Tucked away among the colorful offices of NASA?s Earth Sciences Division, engineers are quickly and quietly preparing the first steps of America?s second “great leap” to the moon.
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission ? to map the surface of the moon to within a half a meter ? is preparing its spacecraft for the final rigorous testing that will ensure it survives this winter?s launch, the temperature extremes of space and maneuvering that will put it into orbit 32 miles above the lunar surface.
“When we went their with our Apollo crew, we only stayed for a short duration,” said mission director Craig Tooley. “We picked an equatorial region because we knew we weren?t going to stay very long and that?s what we knew the most about.”
A long-term base on the moon would need more protection from the sun?s harmful radiation, like the polar craters that provide constant shadow and possibly frozen water or hydrogen.
The orbiter will carry six mission-specific sensors measuring visible surface features, radiation, temperatures, surface or subsurface ice, frost or hydrogen and altitude. A seventh demonstration technology ? a type of ground-penetrating radar ? is expected to return more detailed information about what lies beneath the lunar surface as well as alternative means of communicating with the Earth.
The spacecraft will orbit from pole to pole as the moon spins beneath, gathering the most data from the poles, said John Keller, science director of the mission.
“The top of the list is safe landing sites,” Keller said. “If you look at the Apollo 18 lander, it was tilted 8 degrees because one of its legs ended up in a crater. That?s a little exciting, but in retrospect, maybe we don?t want that much excitement.”
Once in orbit, the craft will collect data for about a year before it runs out of fuel to maintain that low orbit. Within three months, it will crash into one of the moon?s higher peaks, and even that impact will be monitored from Earth for signs of water.
Since this is part of NASA?s directive to return to the moon, Tooley said, “All investigators have to make their data available to the public within six months.”
Think GoogleMoon.
