NASA is
drawing up plans to probe the secrets of moon dust using a small orbiter that
will ride piggyback on another spacecraft's rocket.
The $80-million
LADEE spacecraft is slated to launch alongside a lunar gravity-mapping probe in
2011 on a 100-day mission to study the moon's wisp-thin atmosphere and ever-present
dust, the agency said Thursday.
A clear
understanding of the moon's atmosphere and its clingy dust will be vital for
NASA as it moves forward with plans to return astronauts to the lunar surface aboard
its Altair lander by 2020.
During the Apollo
lunar landings between 1969 and 1972, NASA moonwalkers were coated
in lunar dust during excursions and tracked it back inside their landers,
where it gave off a smell similar to
gunpowder. The gritty material can be abrasive, made of sharp, glassy
grains, be electrostatically charged and may even be toxic to astronauts if too
much is inhaled, researchers have said.
"Moondust
was a real nuisance for Apollo astronauts," said NASA researcher Mian
Abbas, whose team studies the interaction of lunar dust and solar wind at the National
Space Science and Technology Center's Dusty Plasma Lab in Huntsville, Ala., in
a statement. "It stuck to everything - spacesuits, equipment,
instruments."
According
to one NASA mission description, LADEE - short for Lunar Atmosphere and Dust
Environment Explorer - is expected to carry at least two instruments, a
spectrometer for atmosphere studies and a dust detector aimed at the moon's
gritty regolith.
"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," said Pete Worden, head of NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett
Field, Calif., which will oversee the LADEE mission, in a statement.
The LADEE
orbiter is expected to ride in the back seat of an unmanned Delta 2 rocket
behind NASA's Gravity
Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL), a $375-million orbiter designed
to parse out the mysteries of the moon's gravitational field. The two
spacecraft will separate only after they are en route to the moon, with LADEE
expected to take about five months to enter orbit and check its systems.
LADEE and
GRAIL will follow a flotilla of lunar probes, including Japan's Kaguya orbiter
and China's Chang'e-1 spacecraft - both of which launched last year and are
likely to their mission's extended.
India is
preparing to launch its lunar orbiter, the Chandrayaan-1, later this year with
NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) to follow later this year. A second
NASA probe, the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, will also
launch with LRO and purposely crash two vehicles into the moon to search for hidden
water ice.
"LADEE
represents a low-cost approach to science missions, enabling faster science
return and more frequent missions," Worden said.
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