Scientists scramble to build payload for 2021 moon landing

Anonymous — Tue, 02 Jul 2019 07:06:38 +0000

Scientists scramble to build payload for 2021 moon landing Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 07/02/2019 - 01:06

Robert Sanders

From Berkeley News: Scavenging spare parts and grabbing off-the-shelf hardware, University of California, Berkeley, space scientists are in a sprint to build scientific instruments that will land on the moon in a mere two years.

NASA announced yesterday that it has selected 12 scientific payloads to fly aboard three lunar landing missions within the next few years. One of them will be the Lunar Surface Electromagnetics Experiment (LuSEE), which will be built under the direction of Stuart Bale, a UC Berkeley professor of physics and a veteran of several past NASA missions, including the Parker Solar Probe that was launched last August.

The science and technology experiments will explore the moon’s surface environment in advance of upcoming human missions and are part of NASA’s collaboration with commercial partners to launch payloads — and, by 2024, humans — to the moon.

Bale and his colleagues at UC Berkeley’s Space Sciences Laboratory have less than $6 million to cover the costs, which means they will be co-opting spare parts originally built for the Parker Solar Probe and other spacecraft, including STEREO, which launched in 2006 and is still providing stereo views of the sun, and the 2013 MAVEN on a mission to Mars. The LuSEE will make comprehensive measurements of electromagnetic phenomena on the surface of the moon and erect a simple radio telescope — the first operational telescope on the moon. Read more...

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NASA Selects 12 New Lunar Science, Technology Investigations

Anonymous — Mon, 01 Jul 2019 16:42:16 +0000

NASA Selects 12 New Lunar Science, Technology Investigations Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 07/01/2019 - 10:42

From NASA Release 19-053: NASA has selected 12 new science and technology payloads that will help us study the Moon and explore more of its surface as part of the agency’s Artemis lunar program. These investigations and demonstrations will help the agency send astronauts to the Moon by 2024 as a way to prepare to send humans to Mars for the first time.

The selected investigations will go to the Moon on future flights through NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) project. The CLPS project allows rapid acquisition of lunar delivery services for payloads like these that advance capabilities for science, exploration, or commercial development of the Moon. Many of the new selections incorporate existing hardware, such as parts or models designed for missions that have already flown. Seven of the new selections are focused on answering questions in planetary science or heliophysics, while five will demonstrate new technologies.

"The selected lunar payloads represent cutting-edge innovations, and will take advantage of early flights through our commercial services project,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. "Each demonstrates either a new science instrument or a technological innovation that supports scientific and human exploration objectives, and many have broader applications for Mars and beyond.”

The selected NESS investigation is:

The Lunar Surface Electromagnetics Experiment (LuSEE)
LuSEE will integrate flight-spare and repurposed hardware from the NASA Parker Solar Probe FIELDS experiment, the STEREO/Waves instrument, and the MAVEN mission to make comprehensive measurements of electromagnetic phenomena on the surface of the Moon. The principal investigator is Stuart Bale of University of California, Berkeley.

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