Lunar Flashlight
 a 6U CubeSat orbiter with solar sail | |
| Mission type | Lunar orbiter |
|---|---|
| Operator | NASA |
| Website | http://sservi.nasa.gov/articles/lunar-flashlight/ |
| Spacecraft properties | |
| Spacecraft | Lunar Flashlight |
| Spacecraft type | CubeSat |
| Bus | 6U |
| Manufacturer |
Payload: JPL Solar sail: MSFC |
| Launch mass | ≈12 kg (26 lb)[1] |
| Dimensions |
bus: 10×20×30 cm solar sail: 80 m2 |
| Power | ≈50 W[1] |
| Start of mission | |
| Launch date | 30 September 2018[2][3][4] |
| Rocket | SLS Block 1 |
| Launch site | Kennedy LC-39B[2] |
| Orbital parameters | |
| Reference system | Polar |
| Periselene | 20 km (12 mi)[3] |
| Aposelene | 1000 to 5000 km[3] |
| Inclination | ≈90° (polar) |
| Moon orbiter | |
| Orbital insertion | January 2019 |
| Transponders | |
| Band | X band |
| Capacity | >10 kbps [1] |
The Lunar Flashlight is a planned low-cost CubeSat lunar orbiter mission to explore, locate, and estimate size and composition of water ice deposits on the Moon for future exploitation by robots or humans.[5][1][3][4][6]
The spacecraft, of the 6U CubeSat format, was developed by a team from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, and will be propelled by a solar sail.[5] It was selected in early 2015 by NASA's Advanced Exploration Systems (AES) for a launch in 2018.[3][4]
History
NASA's Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS), the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and India's Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiters and other missions,[1] discovered in 2009 both water (H2O) and hydroxyl (—OH-) deposits at high latitudes on the lunar surface, indicating the presence of trace amounts of adsorbed or bound water are present.[3] These missions suggest that there might be enough ice water at polar regions to be used by future landed missions,[4][6] but the distribution is difficult to reconcile with thermal maps.[3]
Lunar prospecting missions are intended to pave the way toward incorporating use of space resources into mission architectures. NASA's planning for eventual human missions to Mars depends on tapping the local natural resources to make oxygen and propellant for launching the return ship back to Earth, and a lunar precursor mission is a convenient location to test such in situ resource utilization (ISRU) technology.[7]
The mission concept was developed by a team from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and NASA Marshall Space Flight Center and proposed to NASA's FY2014 Advanced Exporation Systems (AES) call.[5][3] The mission was selected for funding in Early 2015.[4]
Overview and objectives
The goal of Lunar Flashlight is to determine the presence or absence of exposed water ice and its physical state, and map its concentration at the 1-2 kilometer scale within the permanently shadowed regions of the lunar south pole.[5][8][9] The mission will also demonstrate several technological firsts, including being the first CubeSat to reach the Moon, and the first mission to use a solar sail as a reflector for science observations.[4] Any polar volatile data collected by Lunar Flashlight could then ensure the most appropriate landing sites for a more expensive rover to perform in situ measurements and chemical analyses.[4]
Barbara Cohen from the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center is the Science Lead.[5]
Design
The Lunar Flashlight spacecraft will have a 6U CubeSat format or bus propelled by an 80 m2 solar sail that will also function as reflector to illuminate some selected permanently shadowed areas on the Moon.[4] The Lunar Flashlight spacecraft will maneuver to a lunar polar orbit and will use its solar sail as a mirror to reflect up to 50 kW of sunlight down onto shaded polar regions, while an onboard infrared spectrometer measures the reflected spectrum diagnostic of surface compositional mix among rock/dust, regolith, water ice, CO2, methane ice (CH4), and possibly ammonia ice (NH3).[1][3][4] The illuminated spot will be about 400 m (1,300 ft) in diameter, reflected from an altitude of 20 km (12 mi) (perilune).
The Lunar Flashlight payload is derived from three predecessor systems: JPL's INSPIRE, Morehead State's Cosmic X-Ray Background Nanosatellite (CXBN), and JPL's experience with imaging spectrometers, including M3. The 6U CubeSat bus will utilize mostly commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) components such as the lithium ion batteries, the CPU board, solar panels, star tracker and 3-axis reaction wheels for attitude control.[3] The CPU is a 'Rad-Tol Dependable Multiprocessor'.[1] JPL will provide the miniaturized INSPIRE suite that provides timing, navigation and telecommunication on the X-band,[3] which is to be monitored with the NASA Deep Space Network and by Morehead State University (MSU).[1]
Solar sail
The solar sail is based on the aluminized Kapton LightSail produced by Stellar Exploration Inc., and stored in two of the six bus units.[3] Once in lunar polar orbit, the sail will be maneuvered to provide orbital changes, and to offset its own thrust produced while it is used to reflect sunlight onto the target craters.[3]
Scientific payload
The proposed payload on this nanosatellite is an infrared spectrometer, consisting of a lens, dichroic beam splitters and multiple single-element detectors. It occupies 2U (or 2 modules) of the 6U CubeSat bus.[3] The ADACS (attitude control), command and data handling, and power systems will occupy 1.5U; the Iris telecom system will occupy 0.5U.[1]
Proposed launch
The ≈12 kg (26 lb) spacecraft will be launched as a secondary payload on the first test flight of the Space Launch System (Exploration Mission 1) scheduled for September 2018.[2]
Proposed trajectory
The Lunar Flashlight spacecraft will be ejected from the Space Launch System (SLS rocket) during its translunar flight, and will use a Sun sensor and solar panels to power the 3-axes reaction wheels. The spacecraft will then be oriented in the appropriate direction for solar sail deployment. The concept is that it will then begin a trajectory toward a multiple lunar, and possibly an Earth swingby transfer; it will be captured into a lunar polar orbit in one or two months after launch depending on the selected trajectory.[3]
See also
- Solar sail spacecraft
- Other prospector missions
References
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Staehle, Robert L.; Cohen, Barbara; Duncan, Courtney; et al., eds. (13 November 2013). Lunar Flashlight: Finding Lunar Volatiles Using CubeSats (PDF). Third International Workshop on LunarCubes. NASA's SSERVI.
- 1 2 3 Hill, Bill (March 2012). "Exploration Systems Development Status" (PDF). NASA Advisory Council. Retrieved 2012-07-21.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Cohen, Barbara A.; Sellar, R. G.; Staehle, R.; et al., eds. (2013). Lunar Flashlight: Mapping lunar surface volatiles using a CubeSat (PDF). Annual Meeting of the Lunar Exploration Analysis Group (2013). NASA - SSERVI.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 "Lunar Flashlight". Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute. NASA. 2015. Retrieved 2015-05-23.
- 1 2 3 4 5 "NASA TechPort -- Lunar Flashlight Project". NASA TechPort. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Retrieved 19 November 2015.
- 1 2 Wall, Mike (9 October 2014). "NASA Is Studying How to Mine the Moon for Water". Space.com. Retrieved 2015-05-23.
- ↑ "NASA Looking to Mine Water on the Moon and Mars". Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute. NASA. 2015. Retrieved 2015-05-23.
- ↑ LUNAR FLASHLIGHT: MAPPING LUNAR SURFACE VOLATILES USING A CUBESAT. (PDF) Annual Meeting of the Lunar Exploration Analysis Group (2014).
- ↑ Cohen, B. (25 January 2016). "CubeSat for investigating ice on the Moon". SPIE Newsroom. doi:10.1117/2.1201601.006241.
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