NASA to laser check Moon's darkest craters for signs of water before Artemis mission

Since anuncement of Artemis programme in May 2019, NASA has been preparing for its ambitious mission to send first woman and next man on Moon by 2024. With Artemis programme, which has been dubbed as 'Humanity's Return to Moon', scientists aim to explore lunar surface using invative techlogies with sustainable architecture. w, in a recently published paper, NASA has detailed its plan to explore possible water resources on surface of Moon with a Lunar Flashlight.

In paper, published in April 2020 issue of a scientific journal, NASA scientists described Lunar Flashlight as a small satellite that will search for water ice exposures in Moon's permanently showed regions (PSRs) near poles. About size of a briefcase, small satellite can detect naturally-occurring surface ice that is believed to be at bottom of darkest craters and has never seen sunlight.

Water is a heavy and refore expensive resource to launch from Earth, and astronauts during Artemis mission to Moon could need water for rocket fuel, if t for drinking purposes. Scientists have suspected  existence of water in form of ice molecules inside coldest and darkest craters on Moon but previous quantitative measurements have been ambiguous. Lunar Flashlight will help NASA ascertain amount of usable water ice exposures on Moon before mission takes from Earth.  

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Finding Water of Moon 

Over course of two months, Lunar Flashlight will beam its laser over Moon's south pole into permanently showed regions and probe surface for water ice exposures. Found near lunar poles, se dark craters have been identified as 'cold traps' that accumulate molecules of water ice among or ice compounds. se molecules could have come from comets and asteroids impacting lunar surface or could be a product of solar wind interactions with lunar soil.

Barbara Cohen, a scientist on mission, explained in paper " Sun moves around crater horizon but never actually shines into crater. Because se craters are so cold, se molecules never receive eugh energy to escape, so y become trapped and accumulate over billions of years."

Lunar Flashlight will beam near-infrared wavelengths that are reily absorbed by water. If lasers hit bare rocks in  dark craters, light will reflect back to satellite but if light is absorbed, it would confirm presence of water ice in se lunar caves. greater absorption, more widespre ice at surface.

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Lunar Flashlight

As detailed in NASA document, Lunar Flashlight has been developed by American ncy's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and seeks to achieve several techlogical firsts, including being first mission to look for water ice exposures using lasers. It will also be first craft to use a 'green' propellant, which is safer to transport and store than Hydrazine.

John Baker, Lunar Flashlight project manr at JPL, ded that Lunar Flashlight is a lower-cost techlogy demonstration mission that can fill gaps in present scientific kwledge, better prepare astronauts for a possible extended stay on Moon and test key techlogies that may be used in future expeditions. 

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