ASU spacecraft on Artemis mission to look for moon water
A shoebox-sized spacecraft created by Arizona State University researchers is on its way to orbit the moon after launching as part of NASA’s Artemis mission, a new phase in exploring the moon and space.
The Lunar Polar Hydrogen Mapper, nicknamed LunaH-Map, will repeatedly circle the moon to detect hydrogen, and thus where there might be water-ice in shadowed areas of the moon that could be useful for future space exploration.
On Monday, researchers plan for the spacecraft to do a “lunar fly-by” where it will come within about 1,000 kilometers of the moon’s surface and take measurements of the hydrogen content on that part of the moon, according to Craig Hardgrove, a professor of earth and space exploration at ASU and principal investigator of LunaH-Map mission.
It will take about a year and four months for the spacecraft to get into orbit and start collecting data, he said.
ASU staff, students and employees from local aerospace company Qwaltec will operate the spacecraft from Tempe, where it was built. The launch was years in the making: Hardgrove began the proposal in 2014 and it was selected as a mission in 2015.
He likens LunaH-Map to the size of a Costco cereal box, with solar panels that extend out about as tall as a person. A tissue box-sized propulsion system is moving it through space on its own. A similarly sized neutron detector will do most of the scientific data-gathering. Altogether, it’s about 30 pounds, heavy with lots of technology packed in a small space, Hardgrove said.
Mapping water-ice on the moon
Despite its small size, LunaH-Map still has the main components found on larger spacecraft, including solar panels, a navigation and control system, a propulsion system and a deep-space radio.
A neutron detector will help it find water-ice and ultimately lead to detailed maps of the lunar surface. It will fly lower over the surface to map ice areas that previous missions haven’t spotted as clearly.
An understanding of where water-ice is located on the moon’s surface will help in planning future missions and mapping out landing sites for robots and humans. Water-ice could be a key resource for astronauts in the future, who could convert it into drinking water and rocket fuel.
“If we had extra fuel at the moon, we could use water as a fuel to get elsewhere in the solar system. You can also use it to just support human existence on the surface of the moon at a lunar base or something like that,” Hardgrove said.
The data may also help resolve scientific questions about how much ice there was when the moon was formed and how ice and water evolved in the inner solar system, Hardgrove said.
At the end of LunaH-Map’s flight, in a little over a year and a half, the spacecraft will crash into the south pole of the moon, using its last drop of fuel to do so.
NASA’s Artemis program ultimately seeks to return people to the moon and explore its surface more than ever before, and then send astronauts to Mars. Artemis I just launched a flight test without crew, and future phases will have crew. The goal is to “establish the first long-term presence” on the moon, according to NASA.
The road to blastoff was long. Researchers at ASU finished the spacecraft in summer 2021 and hand-delivered it to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Then, it was just waiting for takeoff, which was postponed several times.
‘Really incredible to see’
Artemis I, which launched from Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday, is primarily a test mission and carries no crew members. Future phases are expected to bring astronauts to the moon.
The rocket carried ASU’s satellite plus nine other small spacecraft with the aim of exploring a range of scientific questions. They were released into space one by one.
Hardgrove was there for takeoff, recalling how big, bright and loud it was.
“It was really incredible to see. And as a scientist, it is nerve-wracking because it meant our hard work begins,” he said. “It’s been a hard eight years to get to this point, but it’s a harrowing week or so that we have to plan out this trajectory maneuver to get ourselves into lunar orbit.”
It was after the launch that the nerves really set in, as Hardgrove and his team waited to hear an update sent from the LunaH-Map.
“Waiting to hear from the spacecraft was something I’ve been thinking about, I think for the past eight years, even when I was writing the proposal,” he said. “I remember thinking, wouldn’t it be something if one day we hear from this spacecraft?”
Making contact with it for the first time was surreal, especially to learn that everything was going smoothly after preparing for any possible contingency plan.
Since then, Hardgrove said his team has remained in near continuous contact with the spacecraft to test out commands, plan next activities, monitor all of the subsystems and check on temperatures of the components.
Midday Friday, researchers were working to cool down the spacecraft. Then, it’s off to prepare for the lunar flyby — and beyond.