Intuitive Machines’ IM-2 mission and the Lunar Trailblazer launched from Launch Complex 39A at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, with the lander scheduled for March 6 touchdown on the Moon’s South Pole.
NASA’s Lunar Trailblazer and IM-2 Take-Off
“With each CLPS mission, the United States is leading the way in expanding our reach and refining our capabilities, turning what was once dreams into reality,” said NASA acting Administrator Janet Petro. “These science and technology demonstrations are more than payloads – they represent the foundation for future explorers who will live and work on the Moon.”
“By partnering with American industry, we are driving innovation, strengthening our leadership in space, and preparing for sending humans farther into the solar system, including Mars,” Petro said.
Upon landing, CLPS will engage with several specific missions designed to aid human activity on the Moon. These will include one of the first on-site investigations of potential resources on the Moon as they attempt to measure any possible presence of volatiles or gases in the lunar soil. Another objective is to set up a permanent point of reference on the Moon to guide future landings and orbital missions through a passive Laser Retroreflector Array on the lander’s top deck.
To further aid long-term plans, the mission will demonstrate a robust surface communications system to facilitate transmissions between objects on the Moon. Finally, they will deploy a drone to hop across the Moon’s ragged rocky surface in search of topographical data.
NASA’s Lunar Trailblazer spacecraft also hitched a ride on the Falcon 9 rocket but will conduct its activities from orbit. Chief among those will be to map water distribution on the Moon thoroughly. Over two years, a more robust understanding of where the water is, its form, and changes over time will be collected. This will provide necessary data to identify water cycles on Earth’s Moon and airless bodies throughout the solar system. That knowledge can be applied to supporting astronauts and robots on future lunar landings, as well as more distant missions to other moons in the future.
NASA’s IM-2 Missions in Depth
Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment-1 (PRIME-1) is an experiment designed to ascertain the abundance of lunar resources that will be helpful to future missions. Two instruments work together on this task: the Regolith and Ice Drill for Exploring New Terrains and the Mass Spectrometer Observing Lunar Operations. The drill will collect samples from under the lunar surface. At the same time, the mass spectrometer will identify the gas composition of the samples at various depths to determine where resources may reside.
Eight retroreflectors make up the Laser Retroreflector Array, allowing precision laser ranging to guide spacecraft around the Moon. As a passive optical instrument, the array is designed to serve lunar missions for the next several decades.
Nokia provided the Lunar Surface Communications System (LSCS) through funding from NASA’s Tipping Point Initiative. The LSCS consists of a 4G/LTE system that allows the IM-2 lander, a rover, and a drone to share cellular communications on the lunar surface, including high-definition video, command-and-control messages, and sensor data. The system hopes to demonstrate a solution for communications infrastructure in long-term lunar settlements.
Finally, the Micro Nova Hopper drone, also funded by Tipping Point, will conduct a high-resolution survey of the lunar surface. The device will hop into shadowy, mysterious areas of the Moon that have never before been observed and return new data to the lander.
Understanding the Lunar Trailblazer
Lunar Trailblazer hopes to finally answer questions about water on the Moon with a 440-pound satellite about the size of a dishwasher. Trailblazer’s mission will be delayed from IM-2, requiring months to achieve the correct orbit. Like the PRIME-1 experiment, the High-resolution Volatiles and Minerals Moon Mapper and the Lunar Thermal Mapper will work in tandem to provide optical and thermal data to identify water and how it changes over time.
Crucially, the instruments will penetrate the shadowy depths of craters that have not seen sunlight in billions of years, potentially harboring water ice that future lunar missions could use.
Ryan Whalen covers science and technology for The Debrief. He holds an MA in History and a Master of Library and Information Science with a certificate in Data Science. He can be contacted at ryan@thedebrief.org, and follow him on Twitter @mdntwvlf.