Illustration of of Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lander on the lunar surface. The lander will carry a suite of 10 science investigations and technology demonstrations to the Moon in 2023 as part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative.
Credits: Firefly
Aerospace
NASA has awarded Firefly Aerospace of Cedar Park, Texas, approximately
$93.3 million to deliver a suite of 10 science investigations and technology
demonstrations to the Moon in 2023. The delivery, planned for Mare Crisium, a low-lying
basin on the Moon’s near side, will investigate a variety of lunar surface
conditions and resources. Such investigations will help prepare for human
missions to the lunar surface.
The award is part of the agency’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative,
in which NASA is securing the service of commercial partners to quickly land
science and technology payloads on the lunar surface. The initiative is a key
part of NASA’s Artemis program. Firefly
Aerospace will be responsible for end-to-end delivery services, including
payload integration, launch from Earth, landing on the Moon, and mission
operations. This is the sixth award for lunar
surface delivery under the CLPS initiative.
“We’re excited another CLPS provider has won its first task order award.
With this initiative, we seek to develop ways for new science and technology
development utilizing a service-based model,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate
administrator for science at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “This allows U.S.
vendors to not only demonstrate their ability to safely deliver payloads to our
celestial neighbor, but also expand this capability for others who want to take
advantage of this cutting edge approach to explore the Moon.”
This is the first delivery awarded to Firefly Aerospace, which will provide
the lunar delivery service using its Blue Ghost lander, which the company
designed and developed at its Cedar Park facility. This facility also will
house the integration of NASA and any non-NASA payloads, and also will serve as
the company’s mission operations center for the 2023 delivery.
“The payloads we’re sending as part of this delivery service span across
multiple areas, from investigating the lunar soil and testing a sample capture
technology, to giving us information about the Moon’s thermal properties and
magnetic field,” said Chris Culbert, manager of the CLPS initiative at NASA’s
Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Mare Crisium, where Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost will land, is a more
than 300-mile-wide basin where instruments will gather data to provide insight
into the Moon’s regolith – loose, fragmented rock and soil – properties,
geophysical characteristics, and the interaction of solar wind and Earth’s
magnetic field.
The payloads, collectively expected to total 207 pounds (94 kg) in mass,
include:
- The Regolith Adherence Characterization (RAC), which will determine
how lunar regolith sticks to a range of materials exposed to the Moon's
environment during landing and lander operations. Components will be
derived from the Materials International Space Station Experiment (MISSE)
facility currently on the International Space Station.
- The Next Generation Lunar Retroreflectors (NGLR), which will serve as
a target for lasers on Earth to precisely measure the distance between
Earth and the Moon. The retroreflector that will fly on this mission also
will provide data that could be used to understand various aspects of the
lunar interior and address fundamental physics questions.
- The Lunar Environment Heliospheric X-ray Imager (LEXI), which will
capture images of the interaction of Earth's magnetosphere with the flow
of charged particles from the Sun, called the solar wind.
- The Reconfigurable, Radiation Tolerant Computer System (RadPC), which
aims to demonstrate a radiation-tolerant computing technology. Due to the
Moon's lack of atmosphere and magnetic field, radiation from the Sun will
be a challenge for electronics. This investigation also will characterize
the radiation effects on the lunar surface.
- The Lunar Magnetotelluric Sounder (LMS), which is designed to characterize
the structure and composition of the Moon’s mantle by studying electric
and magnetic fields. The investigation will make use of a flight-spare
magnetometer, a device that measures magnetic fields, originally made for
the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) spacecraft currently
orbiting Mars.
- The Lunar Instrumentation for Subsurface Thermal Exploration with
Rapidity (LISTER), which is designed to measure heat flow from the
interior of the Moon. The probe will attempt to drill 7 to 10 feet (2 to 3
meters) into the lunar regolith to investigate the Moon's thermal
properties at different depths.
- The Lunar PlanetVac (LPV), which is designed to acquire lunar regolith
from the surface and transfer it to other instruments that would analyze
the material or put it in a container that another spacecraft could return
to Earth.
- Stereo CAmeras for Lunar Plume Surface Studies (SCALPSS 1.1), which
will capture video and still images of the area under the lander from when
the engine plume first disturbs the lunar surface through engine shutdown.
Long-focal-length cameras will determine the pre-landing surface
topography. Photogrammetry will be used to reconstruct the changing
surface during landing. Understanding the physics of rocket exhaust on the
regolith, and the displacement of dust, gravel, and rocks is critical to
understanding how to best avoid kicking up surface materials during the
terminal phase of flight/landing on the Moon and other celestial bodies.
- The Electrodynamic Dust Shield (EDS), which will generate a
non-uniform electric field using varying high voltage on multiple
electrodes. This traveling field, in turn, carries away the particles
and has potential applications in thermal radiators, spacesuit fabrics,
visors, camera lenses, solar panels, and many other technologies.
- The Lunar GNSS Receiver Experiment (LuGRE), which is based on GPS.
LuGRE will continue to extend the reach of GPS signals and, if successful,
be the first to discern GPS signals at lunar distances.
The CLPS initiative is a key part of NASA’s Artemis lunar exploration
efforts. The science and technology payloads sent to the Moon’s surface as part
of the initiative will help lay the foundation for human missions and a
sustainable human presence on the lunar surface.
For more information about CLPS, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/CLPS
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