WATCH NOW: LSU Tiger Eye 1 mission set to take place next year on the moon – BRProud.com

BATON ROUGE, La (LSU) Next year, LSU will be the first university in the world to put science and research technology on the Moon. The Tiger Eye 1 research mission is part of a multi-disciplinary university-industry collaboration to make future space travel safer for people and equipment by providing insight into the complex radiation environment in space. LSUs radiation detection device is now officially on the manifest for the broader IM-1 mission, the first in a series of commercial flights and the first-ever to land on the Moon that will bring science and technology to the lunar surface throughNASAs Commercial Lunar Payload Services, or CLPS, initiative. This will also be the first time the U.S. lands on the Moon since 1972 and the Apollo program.

Students in five different LSU colleges and schools are leading the charge under the direction ofAssistant Professor Jeffery Chancellorin the LSU Department of Physics & Astronomy, head of itsSpace Radiation Transport & Applied Nuclear, or SpaRTAN, lab. All are undergraduate seniors from Louisiana:

Haley Pellegrin, from Bourg in Terrebonne Parish, is a LaSpace Undergraduate Research Fellow and member of the SpaRTAN lab where she develops new technologies to make better radiation shielding in the LSU College of Science. She graduates this month.

Jacob Miller, from Crowley in Acadia Parish, is an electrical engineering major who builds new devices for medical applications in the LSU College of Engineering and the Roger Hadfield Ogden Honors College. He graduates in December.

Katie Hostetler, from Zachary in East Baton Rouge Parish, is a graphic designer who creates art for LSU Athletics and this spring came up with the winning design for the Tiger Eye 1 mission patch; shes double-majoring in religious studies in the LSU School of Art + Design and the LSU College of Humanities & Social Sciences. She graduates in December.

NOTE: Media are invited to join the research team on Zoom on Monday, May 10 from 12:00-1:00 p.m.To receive the Zoom link and password, emailasatake@lsu.edu.

Were immensely proud of the LSU students leading this work on the frontier of science, technology, art and the human imagination, said Samuel J. Bentley, vice president of research and economic development. Its been incredible to see and support all of LSU coming together to move this mission forward. There should be no barriers to expertise, and this university-industry collaboration is a great example of how the caliber of our students and researchers can advance projects of critical importance to our nation.

This student-led, cross-campus collaboration reinforces LSUs impact on space exploration and planetary science, said Cynthia Peterson, dean of the LSU College of Science.As we prepare to put people on the Moon again in 2024, we must not only understand what it takes to protect our astronauts, but also what is required to perform science experiments in a space environment and safeguard the technologies needed to conduct the research.

Through itsmedical and health physics program and the SpaRTAN lab, LSU helps agencies and companies understand background radiation in space, one of the hard limits on how much time people and equipment can spend out there, beyond the Earths protective magnetic field. Understanding the types and amounts of radiation that exist on the Moon will be key to establishing a sustainable human presence on Earths nearest neighbor as well as traveling to Mars. The data brought back by Tiger Eye 1 will further the SpaRTAN labs research on improved radiation shielding in both materials and design.

We have models and predictions for human health risk on the Moon, but we dont yet have actual measurements of the radiation spectrum on the lunar surface, Chancellor said. Now that well get real data, we can use it to validate our models, make better predictions and increase the safety of future space travel.

The IM in IM-1 stands forIntuitive Machines, a Houston-based company pioneering humanitys next stepreturning the U.S. to the surface of the Moon. IM holds NASA and commercial payload contracts for two separate lunar landings through IM-1 in the first quarter of 2022 and IM-2 in the fourth quarter to help pave the way for the Artemis program, which will put the first woman and the first person of color on the Moon as early as 2024. The CLPS flights are all uncrewed and will make use of rovers and robots to conduct science experiments and test technologies in different areas on the lunar surface. Intuitive Machines is providing the vehicle, communication network and mission operations center for LSUs device to safely land on the Moon and effectively conduct research. IMsNova-C lunar landerwill be launched from a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The solar battery-driven vehicle will spend two weeks on the surface before succumbing to lunar night, not far from Tranquility Base where Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin first walked on the Moon in July 1969 during the Apollo 11 mission.

The two main barriers for human spaceflight are propulsionhow to get there fasterand how to protect humans and equipment from radiation, said retired Colonel Jack 2fish Fischer, astronaut and vice president of strategic programs at Intuitive Machines. Without the shielding and radiation modeling LSU is helping to develop, the radiation effects on crews and equipment during deep space exploration would be catastrophic.

Using Jeff Chancellors ability to model this stuff and figure out what kind of shielding to use and where to put it, we see a future where it will be much easier and cheaper to go into space because we could open the lunar and space economy to a global supply chain, Fischer continued. We could put commercial, off-the-shelf technology out there and lessen the dependency on expensive, overdesigned solutions. The radiation data well get on IM-1 will change the equation of whats possible in space.

LSUs Tiger Eye 1 mission was enabled in partnership withGeocent, a New Orleans-based company that provides solutions and talent for the space, defense and homeland security communities. Geocent chose LSU as a research and development partner to test some of their radiation shielding, which led to an opportunity to share physical space onboard IM-1.

Geocent and our teammatesPlasma Processes, the University of Alabama at Birmingham and the University of Tennessee, Knoxvilleare proud to bring Geocents ACCRES Radiation Shielding technology to the partnership with LSU and Dr. Jeff Chancellor, Intuitive Machines and especially LSU students to work on critical research and technologies that truly advance human spaceflight and exploration, said Robert A. Bobby Savoie, CEO of Geocent and LSU College of Engineering alumni. Were a national company but Louisiana-born, and its thrilling to see students from several disciplines coming together to make significant contributions to an important mission. Geocents technical strength is in its people, and we cant imagine a better way to build talent than challenging students to work together and rise to the occasion to put Tiger Eye 1 and their footprint on the Moon.

The LSU radiation detection device is currently being customized by Pellegrin and Miller who, as official project manager, also will engage LSU mechanical engineerings advanced manufacturing and machining capabilities to etch Hostetlers Tiger Eye 1 mission patch onto the physical device casing, which will occupy a space about the size of an iPhone 12.

The most challenging thing on missions like these is working within strict limitations on mass, volume, power, bandwidth and time, as well as communicating with and controlling devices from Earth, which means solving problems no ones solved before, Pellegrin said. Im super excited to be part of this mission and the knowledge and skills Ive gained have already kickstarted my career. They helped me land an internship at Geocent, which is a dream come true since I want to work in space and missile systems development.

Pellegrin and Miller are also working withAdvacam, a company based in the Czech Republic, on adapting radiation detection hardware, which is similar to a USB flash drive, that it has previously supplied for the International Space Station, or ISS. But while laptops and off-the-shelf equipment can be brought to the ISS to help integrate and connect such devices, that isnt possible on IM-1. Much of Millers work on Tiger Eye 1 lies in software development and coding, and possibly some wiring and soldering, to make sure the data from the sensor makes sense to the device, which must be able to communicate with the main Intuitive Machines flight computer to receive time stamps, temperature readings and other critical data. The LSU team is setting up a Tiger Eye 1 ground control center right on the main campus and hopes to be able to receive raw data as well as issue commands to the device while it is traveling through space and on the lunar surface.

Its sort of an engineering and computer science joke, but the amount of problems we solve by turning a device off and back on again is kind of astounding, Miller said. So, if we stop being able to communicate with the device or get weird readings, we need to be able to tell the lander to perform a power cycle to reboot our device or change other settings. Rather than just seeing a problem, we need to be able to do something about it without physically touching the device.

Earlier this year, Pellegin walked the Timepix chip the team will be using as a sensor over to the LSU School of Veterinary Medicines linear accelerator, where radiation is used to help treat animals with cancer, for initial testing.

Most of our patients are dogs and cats, but we do treat the occasional reptile, rabbit, horse or other pet, said Jayme Looper, director of the LSU Small Animal Hospital and itsradiation oncology services. Our recent collaboration with the LSU medical physics team to test the radiation detection device prior to its journey to the Moon is an example of a long history of intercollegiate collaboration at LSU.

Chancellor did the initial characterization of the Timepix technology in the 1990s as a masters student under advisor Larry Pinsky at the University of Houston, who did the dosimetry for the Apollo mission.

It takes a lot of time to sort of gather all of the information about how everything communicates and the protocols everybodys following, Miller said. It gets complicated really fast. But as an engineering student, I like the challenge of doing something thats really, truly new in just a few months. Its as scary as its appealing, and the result is going to benefit human spaceflight for years to come.

For Hostetler, the design of the mission patch didnt feel as new as it felt familiar. In a recentLSU Art + Design profile, she shared how her first opportunity to send art into space actually arrived already in fifth grade.

It was a contest to design a flag to go into space and I was really far ahead in the contest but ended up in second place, Hostetler said. So, when my professor, Courtney Barr, came to me with the Tiger Eye 1 opportunity, I was like, Fifth-grade me would be proud. My mom was especially excited.

Barr recruited seven undergraduate and graduate art students to come up with 19 different design ideas for the space patch. After careful vetting and input from the other students on his team, Chancellor chose one of Hostetlers designs, which features a fierce but protective tiger eye overlooking a spacecraft landing on the Moonbecause he appreciated the symbolism and also because it looked awesome.

The patch is an important symbol because it includes everyone on the team, Chancellor said. Folks like Danielle Cintron, Darya Courville, Greg Trahan, Shemeka Law and countless others at LSU have worked really hard behind the scenes to make Tiger Eye 1 possible. Space missions do not happen entirely in a vacuum and the patch itself helps to represent that idea.

I came up with a few different versions, but Im so glad he picked this one; its my favorite, Hostetler said.

With an eye on IM-2, Chancellor expects to call on Hostetler and the LSU Art + Design team again soon. Intuitive Machines will bring an ice drill and use a small drone ship to explore hard-to-reach areas on the Moon and test the Nokia 4G LTE network, while LSU is considering sending up a larger and more robust radiation detector, based on lessons to be learned on IM-1. When it comes to shielding materials and design, the vast spectrum of radiation in space doesnt lend itself to easy or particularly intuitive solutions. Adding more shielding or encasing everything in lead isnt an option in space. Not only would this add too much mass and cost; shielding in the wrong place could also slow down the radiation particles to the extent theyd get trapped inside the space vehicle or the human body, causing devastating damage to astronauts and equipment. Sometimes minimal shielding is the safest option and the LSU SpaRTAN labs research will continue to help the aerospace industry find out exactly where, when and how to effectively use it.

The upcoming missions reflect the importance and impact of LSUs Space Grant status, supporting critical space research across a range of topics. LSU manages the National Center for Advanced Manufacturing, or NCAM, a partnership between LSU, NASA, the state of Louisiana, the University of New Orleans, or UNO, and the UNO Research and Technology Foundation that is focused on applying advanced manufacturing technologies in support of NASA space programs. NCAM is located at NASAs Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, where critical hardware components for exploration vehiclessuch as core Space Launch System, or SLS, rocket components for NASAs Artemis mission to the Moonare engineered, manufactured and tested. Beyond state-of-the-art research, NCAM has a strong educational and talent development mission, working with aerospace companies to build the next generation of scientists and engineers.

With NASAs Johnson, Stennis, Michoud and Marshall Space Centers all within arms reach, LSU is helping to develop the workforce needed for the next step in space explorationlong-term, crewed space missions and a return to the lunar surface, said Jeffrey Blackmon, chair of the LSU Department of Physics & Astronomy. TheLouisiana Space Consortium, or LaSPACE, and the High-Altitude Student Platform, or HASP, have played major roles, but were especially excited about the tremendous opportunity Tiger Eye 1 is for LSU students to be involved in forefront space-science research.

As the Tiger Eye 1 team works to get everything ready for launch, something else just came upthe LSU SpaRTAN lab will be flying yet another radiation detector on SpaceXsInspiration4mission using their Falcon 9 launch vehicle and Dragon spacecraft this September, in collaboration with Pinsky. It will launch from NASAs Kennedy Space Center in Florida and be the worlds first all-commercial, all-civilian mission to space. It will circle the Earth before making a soft water landing off the Florida coast.

Press release provided by LSU Media Relations.

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WATCH NOW: LSU Tiger Eye 1 mission set to take place next year on the moon - BRProud.com