NASA’s Arcstone Satellite and Instrument Fully Commissioned

An artist’s rendering of NASA’s Arcstone instrument on-orbit gathering measurements of lunar reflectance.

Blue Canyon Technologies

Commissioning has been completed for NASA’s Arcstone instrument and the bus. Themain structure of the satellite, or bus, and instrument testing began shortly after launching from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California July 23 on a SpaceX Transporter-14 rideshare mission.  

On Aug. 13, the Arcstone spectrometer, the first instrument dedicated to improving the accuracy of lunar reflectance measurements from space, began gathering validated lunar and solar spectral measurements, beginning the active portion of the mission. The measurements of sunlight reflected off the Moon can be used to fine-tune spacecraft instruments by calibrating sensors on-orbit. 

This agency technology demonstration has the potential to improve the quality of data from Earth-viewing sensors in orbit by showing that a high-accuracy, universal calibration standard of lunar reflectance can be created and used across the international scientific community and commercial space industry. 

“A highly detailed calibration of lunar reflectance can improve the quality of spaceborne sensor data and result in lower complexity of mission hardware by eliminating the need for on-board calibration sensors,” said Constantine Lukashin, principal investigator for the Arcstone mission and physical scientist at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. “The Moon can be the preferred reference to fine-tune satellite instruments. Arcstone’s measurements are intended to allow faster detection of data trends, lower costs, and significantly increase data quality.” 

The Arcstone technology demonstration project is funded by NASA’s Earth Science Technology Office’s In-space Validation of Earth Science Technologies. Arcstone is led by NASA Langley in partnership with Colorado University Boulder’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, USGS, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, Resonon Inc., Blue Canyon Technologies, and Quartus Engineering.

To learn more about Arcstone visit: https://science.nasa.gov/mission/arcstone/ 

Source: NASA’s Arcstone Satellite and Instrument Fully Commissioned  - NASA