Exploration Of The Moon

[DONTEATUS]

Great info waspie I love the higher deff,pics of the moon you posted and info on LRO,sounds like a lot on great things to come from nasa in the next few years,good thing were human DONTEATUS

[Waspie_Dwarf]

LRO Assembly Progress

April 3. In the last two weeks, we completed the electrical hook-up of the Ka-band modulator and tested it with the C&DH, installed the +Z panel of the spacecraft (the last major structural panel), and installed and tested CRaTER and Diviner. LEND has arrived, and we are preparing it for integration. The LOLA instrument is nearing completion of its thermal vacuum testing.

Joe Hammerbacher removes the bagging from the Diviner instrument in preparation for its first testing on the Orbiter. Joe is standing on the scaffolding about 8 feet above the floor. The CRaTER instrument is visible to the left of Diviner mounted on the vertical panel. The connectors in the foreground on the left side of the picture feed the Instrument Module. The cables are wrapped with copper to protect them from the charging effects of high-energy electrons.

+ Go to Assembly Progress

Source: NASA/GSFC - LRO

[Waspie_Dwarf]

NASA Sets Sights on Lunar Dust Exploration Mission

The press release is reproduced below:

April 9, 2008

Dwayne Brown
Headquarters, Washington
203-358-1726
dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov

Deborah Robin Croft
Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.
650-604-6787
dcroft@mail.arc.nasa.gov


RELEASE: 08-095

NASA Sets Sights on Lunar Dust Exploration Mission

WASHINGTON -- NASA is preparing to send a small spacecraft to the moon in 2011 to assess the lunar atmosphere and the nature of dust lofted above the surface.

Called the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE), the mission will launch before the agency's moon exploration activities accelerate during the next decade. LADEE will gather detailed information about conditions near the surface and environmental influences on lunar dust. A thorough understanding of these influences will help researchers understand how future exploration may shape the lunar environment and how the environment may affect future explorers.

"LADEE represents a low-cost approach to science missions, enabling faster science return and more frequent missions," said Ames Director S. Pete Worden. "These measurements will provide scientific insight into the lunar environment, and give our explorers a clearer understanding of what they'll be up against as they set up the first outpost and begin the process of settling the solar system."

LADEE is a cooperative effort with NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif., Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. The total cost of the spacecraft is expected to be approximately $80 million.

Ames will manage the mission, build the spacecraft and perform mission operations. Goddard will perform environmental testing and launch vehicle integration. The mission will be established within Marshall's newly created Lunar Science Program Office. Marshall will draw upon experience gained from managing a larger suite of low-cost, small satellite missions through NASA's Discovery and New Frontiers Program.

LADEE will fly to the moon as a secondary payload on the Discovery mission called Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL), which is designed to take ultra-precise gravity field measurements of the moon. Current plans call for the GRAIL and LADEE spacecraft to launch together on a Delta II rocket and separate after they are on a lunar trajectory. LADEE will take approximately four months to travel to the moon, then undergo a month-long checkout phase and begin 100 days of science operations.

LADEE is one of many activities to support lunar exploration planned by NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Last year, NASA also established a lunar science institute at Ames. Research teams will address current topics in basic lunar science and possible astronomical, solar and Earth science investigations that could be performed from the moon. In addition, NASA is preparing for scientific investigations following the planned launch later this year of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). After a 30-year hiatus, LRO represents NASA's first step toward returning humans to the moon.

For more information on NASA and agency programs, visit:

_http://www.nasa.gov

-end -

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Source: NASA Press Release 08-095

[Waspie_Dwarf]

Moondust in the Wind

April 10, 2008: Moondust is dry, desiccated stuff, and may seem like a dull topic to write about. Indeed, you could search a ton of moondust without finding a single molecule of water, so it could make for a pretty "dry" story. But like the dust in your mother's attic, moondust covers something interesting – the moon – and even the dust itself has curious tales to tell.

A group of NASA and University of Alabama researchers are what you might call "active listeners": Mian Abbas, James Spann, Richard Hoover and Dragana Tankosic have been shooting moondust with electrons, levitating moondust using electric fields, and scrutinizing moondust under an electron microscope. All this is happening at the National Space Science and Technology Center's "Dusty Plasma Lab" in Huntsville, Alabama.

Why such attention? Spann explains: "Humans will return to the moon in a few years and have to know what to expect. How do you live and work in a place filled with moondust? We're trying to find out."

"Moondust was a real nuisance for Apollo astronauts," adds Abbas. "It stuck to everything – spacesuits, equipment, instruments." The sharp-edged grains scratched faceplates, clogged joints, blackened surfaces and made dials all but unreadable. "The troublesome clinginess had a lot to do with moondust's electrostatic charge."

Dust on the moon is electrified, at least in part, by exposure to the solar wind. Earth is protected from the solar wind by our planet's magnetic field, but the moon has no global magnetic field to ward off charged particles from the sun. Free electrons in the solar wind interact with grains of moondust and, in effect, "charge them up."

Above: Lunar surface charging and electric fields caused by sunlight and solar wind. Credit: Jasper Halekas and Greg Delory of U.C. Berkeley, and Bill Farrell and Tim Stubbs of the Goddard Space Flight Center. [Larger image]

At the Dusty Plasma Lab, the scientists simulate solar wind-like conditions to study the moon's dust in a realistic environment. In previous studies, Abbas and colleagues examined the effects of ultraviolet sunlight on grains of moondust to help construct theories about how moondust will behave during daylight hours on the moon. (UV photons can also charge up moondust.) Now they are investigating how the grains behave in the dark of night, when the swirling solar wind dominates "lunar weather."

"Fortunately, we know what the solar wind is like, so we can simulate it," says Spann.

In a typical experiment, Abbas peppers the dust grains with a beam of electrons from an electron gun. He suspends a single grain of moondust inside the vacuum test chamber and bombards the grain with different numbers of electrons.

"We've had some surprising results," says Abbas "We're finding that individual dust grains do not act the same as larger amounts of moon dust put together. Existing theories based on calculations of the charge of a large amount of moondust don't apply to the moondust at the single particle level."

Below: Illuminated by red laser light, a single speck of moondust hangs suspended in a vacuum chamber at the NSSTC's Dusty Plasma Lab.

When it comes to electrostatic charging, grains of moondust are individualists capable of eccentric and surprising behavior. For instance, in one experiment conducted by Abbas, pelting a positively charged grain of moondust with electrons (which carry a negative charge) caused the grain to exhibit a more positive charge. Consider that grain a contrarian! Abbas thinks that each electron hitting the grain dislodged two or more electrons already there, resulting in a net increase of positive charge.

Not all moondust behaves this way. How each grain reacts depends on a variety of factors including the grain's size, the charge it already carries, and the number of free electrons incoming.

Spann adds, "We believe the single grains will behave differently on the moon, too – not just in our lab. Our results are closer to what's really happening on the moon. We're saying, 'Hey wait a second guys. We're finding something odd. When you go to the moon, it's going to be a little different than you thought.'"

You can bet mission planners will be listening as the moondust tells its tale.

Author: Dauna Coulter | Editor: Dr. Tony Phillips | Credit: Science@NASA

____________________________________________

More Information

More conclusions from the Abbas et al study:

* The number of electrons ejected per incident electron for small (less than one micrometer) dust grains was found to be much larger than those for bulk moon dust.

* Small positively charged dust grains (grains with a deficiency of electrons) lose electrons (charge more positively) upon bombardment with an electron beam. Large positively charged grains gain electrons (discharge) to some constant charge (called equilibrium charge).

* Both small and large negatively charged dust grains (grains with extra electrons) eject electrons (and therefore take on a less negative charge) upon bombardment.

* Both positive and negative dust grains may co-exist in the same lunar environment.

NASA's Future: U.S. Space Exploration Policy

Source: Science@NASA Edited April 22, 2008 by Waspie_Dwarf

[Waspie_Dwarf]

The JAXA press release is reproduced below:

KAGUYA (SELENE)

Image Taking of “Full Earth-Rise” by HDTV

April 11, 2008 (JST)

Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)

Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK)

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) successfully captured a movie of the "Full Earth-Rise"*1 using the onboard High Definition Television (HDTV) of the lunar explorer "KAGUYA " (SELENE) on April 6, 2008 (Japan Standard Time, JST, all the following dates and time are JST.) The KAGUYA is currently flying in a lunar orbit at an altitude of about 100 km.

An "Earth-rise," or the rising Earth over the Moon, was first captured by the Apollo project. The Earth rising image taken by the KAGUYA on November 7, 2007, was not a full Earth-rise (i.e. not all of the globe was seen in shining blue.) It missed some part. This time, a "full Earth-rise"*1 was taken by the onboard HDTV in faraway space, some 380,000 km away from the Earth. This is the world's first successful shooting of such a Full Earth-Rise. It was also very precious because it was one of only two chances in a year for the KAGUYA to capture a Full Earth-Rise when the orbits of the Moon, the Earth, the Sun and the KAGUYA are all lined up.

The shooting was performed by the KAGUYA's onboard HDTV for space use, which was developed by NHK. The movie data was received at JAXA, then processed by NHK.

*1 The phenomenon expressed as a "Full Earth-Rise" can be seen from a satellite that travels around the Moon such as the KAGUYA (SELENE) or the Apollo manned spacecraft. The Earth is almost stationary when it is observed from the Moon, thus a Full Earth-Rise coming out from the horizon cannot be seen from the Moon.

Full Earth-rise taken by HDTV

Full Earth-set taken by HDTV

(480X270px, no audio)

Full Earth-rise taken by HDTV (Tele camera)

The above still image is a cutout from the movie taken by the KAGUYA HDTV (tele camera) on April 6, 2008 (JST.)

The location on the Moon is around the South Pole on the back side at a south latitude of 83 degrees or higher. You can see the North American Continent on the image of the earth on the lower left and Pacific Ocean in the center. (The top of the image is the south of the Earth, thus the North American Continent is seen upside down.)

The image below shows the Earth rising from the Moon's horizon. It took about 40 seconds from the left image to the right.

Full Earth Rising taken by HDTV

Figure 1: Timing of taking the Full Earth-Rise image

The above figure shows the relative positions of the Sun, Earth, Moon and the KAGUYA by setting the Sun at the center viewing from the North. Black arrows indicate the KAGUYA's orbit around the Moon, and red arrows are the KAGUYA's moving direction. The green arrows show the Earth's revolving direction around the Sun. "Yaw around" is an attitude control maneuver to change the KAGUYA's moving direction by using its thruster for attitude control to face the solar array paddle toward the Sun. On April 3, we performed the yaw around, and the KAGUYA is now flying toward +X direction (forward direction,) which is 180 degrees around the original direction when the KAGUYA was launched (-X direction or backward direction.) Through the yaw around maneuver, the HDTV tele camera faces toward the moving direction.

Figure 2: Position of HDTV

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Reference

Table 1: List of images taken by the HDTV since December 25, 2008

* The above images are all publicized in the JAXA Digital Archives.

Table 2: Major Characteristics of the HDTV

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Mission website:

SELenological and ENgineering Explorer "KAGUYA" (SELENE)

"KAGUYA" (SELENE) Project Site

Index for 2008/4

Source: JAXA press release

[Waspie_Dwarf]

New NASA Moon Mission Begins Integration of Science Instruments

The press release is reproduced below:

April 16, 2008

Grey Hautaluoma
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-0668
grey.hautaluoma-1@nasa.gov

Nancy Neal Jones
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
301-286-0039
nancy.n.jones@nasa.gov

RELEASE: 08-102

New NASA Moon Mission Begins Integration of Science Instruments

GREENBELT, Md. -- Several instruments that will help NASA characterize the moon's surface have been installed on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO. The powerful equipment will bring the moon into sharper focus and reveal new insights about the celestial body nearest Earth.

Engineers and technicians on the LRO Integration and Test Team work almost around the clock in a clean room at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., to ready the spacecraft for testing and eventual launch later this year. "The spacecraft really is coming together now," said Cathy Peddie, LRO deputy project manager at Goddard. "We are in the space assembly homestretch and making solid progress. You can begin to see what LRO will look like in all of its glory."

Four of six instruments have been mated to the spacecraft, with one to be installed soon and one to arrive in the near future. The instruments are:

The Lyman-Alpha Mapping Project was built and developed at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. The instrument will map the entire lunar surface in the far ultraviolet spectrum and search for surface ice and frost in the polar regions. It will provide images of permanently shadowed regions that are illuminated only by starlight.

The Cosmic Ray Telescope for the Effects of Radiation, or CRaTER, was built and developed by Boston University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston. CRaTER will characterize the lunar radiation environment, allowing scientists to determine potential impacts to astronauts and other life. It also will test models on the effects of radiation and measure radiation absorption by a type of plastic that is like human tissue. The results could aid in the development of protective technologies to help keep future lunar crew members safe.

Diviner Lunar Radiometer Experiment was built and developed by the University of California, Los Angeles, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Diviner will measure surface and subsurface temperatures from orbit. It will identify cold traps and potential ice deposits as well as rough terrain and other landing hazards.

The Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter was conceived and built by scientists and engineers at Goddard. The instrument will measure landing site slopes and lunar surface roughness and generate high resolution three-dimensional maps of the moon. The instrument also will measure and analyze the lunar topography to identify both permanently illuminated and shadowed areas.

The Russian-built Lunar Exploration Neutron Detector has arrived from the Institute for Space Research in Moscow. The detector will create high-resolution maps of hydrogen distribution and gather information about the neutron component of lunar radiation. Its data will be analyzed for evidence of water ice near the moon's surface.

The remaining instrument, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera from Arizona State University in Tempe, Ariz., will provide high resolution imagery to help identify landing sites and characterize the moon's topography and composition. It should arrive at Goddard in May.

Also on board will be the Mini-RF Technology Demonstration experiment sponsored by NASA's Exploration Systems and Space Operations Mission Directorates. The miniaturized radar will be used to image the polar regions and search for water ice. The communications capabilities of the system also will be tested during the mission.

The satellite is scheduled to launch from NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Fla., in late 2008 on an Atlas V rocket. It will spend one year in low polar orbit on its primary exploration mission, with the possibility of three more years to collect additional detailed scientific information about the moon and its environment. That information will help ensure a safe and productive human return to the moon.

The spacecraft is being built and managed by Goddard for the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. It will transition to the Science Mission Directorate in 2010.

For more information about LRO on the Web, visit:

_http://lro.gsfc.nasa.gov

-end -

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Source: NASA Press Release 08-102

[Waspie_Dwarf]

LRO Assembly Progress

April 17, 2008

We installed two instruments on the Orbiter this week. LEND is fully integrated, both electrically and mechanically. The instrument checked out fine today when we ran it through its paces. We used a small radioactive source to generate neutrons. Both the Optical Telescope Assembly and the Main Electronics Box of LOLA are mounted on the spacecraft. We will do the electrical hook-ups tomorrow.

The blanket team has been working hard. They prepared the solar array gimbal for its thermal vacuum test this week, and they are fabricating the blankets we need for the High-Gain Antenna System. Meanwhile, they are creating the templates necessary to build the blankets for the rest of the spacecraft.

Glenn Byron, Greg Martins, and Suk Yoon prepare the High-Gain Antenna System for deployment testing while Mike Golob looks on from

the doorway. The system is completely assembled and ready for blankets.

The LOLA OTA is inspected prior to integration with the Orbiter.

The mechanical team installs LEND on the Orbiter.

Source: NASA/GSFC - LRO

[Waspie_Dwarf]

The Moon and the Magnetotail

April 17, 2008: Behold the full Moon. Ancient craters and frozen lava seas lie motionless under an airless sky of profound quiet. It's a slow-motion world where even a human footprint may last millions of years. Nothing ever seems to happen there.

Right?

Wrong. NASA-supported scientists have realized that something does happen every month when the Moon gets a lashing from Earth's magnetic tail.

"Earth's magnetotail extends well beyond the orbit of the Moon and, once a month, the Moon orbits through it," says Tim Stubbs, a University of Maryland scientist working at the Goddard Space Flight Center. "This can have consequences ranging from lunar 'dust storms' to electrostatic discharges."

Above: The full Moon inside Earth's magnetic tail, March 2008.

Yes, Earth does have a magnetic tail. It is an extension of the same familiar magnetic field we experience when using a Boy Scout compass. Our entire planet is enveloped in a bubble of magnetism, which springs from a molten dynamo in Earth's core. Out in space, the solar wind presses against this bubble and stretches it, creating a long "magnetotail" in the downwind direction: diagram.

Anyone can tell when the Moon is inside the magnetotail. Just look: "If the Moon is full, it is inside the magnetotail," says Stubbs. "The Moon enters the magnetotail three days before it is full and takes about six days to cross and exit on the other side."

It is during those six days that strange things can happen.

During the crossing, the Moon comes in contact with a gigantic "plasma sheet" of hot charged particles trapped in the tail. The lightest and most mobile of these particles, electrons, pepper the Moon's surface and give the Moon a negative charge.


Above: The Moon's orbit crosses Earth's magnetotail.
[Larger image]

On the Moon's dayside this effect is counteracted to a degree by sunlight: UV photons knock electrons back off the surface, keeping the build-up of charge at relatively low levels. But on the nightside, in the cold lunar dark, electrons accumulate and voltages can climb to hundreds or thousands of volts.

Walking across the dusty charged-up lunar terrain, astronauts may find themselves crackling with electricity like a sock pulled out of a hot dryer. Touching another astronaut, a doorknob, a piece of sensitive electronics—any of these simple actions could produce an unwelcome zap. "Proper grounding is strongly recommended," advises Stubbs.

The ground, meanwhile, may leap into the sky. There is compelling evidence (see, e.g., the Surveyor 7 image below) that fine particles of moondust, when sufficiently charged-up, actually float above the lunar surface. This could create a temporary nighttime atmosphere of dust ready to blacken spacesuits, clog machinery, scratch faceplates (moondust is very abrasive) and generally make life difficult for astronauts.

Stranger still, moondust might gather itself into a sort of diaphanous wind. Drawn by differences in global charge accumulation, floating dust would naturally fly from the strongly-negative nightside to the weakly-negative dayside. This "dust storm" effect would be strongest at the Moon's terminator, the dividing line between day and night.

Much of this is pure speculation, Stubbs cautions. No one can say for sure what happens on the Moon when the magnetotail hits, because no one has been there at the crucial time. "Apollo astronauts never landed on a full Moon and they never experienced the magnetotail."

The best direct evidence comes from NASA's Lunar Prospector spacecraft, which orbited the Moon in 1998-99 and monitored many magnetotail crossings. During some crossings, the spacecraft sensed big changes in the lunar nightside voltage, jumping "typically from -200 V to -1000 V," says Jasper Halekas of UC Berkeley who has been studying the decade-old data.

Above: In 1968, on many occasions, NASA's Surveyor 7 moon lander photographed a strange "horizon glow" after dark. Researchers now believe the glow is sunlight scattered from electrically-charged moondust floating just above the lunar surface.

"It is important to note," says Halekas, "that the plasma sheet (where all the electrons come from) is a very dynamic structure. The plasma sheet is in a constant state of motion, flapping up and down all the time. So as the Moon orbits through the magnetotail, the plasma sheet can sweep across it over and over again. Depending on how dynamic things are, we can encounter the plasma sheet many times during a single pass through the magnetotail with encounters lasting anywhere from minutes to hours or even days."

"As a result, you can imagine how dynamic the charging environment on the Moon is. The Moon can be just sitting there in a quiet region of the magnetotail and then suddenly all this hot plasma goes sweeping by causing the nightside potential to spike to a kilovolt. Then it drops back again just as quickly."

The roller coaster of charge would be at its most dizzying during solar and geomagnetic storms. "That is a very dynamic time for the plasma sheet and we need to study what happens then," he says.

What happens then? Next-generation astronauts are going to find out. NASA is returning to the Moon in the decades ahead and plans to establish an outpost for long-term lunar exploration. It turns out they'll be exploring the magnetotail, too.

Author: Dr. Tony Phillips | Credit: Science@NASA

____________________________________________

More Information

Solar Wind vs. Magnetotail: Earth's magnetotail isn't the only source of plasma to charge the Moon. Solar wind can provide charged particles, too; indeed, most of the time, the solar wind is the primary source. But when the Moon enters the magnetotail, the solar wind is pushed back and the plasma sheet takes over. The plasma sheet is about 10 times hotter than the solar wind and that gives it more "punch" when it comes to altering the charge balance of the Moon's surface. Two million degree electrons in the plasma sheet race around like crazy and many of them hit the Moon's surface. Solar wind electrons are relatively cool at only 140 thousand degrees, and fewer of them zip all the way down to the shadowed surface of the Moon's nightside.


Above: Electrostatic forces acting on moondust may
cause the dust to float off the Moon's surface.
Credit: Tim Stubbs/U. Maryland/GSFC.
[Larger image]

Moon Fountains -- (Science@NASA) When astronauts return to the Moon, they might encounter electrified fountains and other strange things.

Moondust in the Wind -- (Science@NASA) What happens when moondust is exposed to solar wind? NASA scientists have found some surprising answers.

Moon Storms -- (Science@NASA) An old Apollo experiment is telling researchers something new and surprising about the moon.

The Mysterious Smell of Moondust -- (Science@NASA) Decades after the Apollo program, scientists are still trying to figure out why moondust smells like gunpowder.

NASA's Future: US Space Exploration Policy

Source: Science@NASA

[Waspie_Dwarf]

The JAXA press release is reproduced below:

Gravity Anomaly detected by using 4-way Doppler observation data from the RSTAR (OKINA) (RSAT)

-New finding in study on the Origin of Dichotomy for the Moon-

April 16, 2008 (JST)

Kyushu University

National Astronomical Observatory of Japan

Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)

JAXA announced a new finding of a gravity anomaly for both the near side and far side of the Moon by using 4-way Doppler observation data from the RSTAR (OKINA) with the main orbiter, the KAGUYA.

Until now, the gravity anomaly of the far side of the Moon has not been understood well. The gravity anomaly, which was obscure before, has been clearly revealed through observations by the Kaguya mission. For instance, the gravity anomaly of a basin on the far side is found to be characterized by a negative anomaly in a ring like the Apollo basin. On the other hand, the gravity anomaly of the basin on the near side is uniformly positive over the region such as with the Mare Serenitatis. Thus, the clear difference in gravity anomaly on the near side and the far side has been newly discovered and this fact brings a different story about the structure of the underground and the history of the evolution of the far side and near side of the Moon.

The gravity anomaly map for many regions will be developed more precisely and show the difference of gravity anomaly between the near side and the far side by adding more observation data. The latest observation data by the Kaguya will play a key role to promote the study of the origin and the evolution of the Moon. In addition, highly accurate lunar gravity distribution data will be useful for future lunar explorers.

*Gravity anomaly: The lunar gravity field is not homogenous. Any region of the Moon with a higher than expected mass density will produce a gravity anomaly.

*Dichotomy of the Moon: Between the near side and the far side, clear asymmetry is called the "Dichotomy of the Moon" as in the thickness of the lunar crust and the distribution of the lunar Maria.

*RSAT/VRAD mission instrument team:

Kyushu University (RSAT Principle Investigator), NAOJ (VRAD: VLBI Satellite radio source Principle Investigator), Researchers from JAXA also participate as sub-PI or Co-I in the mission instrument team.

Gravity Anomaly Map by the KAGUYA (left), Gravity Anomaly Map in prior to the KAGUYA (middle), The Apollo basin(S36,W150) (right)

Current lunar gravity field models include large uncertainties on the far side of the Moon. For instance, the figure in the middle shows the current gravity distribution model for the Apollo basin by LP165P. The color of the figure shows strength of the gravity field in blue, green, yellow, and red, in that order. Red indicates a positive gravity anomaly related to either a topographic high or a dense material in the subsurface. In contrast, blue shows that a negative gravity anomaly related to a topographic low or less dense material. The gravity anomaly shown in the figure on the right hand side is processed by new data taken by the KAGUYA. The gravity anomaly in the Apollo basin is now identified as concentric rings of yellow, blue, and thin red from the center to outside.

*LP165P: Lunar gravity model developed by Konopliv et al.. incorporating tracking data from the Lunar Prospector spacecraft into a historical data set.

Gravity Anomaly Map at the Apollo basin (left), Gravity Anomaly Map at the Mare Serenitatis(N26,E19) (middle), TThe Mare Serenitatis (right)

A new gravity anomaly map developed by the KAGUYA reveals that not only the Apollo basin, but many other basins on the far side of the Moon are characterized by a large negative gravity anomaly. Such a signature of far side gravity is distinguished from that on the near side. For example, the Mare Serenitatis, the representative basin on the near side, shows a strong positive (red color) gravity anomaly at the center of the basin (figure in the middle). The newly found difference of gravity anomaly on the near side and the far side gives us clues to important questions regarding the structure of the lunar interior and the formation of the far side and near side of the Moon. The gravity anomaly map will become more precise as more observation data is obtained by the KAGUYA. The latest observation data by the Kaguya will play a key role to promote a study of the origin and the evolution of the Moon. In addition, highly accurate lunar gravity distribution data will be used for future lunar explorations.

Four-way Doppler observation scheme

A schematic figure showing the principle of the four-way Doppler measurements of the Main Orbiter (KAGUYA) by using a relay satellite (OKINA). The uplink radio wave from the Usuda Deep Space Center (UDSC) is relayed to the Main Orbiter via the relay satellite (OKINA), which is returned to the UDSC via relay satellite (OKINA) again. Then the Doppler frequency is measured at the UDSC.

*This information can be referred to through

Kyushu University _http://www.kyushu-u.ac.jp/

National Astronomical Observatory of Japan _http://www.miz.nao.ac.jp/rise.html

JAXA KAGUYA (SELENE) Project site _http://www.kaguya.jaxa.jp/en/

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mission website:

SELenological and ENgineering Explorer "KAGUYA" (SELENE)

Index for 2008/4

Source: JAXA press release

[Waspie_Dwarf]

LRO Assembly Progress

May 1, 2008

We completed testing with the Deep Space Network last week, and this week we are testing with our primary ground station, White Sands 1. These tests ensure that we can properly communicate with our spacecraft during flight. During the evening shifts, the blanket technicians have been designing the thermal blankets that will protect the orbiter from the temperature extremes in lunar orbit.

During the LOLA safe-to-mate electrical tests, we discovered a problem with the signal levels on the instrument's data interface. The LOLA team tracked down the problem to a polarity reversal on a transformer. The circuit is already corrected, and we are running the electronics box through some workmanship testing to make sure everything is OK. Most of the instrument, including the laser, remained on the spacecraft. We should have the entire instrument running again next week.

The solar array gimbal will be out of its thermal vacuum testing tomorrow, and it will meet up with the solar panels for some integrated testing. The High-Gain Antenna System blankets are installed. We are working through some interference issues with the blankets - we want to make sure that everything moves freely. The HGAS should be ready for thermal vacuum testing next week. LROC and Mini-RF are both nearly finished with their thermal vacuum testing.

The LRO team is hard at work all around the Orbiter.

Source: NASA/GSFC - LRO

[NeoGenesis]

Man I would love to work with these guys.One of my strong points is actually in electronics.Studying throw post for my second year in electronics.

Edited May 6, 2008 by Waspie_Dwarf
removed quote. There is no need to quote an entire post, especially for a one sentence reply.

[NeoGenesis]

Correction,Electronics Engineer.

[MID]

Correction,Electronics Engineer.

Well cool, electrical engineering is a field we need lots of people in. Your profile says you're 18. Are you started in college, or finishing high school?

4 years down the road, with an electrical engineering degree in your hands, you'll be in prime position to not necessarily be working with these guys, but working with the guys who will be designing our Mars mission!

[Waspie_Dwarf]

Send Your Name to the Moon With New Lunar Mission

05.01.08

Grey Hautaluoma
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-0668
grey.hautaluoma-1@nasa.gov

Nancy Neal Jones
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
301-286-0039
nancy.n.jones@nasa.gov

Release No. 08-110

WASHINGTON -- NASA invites people of all ages to join the lunar exploration journey with an opportunity to send their names to the moon aboard the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, spacecraft.


> View the 30-second trailer
Credit: NASA/GSFC

The Send Your Name to the Moon Web site enables everyone to participate in the lunar adventure and place their names in orbit around the moon for years to come. Participants can submit their information at http://lro.jhuapl.edu/NameToMoon/, print a certificate and have their name entered into a database. The database will be placed on a microchip that will be integrated onto the spacecraft. The deadline for submitting names is June 27, 2008.

"Everyone who sends their name to the moon, like I'm doing, becomes part of the next wave of lunar explorers," said Cathy Peddie, deputy project manager for LRO at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "The LRO mission is the first step in NASA's plans to return humans to the moon by 2020, and your name can reach there first. How cool is that?"

The orbiter, comprised of six instruments and one technology demonstration, will provide the most comprehensive data set ever returned from the moon. The mission will focus on the selection of safe landing sites and identification of lunar resources. It also will study how the lunar radiation environment could affect humans.


> View the one-minute trailer
Credit: NASA/GSFC

LRO will also create a comprehensive atlas of the moon's features and resources that will be needed as NASA designs and builds a planned lunar outpost. The mission will support future human exploration while providing a foundation for upcoming science missions. LRO is scheduled for launch in late 2008.

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is being built at Goddard. The mission also will be managed at the center for NASA's Explorations Systems Mission Directorate in Washington.

Send Your Name to the Moon is a collaborative effort among NASA, the Planetary Society in Pasadena, Calif., and the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md.

Source: NASA - LRO - News

[Waspie_Dwarf]

LRO Assembly Progress

May 14, 2008

All of the instruments are on the Orbiter! LROC arrived on May 9th, and it is now installed. The Mini-RF antenna is not yet installed, but the electronics are on the avionics panel and have been connected to the Orbiter electronics. We have a lot of testing ahead of us, but the integration phase is nearly complete. Everything is now at Goddard Space Flight Center. The Solar Array System and the High-Gain Antenna System are the last two components to integrate. SAS final assembly is underway, and the HGAS is in the thermal vacuum chamber undergoing its final testing.

The LRO team is hard at work all around the Orbiter.

Source: NASA/GSFC - LRO

[Waspie_Dwarf]

A Lunar Resting Place

05.01.08

When Joe Vitale passed away from brain cancer on February 2, 2007, his family and friends knew that he would not soon be forgotten. His sense of humor, integrity, and heart left a permanent mark on those around him. Now, his family at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center is remembering Joe by leaving a mark on his final project, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. They have engraved one of its reaction wheels in his honor.


The engraving on the reaction wheel reads: "The
life of Joe Vitale ended far too early, but his work
will carry on as the United States space program
returns to the moon. The software Joe wrote for
this reaction wheel will play a vital role. It will help
the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter identify natural
resources and landing sites as a first step to
populating the moon and traveling beyond. Joseph
E. Vitale, 1965-2007.
Credit: NASA
> Larger image

Joe had been working as an engineer at NASA Goddard since 1993, most recently in Code 596, where he designed software used to support satellite missions. His last triumph at Goddard was the completion of the embedded flight software in the LRO reaction wheels. His efforts were critical to the successful design of the spacecraft, as the reaction wheels will be used to direct it and keep it at the desired position and orientation once it is launched.

Russ Roder, LRO’s reaction wheel lead, explains, “Each reaction wheel has a flywheel. When the flywheel spins up in one direction, the spacecraft starts to spin very slowly in the opposite direction. If you put a few reaction wheels on a spacecraft, you can control pointing about all three axes.”

When collecting information about the lunar environment on the level of detail that LRO will, such exacting control is all-important. This control would not be possible if not for the software Joe designed. Even though he’s gone, Joe continues to be a part of LRO’s success.

It seems appropriate to honor Joe, the self-dubbed “Gadget Man,” through one of his own technological achievements. Miriam Wennersten, his long time co-worker and friend, says, “Joe was a man all about gadgets. He loved toys and games. He married his love of gadgets with his love of games. For his flight simulator games on the computer, he had the right joystick. For his driving games, he had the right steering wheel. When his wife would go out of town, he would go over to a friend’s house, where they would 'geek out' and play computer games all night long.”

The list of people touched by Joe was not limited to those directly around him. Shortly after receiving the news that he had a brain tumor, Joe decided he would share his story by creating a Web site to chronicle his journey. Through it, he was able to meet and connect with people across the country. He constructed a virtual prayer network and placed pushpins on a map at every location where someone was known to be praying for him. About 200 pins crowded the map, displaying Joe’s ability to reach even those he had never met face-to-face.

Joe’s approach to his disease is described by Wennersten as, “Classic Joe Engineer.” He faced it with the same problem-solving knack that he applied to his profession as an engineer. He did extensive research on his disease and kept track of the doctors he had seen and the questions he had asked of them. He tracked his medication dosages and changes, and kept lists of helpful books he had read. True to his desire to share his story, Joe made all of this available on his Web site.

Chuck Clagett, Joe’s supervisor, said, “As Joe’s friend, I always had the highest respect for him because of his honesty and bluntness in any situation. When he saw someone or something being done wrong, he would always get involved to straighten it out. He was not driven by political correctness, only by uncovering the truth. That’s a rare quality in today’s environment and one that I admire. His loss is still felt within the Branch and LRO project. We will forever be blessed for the time we had Joe with us.”

Joe’s wife, Debbie, and his children made a visit to Goddard in February to view the engraved reaction wheel. She expressed that she was pleased to see how LRO was progressing and that Joe would appreciate what the project office had done for him.

When LRO has run its course and served its purpose, it will be guided to a to-be-determined spot on the moon. The result of the impact will be a plume of debris that other satellites and telescopes can observe to find out more about the moon’s composition. When the spacecraft reaches its final resting place, so will Joe’s engraved reaction wheel.

Kelsey Paquin
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

Source: NASA - LRO - News

[Waspie_Dwarf]

100 Explosions on the Moon

May 21, 2008: Not so long ago, anyone claiming to see flashes of light on the Moon would be viewed with deep suspicion by professional astronomers. Such reports were filed under "L" … for lunatic.

Not anymore. Over the past two and a half years, NASA astronomers have observed the Moon flashing at them not just once but one hundred times.

"They're explosions caused by meteoroids hitting the Moon," explains Bill Cooke, head of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office at the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC). "A typical blast is about as powerful as a few hundred pounds of TNT and can be photographed easily using a backyard telescope."

As an example, he offers this video of an impact near crater Gauss on January 4, 2008:

Above: A lunar impact on Jan. 4, 2008. This is number 86 on of 100 impacts recorded by the MEO team since their survey began in 2005. Larger movies: , .

The impactor was a tiny fragment of extinct comet 2003 EH1. Every year in early January, the Earth-Moon system passes through a stream of debris from that comet, producing the well-known Quadrantid meteor shower. Here on Earth, Quadrantids disintegrate as flashes of light in the atmosphere; on the airless Moon they hit the ground and explode.

"We started our monitoring program in late 2005 after NASA announced plans to return astronauts to the Moon," says team leader Rob Suggs of the MSFC. If people were going to be walking around up there, "it seemed like a good idea to measure how often the Moon was getting hit."

"Almost immediately, we detected a flash."

That first detection—"I'll never forget it," he says--came on Nov. 7, 2005, when a piece of Comet Encke about the size of a baseball hit Mare Imbrium. The resulting explosion produced a 7th magnitude flash, too dim for the naked eye but an easy target for the team's 10-inch telescope.

A common question, says Cooke, is "how can something explode on the Moon? There's no oxygen up there."

These explosions don't require oxygen or combustion. Meteoroids hit the moon with tremendous kinetic energy, traveling 30,000 mph or faster. "At that speed, even a pebble can blast a crater several feet wide. The impact heats up rocks and soil on the lunar surface hot enough to glow like molten lava--hence the flash."

During meteor showers such as the Quadrantids or Perseids, when the Moon passes through dense streams of cometary debris, the rate of lunar flashes can go as high as one per hour. Impacts subside when the Moon exits the stream, but curiously the rate never goes to zero.

"Even when no meteor shower is active, we still see flashes," says Cooke.

Above: A map of the 100 explosions observed since late 2005. A complete list with lunar coordinates is available .

These "off-shower" impacts come from a vast swarm of natural space junk littering the inner solar system. Bits of stray comet dust and chips off old asteroids pepper the Moon in small but ultimately significant numbers. Earth gets hit, too, which is why on any given night you can stand under a dark sky and see a few meteors per hour glide overhead—no meteor shower required. Over the course of a year, these random or "sporadic" impacts outnumber impacts from organized meteor showers by a ratio of approximately 2:1.

"That's an important finding," says Suggs. "It means there's no time of year when the Moon is impact-free."

Fortunately, says Cooke, astronauts are in little danger. "The odds of a direct hit are negligible. If, however, we start building big lunar outposts with lots of surface area, we'll have to carefully consider these statistics and bear in mind the odds of a structure getting hit."

Secondary impacts are the greater concern. When meteoroids strike the Moon, debris goes flying in all directions. A single meteoroid produces a spray consisting of thousands of "secondary" particles all traveling at bullet-like velocities. This could be a problem because, while the odds of a direct hit are low, the odds of a secondary hit may be significantly greater. "Secondary particles smaller than a millimeter could pierce a spacesuit," notes Cooke.


Above: A simulated meteoroid explodes on impact at
the NASA/Ames Vertical Gun Range. This is a genuine
photo showing the spray of secondary particles: more.

At present, no one knows how far and wide secondary particles travel. To get a handle on the problem, Cooke, Suggs and colleagues are shooting artificial meteoroids at simulated moon dust and measuring the spray. This work is being done at the Vertical Gun Range at NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View, CA: full story.

Meanwhile, back at the observatory, the team has upgraded their original 10-inch (25 cm) telescope to a pair of telescopes, one 14-inch (36 cm) and one 20-inch (51 cm), located at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama. They've also established a new observing site in Georgia with a 14-inch telescope. Multiple telescopes allow double- and triple-checking of faint flashes and improve the statistical underpinnings of the survey.

"The Moon is still flashing," says Suggs. Indeed, during the writing of this story, three more impacts were detected.

New title: 103 Explosions on the Moon.

Stay tuned to Science@NASA for a follow-up story describing how amateur astronomers can participate in this research.

Editor: Dr. Tony Phillips | Credit: Science@NASA

____________________________________________

More Information

NASA Meteoroid Environment Office -- home of the lunar impact monitoring program

EXTRA! TEACHER WORKSHOP: Teachers in the Southeast U.S. are invited to apply to attend a workshop entitled "Paving the Way to the Moon and Beyond," held June 12 – 14, 2008 in Huntsville, Alabama. The two day workshop, sponsored by the Lunar Precursor Robotic Program (LPRP), will focus on content that will explain the who, the what, and the why of lunar exploration. Beginning with the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS), teachers will research mission design and scientific goals and experiments through hands on activities. Included in the workshop will be a tour of NASA science labs and an opportunity to talk with scientists involved in exploration related activities. All materials will be appropriate for elementary and middle school preservice and inservice teachers and will be aligned with national standards. Example activities: Earth-Moon comparisons and motions, craters and lunar soils, solar influences on the Moon. Most activities will take place at the Educator Resource Center, located at the Space and Rocket Center. Housing costs for three nights will be provided (at the University of Alabama in Huntsville). Stipends also will be provided. To attend, contact Mitzi Adams 256 961 7626 or mitzi dot adams @ nasa dot gov.

NASA's Future: US Space Exploration Policy

Source: Science@NASA

[Waspie_Dwarf]

Lunar GRAIL

May 22, 2008: Meet MIT professor of physics Maria Zuber. She's dynamic, intelligent, intense, and she's on a quest for the Grail.

No, not that Grail.

Zuber is the principal investigator of the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory — "GRAIL" for short. It's a new NASA mission slated for launch in 2011 that will probe the moon's quirky gravity field. Data from GRAIL will help scientists understand forces at play beneath the lunar surface and learn how the moon, Earth and other terrestrial planets evolved.

"We're going to study the moon's interior from crust to core," says Zuber. "It's very exciting."

Above: An artist's concept of GRAIL in action.

Here's how it works: GRAIL will fly twin spacecraft, one behind the other, around the moon for several months. All the while, a microwave ranging system will precisely measure the distance between the two satellites. By watching that distance expand and contract as the two satellites fly over the lunar surface, researchers can map the moon's underlying gravity field¹.

Scientists have long known that the moon's gravity field is strangely uneven and tugs on satellites in complex ways. Without course corrections, orbiters end their missions nose down in the moondust! In fact, all five of NASA's Lunar Orbiters (1966-1972), four Soviet Luna probes (1959-1965), two Apollo sub-satellites (1970-1971) and Japan's Hiten spacecraft (1993) suffered this fate.

The source of the gravitational quirkiness is a number of huge mascons (short for "mass concentrations") buried under the surfaces of lunar maria or "seas." Formed by colossal asteroid impacts billions of years ago, mascons make the moon the most gravitationally lumpy major body in the solar system. The anomaly is so great—half a percent—that it actually would be measurable to astronauts on the lunar surface. A plumb bob held at the edge of a mascon would hang about a third of a degree off vertical, pointing toward the central mass. Moreover, an astronaut in full spacesuit and life-support gear whose lunar weight was exactly 50 pounds at the edge of the mascon would weigh 50 pounds and 4 ounces when standing in the mascon's center.

To minimize the effects of mascons, satellite orbits have to be carefully chosen. GRAIL's gravity maps will help mission planners make those critical decisions. Moreover, the maps GRAIL scientists will construct are essential to NASA's intended human landing on the moon in the next decade. The gravity of the moon's far side and polar regions, where future landings are targeted, is least understood.

The GRAIL team aims to map the moon's gravity field so completely that "after GRAIL, we'll be able to navigate anything you want anywhere on the moon you want," says Zuber. "This mission will give us the most accurate global gravity field to date for any planet, including Earth."

Above: A gravity map of the moon by the Lunar Prospector spacecraft in 1998-99. Mascons are shown in orange-red. The five largest all correspond to the largest lava-filled craters or lunar "seas" visible in binoculars on the near side of the Moon: Mare Imbrium, Mare Serenitatus, Mare Crisium, Mare Humorum and Mare Nectaris.
Image reference: Alex S. Konopliv et al, Icarus 150, 1–18 (2001). []

GRAIL will also help students learn about gravity, the moon, and space. Each satellite will carry up to five cameras dedicated to public outreach and education. Undergraduate students supervised by trained adults will remotely operate the cameras from a facility at the University of California, San Diego, that currently operates similar cameras on the International Space Station.

Middle school students from all over the country will also get to join in the excitement of lunar exploration. "We'll have an interactive website where the middle school students can make recommendations for targets to photograph and then view the pictures of their suggested targets," she says. "This just has incredible potential to engage students."

Clearly, this is no ordinary Grail quest. Stay tuned to Science@NASA for updates as the adventure unfolds.

Editor: Dr. Tony Phillips | Credit: Science@NASA

____________________________________________

More Information

¹How does the distance between satellites reveal the underlying gravitational field of the moon? Zuber explains:

"The change of distance with time is velocity, the change of velocity with time is acceleration, and the unit of gravity is acceleration," explains Zuber. "If you very very precisely measure the tiny gravitational perturbations of the two satellites at various locations, and then put all those measurements together for the whole moon, you get a gravity map."

It's not as simple as it sounds. Like any good quest, this one has its challenges. For starters, in making all their calculations, Zuber and company will have to correct for pesky factors such as atmospheric drag, gravitational pull from other planets and general relativity, just to name a few.

But according to Zuber, the biggest challenge to GRAIL is operating two spacecraft at the same time. "They are launched together, but they have separate trajectories. At some point they have to hook up and range to each other. This requires great precision. We'll do a lot of testing and simulations to make sure everything is ready."

Zuber proposed the concept for the GRAIL mission to meet an objective NASA identified in a 2006 Announcement of Opportunity for NASA's Discovery Program. Her proposal was selected from among 24 submissions. She hand picked a science team to carry out the investigation, and she chose the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to support the mission and JPL's Dave Lehman to serve as program manager. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center will oversee the mission, with Bryan Barley as mission manager there.

EXTRA! TEACHER WORKSHOP: Teachers in the Southeast U.S. are invited to apply to attend a workshop entitled "Paving the Way to the Moon and Beyond," held June 12 – 14, 2008 in Huntsville, Alabama. The two day workshop, sponsored by the Lunar Precursor Robotic Program (LPRP), will focus on content that will explain the who, the what, and the why of lunar exploration. Beginning with the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS), teachers will research mission design and scientific goals and experiments through hands on activities. Included in the workshop will be a tour of NASA science labs and an opportunity to talk with scientists involved in exploration related activities. All materials will be appropriate for elementary and middle school preservice and inservice teachers and will be aligned with national standards. Example activities: Earth-Moon comparisons and motions, craters and lunar soils, solar influences on the Moon. Most activities will take place at the Educator Resource Center, located at the Space and Rocket Center. Housing costs for three nights will be provided (at the University of Alabama in Huntsville). Stipends also will be provided. To attend, contact Mitzi Adams 256 961 7626 or mitzi dot adams @ nasa dot gov.

NASA's Future: US Space Exploration Policy

Source: Science@NASA

[AtomicDog]

Ah, it's great seeing metal being bent in support of our return to the Moon.

[AllP0werToSlaves]

I wonder how long it will take? That is, if they aren't already up there.

[ROGER]

The last few posts tell us how lucky the Apollo missions were with regards to safety. The news reels made it look so easy. But Gravity anomaly's and exploding comet pieces are just a few of the problems looking for resolution before long term bases become a reality.

Where are the Star Trek deflectors and Shields when we really need them?

[MID]

I wonder how long it will take? That is, if they aren't already up there.

The plan calls for a Moon landing somewhere around 2020...12 years hence.

[MID]

The last few posts tell us how lucky the Apollo missions were with regards to safety. The news reels made it look so easy.

That's something I hear all the time.

And, there's some truth in that---the newsreels did tend to make it look easy. It's an absence of the mundanities and the details which make it so...which of course is typical newsreel stuff.

Apollo was hard to pull off, very hard.

But Gravity anomaly's and exploding comet pieces are just a few of the problems looking for resolution before long term bases become a reality.

I think the real problem isn't mascons or exploding comet pieces. Radiation exposure and shielding requirements for long term stays in space are the areas where the most concentration will be shown...

[ROGER]

I don't want to break up this thread to badly , but didn't I read of (some where) that work is being done to develop a low power level Plasma Shield. At least for the Aries and lunar lander.

Or was that a non realistic idea?

[Waspie_Dwarf]

NASA Scientists Pioneer Method for Making Giant Lunar Telescopes

06.04.08

Scientists working at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., have concocted an innovative recipe for giant telescope mirrors on the Moon. To make a mirror that dwarfs anything on Earth, just take a little bit of carbon, throw in some epoxy, and add lots of lunar dust.

"We could make huge telescopes on the moon relatively easily, and avoid the large expense of transporting a large mirror from Earth," says Peter Chen of NASA Goddard and the Catholic University of America, which is located in Washington, D.C. "Since most of the materials are already there in the form of dust, you don’t have to bring very much stuff with you, and that saves a ton of money."

After Apollo 12 left lunar orbit this image of the

Moon was taken from the command module on

11/24/69.

Credit: NASA

> Print size resolution

Chen and his Goddard colleagues Douglas Rabin, Michael Van Steenberg, and Ron Oliversen are presenting their mirror-making technique in a poster at the 212th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in St. Louis, Mo. They will also describe their results in a press conference on Wednesday, June 4 at 9:30 a.m. CDT.

For years, Chen had been working with carbon-fiber composite materials to produce high-quality telescope mirrors. But Chen and his colleagues decided to try an experiment. They substituted carbon nanotubes (tiny tubular structures made of pure carbon) for the carbon-fiber composites. When they mixed small amounts of carbon nanotubes and epoxies (glue-like materials) with crushed rock that has the same composition and grain size as lunar dust, they discovered to their surprise that they had created a very strong material with the consistency of concrete. This material can be used instead of glass to make mirrors.

They next applied additional layers of epoxy and spun the material at room temperature. The result was a 12-inch-wide mirror blank with the parabolic shape of a telescope mirror. All of this was achieved with minimal effort and cost.

"After that, all we needed to do was coat the mirror blank with a small amount of aluminum, and voilà, we had a highly reflective telescope mirror," says Rabin. "Our method could be scaled-up on the moon, using the ubiquitous lunar dust, to create giant telescope mirrors up to 50 meters in diameter." Such an observatory would dwarf the largest optical telescope in the world right now: the 10.4-meter Gran Telescopio Canarias in the Canary Islands.

The capabilities of a 50-meter telescope on the Moon boggle the imagination, according to NASA. With a stable platform, and no atmosphere to absorb or blur starlight, the monster scope could record the spectra of extra solar terrestrial planets and detect atmospheric biomarkers such as ozone and methane. Two or more such telescopes spanning the surface of the Moon can work together to take direct images of Earth-like planets around nearby stars and look for brightness variations that come from oceans and continents. Among many other projects, it could make detailed observations of galaxies at various distances, to see how the universe evolved.

"Constructing giant telescopes provides a strong rationale for doing astronomy from the moon," says Chen. "We could also use this on-site composite material to build habitats for the astronauts, and mirrors to collect sunlight for solar-power farms."

Chen notes that his group achieved this breakthrough with only the support of small NASA internal seed funds. The carbon nanotubes were contributed by Dan Powell, Lead Nanotechnologist for NASA Goddard. Several amateur astronomers made key contributions by advising and making special epoxy formulations, helping with polishing experiments, and vacuum coating the 12-inch mirror.

Robert Naeye

Goddard Space Flight Center

Source: NASA/GSFC - News