Lander with San Antonio roots headed to far side of moon – San Antonio Express-News

A lunar lander with strong San Antonio roots is headed to the far side of the moon, and it could help explain the origins of the man in the moon image thats visible from Earth.

NASA announced that it selected a Southwest Research Institute instrument suite to study the lunar crust, mantle and core in the 200-mile wide Schrdinger basin near the moons South Pole.

LITMS, pronounced litmus, is the San Antonio-based nonprofit institutes shorthand for Lunar Interior Temperature and Materials Suite. Its set to travel to the moon in 2024 or 2025 as part of a NASA program called Commercial Lunar Payload Services, which is rapidly expanding lunar exploration using U.S. companies.

Its one of two missions selected to go to the far side of the moon.

With LITMS, we hope to get a better understanding of the thermal evolution, differentiation and asymmetry of the Moon, said SwRIs Robert Grimm, LITMS principal investigator, in a statement. This will help us interpret how the lunar crust, mantle and core formed. And we can contrast these far-side measurements with those done by the near-side Apollo missions to unravel the origin of the Man in the Moon.

An artist's rendition of Southwest Research Institute's LITMS, pronounced litmus, which stands for Lunar Interior Temperature and Materials Suite. NASA selected the device to land on the far side of the moon.

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The research will help scientists better understand the moon for future exploration.

This can help us figure out how the Earth formed, how Mars formed, how Venus formed all these different planets all these planetary bodies formed, said David Stillman, a SwRI planetary geophysicist and the projects scientist. Just going to the moon and making these measurements at a bunch of different locations and seeing if there's differences.

LITMS will only weigh 20 kilograms, or roughly 44 pounds. The lander wont move once its on the lunar surface. Most of its instruments are designed only to survive the daylight half of a lunar day.

By the time the lander sets up on the moons surface, we're gonna have maybe 12 days of sunlight to do all this science, he said. The coolest part of our stuff is we have booms, and we shoot out electrodes, Stillman said.

LITMS will carry four instruments, also with complicated names and abbreviations.

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Texas Tech Universitys Lunar Instrumentation for Thermal Exploration with Rapidity, or LISTER, will measure heat flow on the moon using a pneumatic drill that can reach 10 feet into the lunar surface. The drill is like a stainless steel tape measure, according to Stillman. It uses puffs of pressurized air to move the moon dust away.

It will push its way in as far as it can, and then it will do a little puff of gas, and excavate and throw that stuff out of the hole, he said. Then it will push down as far as it can again and then do the same thing.

SwRIs Lunar Magnetotelluric Sounder, or LMS, will measure the moons electrical and magnetic fields.

LMS has four electrodes, and they're kind of like a mortar, Stillman said. We just have a spring with a bunch of wire. And then we heat it up, and as soon as it hits 70 degrees Celsius, it shoots our electrode, which is the size of your fist, more than 20 meters away.

The University of California, Berkeleys Lunar Surface Electromagnetics Experiment, or LuSEE, has booms that reach out from the lander to get accurate readings.

Jet Propulsion Laboratorys seismometer suite will monitor lunar ground noise and moonquakes. Its the only instrument onboard capable of surviving the bitter cold of the 14-day Lunar night.

With temperatures plunging to minus 173 Celsius, or about 343 degrees Fahrenheit, the lunar nights are difficult to survive.

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Besides a harsh environment, landing on the far side of the moon also complicates communicating with the spacecraft.

We're not going to have direct line of sight to where it landed, so in order to talk to your lander, you're going to have to upload that telemetry or comms to a spacecraft that's going around the moon, he said.

NASA has not selected the contractor or timing for the missions commercial space launch. Nor has it selected a contractor to build the lander that will carry the instruments.

LITMS and the seismic package are very complementary in providing a more complete picture of the lunar interior, Grimm said. Together, they are a pathfinder for a future lunar geophysical network, a global array of long-lasting instruments on the surface of the Moon.

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NASAs nod for SwRIs lunar research is the latest sign that San Antonios space exploration industry is growing.

Last month, NASA awarded San Antonio-based Astroport Space Technologies a contract to develop a furnace to liquefy moon dust, and a nozzle that will use the lava-like substance to create interlocking bricks. The goal is to use the bricks as construction materials of lunar landing pads.

Astroports research partner is the University of Texas at San Antonio, where scientists are studying how much energy is required to run the lunar furnaces and which types of moon dust work best for creating bricks.

Sam Ximenes, founder and CEO of Astroport, said the latest NASA and SwRI lunar mission is an excellent example of science leading the way to understanding the lunar environment for informing the engineering missions that would be needed when we begin constructing a longer-term human presence.

The research is once again demonstrating how San Antonio is at the forefront of space exploration, he added.

Brandon Lingle writes for the Express-News through Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms. ReportforAmerica.org. brandon.lingle@express-news.net

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Lander with San Antonio roots headed to far side of moon - San Antonio Express-News