Lunar Trailblazer Spacecraft Undergoing Final Preparations for Trip to Florida
Lunar Trailblazer Spacecraft Undergoing Final Preparations for Trip to Florida
University of Central Florida planetary scientist Kerri Donaldson Hanna is counting the days until NASA’s Lunar Trailblazer mission launches from Cape Canaveral and begins its journey to search for water on the moon.
Mapping Water Ice Deposits on the Moon
The Lunar Trailblazer spacecraft, set to launch in March 2024, has been undergoing final preparations and testing with Lockheed Martin in Littleton, Colorado, for it to be shipped to Florida to be integrated into SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket.
Once orbiting the moon, Lunar Trailblazer will use multiple instruments to create high-resolution maps of water ice deposits on the moon. Ice will be a critical resource for lunar and space exploration and may be used to provide hydration for astronauts and fuel for spacecraft.
Understanding the Moon’s Formation and Evolution
Donaldson Hanna’s research group will be using observations from the spacecraft’s Lunar Thermal Mapper (LTM) to map areas on the lunar surface that are cold enough to retain water ice. They also aim to better understand how the moon’s crust originally formed and evolved over time, including the changes in lunar volcanism.
“Both instruments on Lunar Trailblazer, LTM and the High-resolution Volatiles and Minerals Moon Mapper (HVM3), have better spatial and spectral resolution than has flown before, so we will get unprecedented spectral maps of the lunar surface allowing us to answer key questions about the moon and perhaps even identify new puzzles to be solved with future surface missions,” says Donaldson Hanna.
And we will also be using Lunar Trailblazer observations to better characterize the Gruithuisen domes in preparation for our Lunar-VISE mission in early 2027.
