Going to the Moon back in the late 60s and 70s was a little bit rushed, with more politics
involved than science.
After all, it was a space race, and only for the sake of beating the Russians to the Moon.
Nowadays, going back to the Moon is a possibility again, and it’s nothing but “rushed.”
The new Artemis project is putting Americans back on the Moon, and this time, they are
going there to stay!
Yes, you heard correctly!
American astronauts are going to stay on the Moon to perform scientific experiments in
preparations to go to the red planet afterwards.
Today, we’re going to talk about the 13 secondary payloads that are going to be aboard
the first Artemis mission back to the Moon; Artemis 1.
Make sure to check the video we made a while back about the NASA Artemis project, but let
us refresh your memories about the Artemis 1 mission.
The Artemis 1 mission will be the first mission to the Moon, it will be an uncrewed mission
used to demonstrate the readiness and efficiency of the different systems of the Artemis project
(the Orion spacecraft, the Space Launch System rocket, and the reentry and recovery systems.)
Now, the 13 payloads that we mentioned earlier are all small satellites, so small in fact
they are called “CubeSats”!
You wouldn’t think a CubeSat would do much science, but believe me it will!
Actually, the idea of CubeSats aren’t exclusive to the Artemis project, they’ve been used
before many times in low Earth orbits producing some pretty interesting science as well.
So much so that “Avi Mandell”, a scientist in NASA’s goddard space flight center said
back in 2015:
“I believe the future looks bright for science on CubeSats, due to their fantastic versatility.
Once we understand how to design these platforms, the possibilities are endless as to what we
can do with them.”
This time, the tiny satellites will put low Earth orbit behind them and hit straight to
the Moon, exploring different orbits and different altitudes above the Moon which will allow
for completely different and exciting science.
If you’re wondering how tiny CubeSats are, well, they are usually measured in “Units”
or “U” which is the equivalent of 10 cm x 10 cm x 10 cm, and they can be any multiple
of units, until 6 Units.
Besides being so small, CubeSats also have the advantage of being low cost, which enables
different sectors (public, private, or even individuals) to build their own cubesats to
be launched into space and explore.
But how will the CubeSats actually reach the Moon?
We mentioned they'll be a part of the Artemis-1 mission, which means they will be on board
the Space Launch System rocket.
More specifically, all of the 13 CubeSats will be connected to the “Orion Stage adaptor”
which in turn is connected to the “Orion Spacecraft”, and when the rocket releases
the spacecraft, the payloads will get released as well and each CubeSat will be on its way
to take its place in orbit.
Now let’s talk about the CubeSats themselves, let’s start with the satellite called “Lunar
Flashlight”, this satellite is very special because it’s going to be the first mission
looking for water ice inside caters on the Moon’s south pole using a near-infrared
laser.
The craters under study are so dark because they never see the Sun light which makes them
the perfect hiding place for different kinds of molecules to get trapped.
The “Lunar Flashlight” will be in orbit around the Moon for 2 months and it will perform
its science by shooting a laser beam into the dark craters, and the reflection off these
craters would be met by 4 reflectometers on board the “CubeSat.”
The reflection would be analysed to figure out the composition of the crater, and the
location of water ice.
Another aspect that makes the “Lunar Flashlight” so special, is that it will be the first CubeSat
to use a green propulsion system, designed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, alongside Georgia Tech university.
The new green propulsion system is based not on hydrazine, but on a green monopropellant
developed by the US Air Force Research Laboratory, the system will eventually weight only 6 kilograms
(12 pounds) and can deliver over 3000 Newton-seconds of total impulse.
The new propellant is safe, less toxic, more chemically stable, and easier to handle.
It’s also efficient in delivering higher specific impulse.
The 2nd CubeSat has to do with water as well, called the “Lunar Polar Hydrogen Mapper”
or “LunaH-Map” for short, developed by Arizona State University and NASA’s JPL
will be used to scan lunar craters and other different areas to detect hydrogen.
Weighing about 18 kilograms (40 pounds), the Cube will be put in a polar, low altitude
orbit around the Moon for 2 month, during which the satellite will complete more than
140 orbits and perform science using 2 neutron spectrometers on board.
The neutron spectrometers will measure the energy of neutrons that interact on the lunar
surface, and from this information, the presence of hydrogen will be known, which in turn tell
us a lot about the distribution of water in the near-surface of the Moon.
NASA prouds itself that the “LunaH-Map” will make the most detailed and high quality
map of water distribution across the Moon’s south pole.
The next CubeSat is called “Lunar IceCube”, and it’s going to spend six months in an
elliptical orbit around the Moon performing experiments to look for vapor, liquid, and
ice water.
Morehead State University is leading the process of building and fabrication of the “Lunar
IceCube”, alongside NASA’s goddard space flight center and the privately-owned Busek
Company in Massachusetts.
The “Lunar IceCube” will have a single onboard scientific instrument called “BIRCHES”
which is an infrared spectrometer to search for water in all its forms not restricted
to only ice water and dark craters like the case in the “Lunar Flashlight” cube.
The “Lunar IceCube” will also be able to characterize other elements in the infrared
spectrum of light.
The three CubeSats we’ve discussed so far will predict the locations of water in such
high accuracy so that future landing missions can land directly where the water is and not
waste time scouting around.
The 3 CubeSats either search for, map, or analyse water and water ice on the Moon, but
why the sudden interest in water on the Moon?
And especially on its south pole?
That’s because future Artemis astronauts are going to visit the south pole for the
first time ever.
And locating where water might be in this new area of the moon, will help astronauts
take advantage of it in drinking and producing fuel.
No one expressed this point better than “John Baker”, the Lunar Flashlight project manager
at Jet Propulsion Laboratory, when he said:
“A technology demonstration mission like Lunar Flashlight, which is lower cost and
fills a specific gap in our knowledge, can help us better prepare for an extended NASA
presence on the Moon as well as test key technologies that may be used in future missions.”
The next CubeSat is called “LunIR” which will perform multiple flybys of the Moon,
during which, the CubeSat will take images of the Moon and its surrounding to provide
more knowledge regarding the structure and environment around the Moon.
Moreover, “LunIR” will demonstrate different CubeSats’ technologies including maneuvering
in space.
Not all 13 payloads are studying space though, this next CubeSat is actually quite different.
It’s called “BioSentinel” and it’s the only biological experiment among the 13
payloads.
The experiment’s goal is to develop a device that senses the effect of outer space radiation
on living organisms by studying how yeast reacts in space beyond low Earth orbit.
The next CubeSat will go on an adventure to interplanetary space to study the Sun’s
radiation.
It’s called “CuSP” and it will act as a space weather indicator where it will observe
solar particles and solar magnetic fields before they reach Earth and cause any harm
like interfering with communication systems or power grids.
Next, we have a pretty interesting CubeSat that’s going to study something entirely
different!
It goes by the name “NEA Scout” which is short for “Near-Earth Asteroid Scout”,
yes this CubeSat is going to perform flybys of an asteroid to increase our understanding
of them and the possible risk they pose to Earth.
NASA has also reserved three slots for the public to design their own CubeSats, the administration
held a competition and three teams won the chance to further develop their ideas.
The first winner is the team “Cislunar Explorers” who is developing a CubeSat to go around the
Moon that runs on water!
Odd, right!?
The idea is to use a “water-electrolysis propulsion system” which entails the use
of electricity to break the bond between hydrogen and oxygen in water molecules and produce
fuel.
This kind of propulsion systems is totally new, and testing it in space will give the
team a great advantage and opportunity into the space flight sector.
The 2nd winner is the team “CU-E3” from University of Colorado, Boulder.
This team wants to set new records with its CubeSat that’s going on an orbit 10 times
more distant than the Moon is, which demonstrates how far a CubeSat can go in space.
Additionally, the CubeSat will act as a proof of concept that communication technology developed
by the university can perform well in space and at a far away orbit from Earth.
The 3rd and final winner is “Team Miles”, this team consists mainly of citizen scientists,
and they are developing a deep space CubeSat that’s going to demonstrate two new technologies.
The first is a computer system that’s going to autonomously guide the cubesat to fly in
space, and the second is a novel propulsion system that uses plasma thrusters.
If you’ve been paying attention so far, you’d notice that there are still 3 payloads
that we haven’t yet discussed!
These three payloads belong to international partners whom NASA gave the chance to participate
in the Artemis-1 payloads.
The first two of the international CubeSats belong to the Japanese Aerospace Exploration
Agency “JAXA” and the university of Tokyo.
First we have the “EQUilibriUm Lunar-Earth point 6U Spacecraft.”
This CubeSat will make multiple flybys around the Moon, but will eventually get into Earth’s
orbit to study the radiation around the Earth and how it might affect future space missions
and astronauts.
Furthermore, the CubeSat will study plasma surrounding the Earth by taking images of
Earth’s plasmasphere.
The 2nd JAXA CubeSat is called the “Outstanding MOon exploration TEchnologies demonstrated
by NAno Semi-Hard Impactor”, yes all this is just the name!
This CubeSat with the difficult name is going to monitor and study the radiation around
and on the surface of the Moon, it will also act as a technology demonstration for low
cost and small missions to explore the surface of the Moon.
The third and final international CubeSat belongs to Italy, where the Italian Space
Agency supervises the building process by the italian company “Argotec.”
The CubeSat is called “ArgoMoon” and it will have 3 main goals to achieve:
1- “ArgoMoon” will be very close to the rocket’s “Interim Cryogenic Propulsion
Stage” in order to test the ability of performing science in such close proximity to a propulsion
stage.
2- recording and documenting of the “Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage” in action as
well as the deployment of the 13 payloads.
3- Finally, “ArgoMoon” will test optical communication systems between the CubeSats
and Earth.
The Artemis-1 mission is launching with the 13 payloads some time in 2020 if no further
delays took place because of the COVID-19 pandemic.