NASA Ames Scientist
Selected For Return To Moon Team
(10 March 2008) A scientist at NASA's
Ames Research Center is one of 24 researchers selected to join the Lunar
Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) mission to explore and measure geological features
on the moon's surface.
Scheduled for launch later this year, the
mission represents NASA's first step toward returning humans to the
moon.
Ross Beyer, a SETI Institute employee who works at Ames, will join
the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) team to help develop
high-resolution imaging and topography to explore the lunar terrain for future
landing sites. Beyer will help plan stereo observations and build topographic
models in order to study the geologic history of the moon.
"I haven't
seen the reviews of my proposal yet," Beyer said, "but I assume that I was
selected because I can provide a variety of mission operations and science
expertise to the team, helping out with both the exploration and science
portions of the mission."
The orbiter will conduct a one-year primary
mission exploring the moon, taking measurements to identify future robotic and
human landing sites. In addition, it will study lunar resources and how the
moon's environment will affect humans. The mission also will involve a
spacecraft called the Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS),
which will impact the lunar south pole to search for evidence of frozen polar
water.
Instrument teams will define the science goals for the second
year or what is deemed the extended science phase of the mission during its
second year. In addition to achieving its exploration objectives, the LRO
spacecraft is expected to return high quality scientific data, such as
day-night temperature maps, a global mapping system, high resolution colour
imaging and detailed global topography that will greatly expand our
understanding of the moon.
NASA received a total of 55 proposals in
response to a NASA Research Announcement released in 2007. A peer review panel
and NASA Planetary Science Division Research and Analysis Program scientists
evaluated the proposals. Selection criteria included intrinsic merit,
relevance, responsiveness to planetary science goals and objectives, as well as
cost.
Scientists will be fully or partially funded, depending on their
research work and scope of activities. NASA will provide funding to U.S.
scientists for up to three years depending on satisfactory progress, continued
relevance to the NASA objectives and availability of funds.
The LRO
spacecraft is being built and tested at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in
Greenbelt, Md., and includes six instruments and a technology
demonstration.
LCROSS will take several months to reach the moon. That
mission will search for water astronauts could use at a future lunar outpost.
The sensing spacecraft will impact the moon near its south pole early in 2009.
NASA's Ames Research Center manages the mission.
The orbiter and sensing
satellite will launch together aboard an Atlas V rocket in late 2008. The
orbiter's trip to the moon will take approximately four days. Once in its final
orbit, a circular polar orbit approximately 31 miles above the moon, spacecraft
instruments will map the moon's surface at high resolution, study its radiation
field and map its gravity field.
In a study published in 2007, the
National Academy of Sciences concluded that the science conducted on the moon
is of high value. NASA's Science Directorate will help co-ordinate and expand a
number of in-depth research efforts in lunar science and other fields that can
benefit from human and robotic missions to the moon. The lunar orbiter's
science mission phase is one of many of the science directorate's activities
that support moon exploration.
(source: NASA Ames Research
Center)
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