NASA Payload Drills Down to Take Moon’s Temperature | Blue Ghost Mission 1
A technology demonstration instrument aboard Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission 1 is a robotic planetary subsurface thermal probe. The Lunar Instrumentation for Subsurface Thermal Exploration with Rapidity, or LISTER, is a NASA payload aboard Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission 1 lander as part of the agency’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative. In this video, LISTER can be seen activating its specialized drill to measure the flow of heat from the Moon’s interior. So far, the gas-powered drill has probed about 3 feet (1 meter) into the surface. LISTER’s pneumatic drill is designed to go as deep as three meters (9 feet). Every half meter, the drilling system will pause so that a thermal probe can gauge the temperature of the Moon.
LISTER, along with the ten other NASA science and technology instruments aboard the lander, will operate on the Moon, near a volcanic featured called Mons Latreille within Mare Crisium, for 14 Earth days, or roughly one lunar day.
Texas Tech University in Lubbock and Honeybee Robotics, a Blue Origin company of Altadena, California, jointly developed LISTER. The Planetary Missions Program Office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the development for seven of the ten CLPS payloads aboard Firefly’s Blue Ghost lunar lander, including LISTER.
Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost Mission 1 lander successfully touched down on March 2, 2025.
https://fireflyspace.com/news/blue-ghost-mission-1-live-updates/
This is part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative and Artemis campaign to establish a long-term lunar presence. Blue Ghost Mission 1 will perform science and technology demonstrations, including lunar subsurface drilling, sample collection, and X-ray imaging of Earth’s magnetic field to advance research for future human missions on the Moon and provide insights into how space weather impacts the planet. Mare Crisium is a lunar mare located in the Moon's Crisium basin, just northeast of Mare Tranquillitatis. It was formed by the flooding of basaltic lava that filled an ancient asteroid impact.
Learn more about NASA's CLPS Program:
https://www.nasa.gov/content/commercial-lunar-payload-services
Video Credit: Firefly Aerospace
Duration: 15 seconds
Release Date: March 7, 2025
No comments:
Post a Comment