For the first time since 1972, NASA the ship landed on the lunar surface in February 2024. However, the agency didn’t do it alone – it established cooperation with commercial firms. Thanks to new technologies and Public-private partnershipsThe science projects dropped at the Moon by this spacecraft and future missions like this spacecraft will open up new areas of scientific opportunity.
In several projects starting this yr, teams of scientists, including myself, will conduct radio astronomy from the South Pole and the far side of the Moon.
NASA commercial lunar payload services programor CLPS, will use uncrewed landers to conduct NASA’s first science experiments from the Moon in greater than 50 years. The CLPS program is different from previous space programs. Instead of NASA constructing the landers and operating the program, commercial firms will do it in a public-private partnership. NASA identified about a dozen firms function sellers of landers that will go to the Moon.
NASA buys space on these landers for science payloads to go to the Moon, and firms design, construct and insure the landers, in addition to enter into contracts with rocket firms for launches. Unlike in the past, NASA is one of the customers, not the sole driver.
Peregrine and Odysseus, the first CLPS landers
The first two CLPS payloads are scheduled to launch in the first two months of 2024. Astrobotic payloadwhich launched on January 8 in front of its lander called Peregrine, there may be a problem with fuel which shortened his trip to the Moon.
The next one is Intuitive machine loading. Intuitive Machines lander called Odysseus, landed near the Moon’s south pole On February 22, 2024, NASA also planned a few extra landings – about two or three per yr – for the next few years.
I’m radio astronomer and co-investigator at NASA ROLSES program, also generally known as photoelectron shield observations of radio waves on the lunar surface. ROLSES was built by and is operated by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Natchimuthuk Gopalswamy.
The ROLSES instrument landed on the Moon as one of six NASA payloads on the Intuitive Machines lander in February. Between ROLSES and the next mission scheduled to the far side of the Moon in two years, LuSEE-Night, our teams will land NASA’s first two radio telescopes on the Moon by 2026.
Intuitive Machines, Inc
Radio telescopes on the Moon
The Moon – especially its far side – is an excellent place to practice radio astronomy and study signals from extraterrestrial objects corresponding to the Sun and the Milky Way. On Earth, the ionosphere, which incorporates the Earth’s magnetic field, distorts and absorbs radio signals below FM band. These signals could also be encoded or may not even reach the Earth’s surface.
Television signals, satellite transmissions and defense radar systems also hum on Earth. To make more sensitive observations, it’s worthwhile to go into space, away from Earth.
Scientists call it the Moon tidally locked. One side of the Moon at all times faces Earth –man on the moon” – and the other side, the other side, at all times faces away from the Earth. The moon has no ionosphere, and with about 3,000 km of rock between the Earth and the far side of the moon, there is no such thing as a interference. It’s quiet on the radio.
On our first mission using ROLSES, which launched in February 2024, we will collect data on environmental conditions on the Moon near its south pole. On the lunar surface, the solar wind directly hits the lunar surface and creates charged gas, the so-called plasma. Electrons rise from the negatively charged surface, creating a highly ionized gas.
This doesn’t occur on Earth because the magnetic field deflects the solar wind. But there is no such thing as a global magnetic field on the Moon. Using a low-frequency radio telescope like ROLSES, we will find a way to measure this plasma for the first time, which could help scientists determine methods to keep astronauts secure on the Moon.
When astronauts walk on the lunar surface, they collect various charges. It’s like walking on a carpet in socks – whenever you reach for the doorknob, a spark may jump out of your finger. The same type of discharge occurs on the Moon because of charged gas, but is potentially more harmful to astronauts.
Radio emissions from the Sun and exoplanets
Our team will also use ROLSES to take a look at the Sun. The surface of the Sun produces shock waves that send out high-energy particles and low radio frequency emissions. We will use radio telescopes to measure these emissions and observe bursts of low-frequency radio waves from the shock waves of the solar wind.
Intuitive Machines, Inc.
We also intend to study Earth from the lunar surface and use this process as a template for analyzing radio emissions from exoplanets that may harbor life in other star systems.
Magnetic fields are vital for all times because they protect the planet’s surface from solar/stellar winds.
In the future, our team hopes to make use of specialized antenna arrays on the far side of the Moon to watch nearby star systems known to host exoplanets. If we detect the same type of radio emissions that come from Earth, this will tell us that the planet has a magnetic field. We can measure the strength of the magnetic field to seek out out whether it is powerful enough to guard life.
Cosmology on the Moon
Aviation skylight
Electromagnetic experiment on the lunar surface at night, or LuSEE-Night, will fly to the far side of the Moon in early 2026. LuSEE-Night is scientists’ first attempt at cosmology on the Moon.
LuSEE-Night is an progressive solution of NASA’s cooperation with the Department of Energy. The data will be transmitted back to Earth via a communications satellite in lunar orbit, Lunar Pathfinderfinanced by the European Space Agency.
Because the far side of the Moon is extremely quiet operation of the radio, is the best place to conduct cosmological observations. During the two weeks of lunar night, which occur every 14 days, there are not any emissions from the Sun and there is no such thing as a ionosphere.
We hope to explore an unexplored part of the early universe called Middle Ages. The Dark Ages seek advice from the period before and just after the formation of the first stars and galaxies in the universe, which matches beyond what James Webb Space Telescope can learn.
In the dark ages, the universe was lower than 100 million years old – it’s now 13.7 billion years old. In the dark ages, the universe was full of hydrogen. This hydrogen radiates through the universe at low radio frequencies, and when new stars come on, they ionize the hydrogen, creating a radio signature in the spectrum. Our team hopes to measure this signal and find out how the earliest stars and galaxies in the universe formed.
There are also many potential new physics we are able to explore in this last, unexplored cosmological epoch in the universe. We will explore the nature of dark matter and early dark energy, and test our fundamental models of physics and cosmology in an unexplored era.
This process will begin in 2026 with the LuSEE-Night mission, which is each a fundamental physics experiment and a cosmological experiment.
