ASU to lead water-mapping mission on the moon, first ever for university
Aug 26, 2015, 7:58 PM | Updated: Aug 27, 2015, 10:10 am
LunaH-Map mission to the Moon - SESE - Arizona State University from Arizona State University on Vimeo.
PHOENIX — Arizona State University will soon be headed to the moon! (In a spacecraft, of course.)
The university recently announced that a shoebox-sized, NASA-selected CubeSat spacecraft called the Lunar Polar Hydrogen Mapper, otherwise known as “LunaH-Map”, will soon be orbiting and mapping the moon for water, according to ASU News.
The LunaH-Map will be designed, built and operated out of Arizona State University as one small piece of a larger mission designed to identify water content at the South Pole of the moon.
It will then produce a map detailing the moon’s water deposits and analyzing the depth and distribution of the ice identified in previous missions. Officials hope this information will allow humans to explore even further into the solar system with new information about water availability on the moon.
Jim Bell, a professor in ASU’s School of Earth and Space Exploration and the mission’s deputy principal investigator, said this mission is unlike any before for the university.
“All of our previous NASA mission involvement has consisted of us having instruments on other people’s missions. This is ASU’s first interplanetary mission – this is our mission, our chance to trail blaze,” he said in an interview with ASU News.
This will be the third major space project NASA has selected ASU for in the past year and is the first interplanetary mission led by the university.
Principal Investigator Craig Hardgrove, a School of Earth and Space Exploration postdoctoral research associate who proposed the mission, said he is excited to lead this team and begin his mission.
“It’s a privilege to be leading this fantastic team, and I want to make sure we do it right and deliver on our promise to NASA,” he said in an interview with ASU News.
The university will not only be mapping the moon for water content, but also to search for various and useful assets, such as hydrogen, which could manufacture fuel and help astronauts gauge the amount of fuel and supplies that could be brought on a mission to Mars.
