Lunar IceCube Hunts For Water on the Moon

Launching along with Artemis 1 is the ride-along CubeSat mission Lunar IceCube. The aim of this mission is to study the distribution of water and organic volatiles on the Moon as they evaporate throughout the day. This will help us assess how much lunar water is in the form of liquid, ice or vapour.

From these observations, scientists will become better positioned to understand the current dynamics of volatile sources, sinks and processes on the Moon. They can then work backwards and search for the evolutionary origin of volatiles – compounds that evaporate – on Earth’s natural satellite. Lunar IceCube will do this from a highangle elliptical orbit around the Moon. As the mission is a short-term one, only scheduled to last six months, it likely won’t see past the close of 2022.

“This will help us assess how much lunar water is in the form of liquid”