Spatial engineers should launch an unusual mission this week when they send a probe built by researchers from the United Kingdom and the United States on the Moon to map water on its surface. Lunar Trailblazer’s two -year mission should start on Thursday when the probe is exploded in Florida space on a Space X Falcon Rocket.
Its objective – search for water on the lunar surface – may seem strange since the moon has traditionally been considered an arid and dried up world. However, scientists recently revealed strong clues that it has significant amounts of water. It will be Lunar Trailblazer’s task to reveal the amount of water near the lunar surface and locate its main locations.
The probe progress will be followed with a keen interest of space engineers and astronomers who believe that lunar water could play a key role in plans to install dominant colonies on the moon. Using the power provided by solar power plants, water could be transformed into its constituent elements of hydrogen and oxygen. The first would then be used as a fuel while the second would allow astronauts to breathe.
“This is mainly a scientific mission,” said Professor Neil Bowles, head of the University of Oxford’s physicists who built one of Lunar Trailblazer’s main instruments. “However, it should also tell us how water is transported through the lunar surface and this has implications for a future lunar exploration by humans.”
Until recently, it had been assumed that the water molecules brought to the moon by meteorites and comets would decompose quickly while sunlight poured them into hydrogen and oxygen which would then have derived in the ‘space. However, several robotic probes have recently found convincing evidence that water, mainly in the form of ice, exists in fairly large quantities in certain permanently deep craters, with the Lunar South Pole offering the most promising candidates.
These discoveries were even more deepened by the Chandrayaan-1 probe of India which revealed, in 2009, than water traces You could be seen on the surface of the moon far from the poles. “It was a big surprise that changed our perceptions of what we could find on the moon,” said Bowles.
However, the instrument on Chandrayaan-1 which made the discovery did not have the spectral beach to completely map the water on the lunar surface and the lunar pioneer was designed to bypass this problem. He will carry two instruments. The first is an infrared scanner that will identify water and other geological characteristics. The second, designed by Bowles and his team, is a thermal mapper which is essentially a very advanced thermal camera.
Working in tandem, these instruments should then be able to create a water card on the lunar surface. “We know that there is water at the poles of the moon, but we do not know how it ended there,” said Bowles. “We think there is a kind of lunar water cycle as there is one on earth although in the case of that on the moon, it has nothing to do with the clouds or the rain . “
There are two main scenarios, he added. “Either the water is delivered by comets or meteorites which strike the lunar surface and release a lot of water which then condenses in cold traps with the poles. Alternatively, very thin layers of water can be formed by reactions in the lunar soil.
“However, we do not know how this water would move and accumulate in ice deposits. This is what we are trying to discover. We want to understand why there is water on the moon and how it behaves there and this is important not only for our understanding of the Moon, but to appreciate what could happen in other worlds similar to The Moon, like Mercury. “”
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Lunar Trailblazer will not be the only spacecraft provided for space Thursday. The launching demonstration also includes the main mission of Rocket, IM-2, a lunar lander built by the American intuitive machine company. It is intended to settle on the moon where it will allow you to break under the surface in order to find water.
In addition to these crafts, there will be a probe – named Odin by its manufacturer Astroforge – which will fly towards a very different destination: Asteroid 2022 OB5. Odin will take images in preparation for a return mission which should land on the asteroid and start mineral extraction on its surface.
These missions are all part of the NASA lunar payload sales program which has been set up to encourage businesses to send small moor and robotic rovers to the moon and other destinations close to the earth. The main objective is to prepare for the possible colonization of the Moon.