Spacecraft set to map water on the Moon

The Lunar Trailblazer spacecraft carries a state-of-the-art camera to measure lunar surface temperature and confirm locations where water supplies may be found for future extraction

Dr Rory Evans performing optical assembly and alignment on a component of the Lunar Trailblazer spacecraft. Picture: Department of Physics/University of Oxford/PA

Scientists are set to launch a spacecraft this week to map water on the Moon, which could help future efforts to colonise its surface.

The Lunar Trailblazer spacecraft, which will launch from Nasa’s Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, carries a state-of-the-art camera designed by a team of University of Oxford scientists to measure lunar surface temperature and confirm locations where water supplies may be found for future extraction.

(PA Graphics)

Professor Neil Bowles, instrument scientist at the University of Oxford’s physics department, said the mission will be “useful scientifically to understand the lunar water cycle and it is also important as a potential for future human exploration”.

Scientists have suspected that there is water on the Moon since Indian and American spacecraft detected signs of hydrated minerals in 2009.

Professor Neil Bowles is an instrument scientist at the University of Oxford’s physics department (Jon Temple/University of Oxford/PA)

“Although it is a relatively small spacecraft, around 200 kilogrammes, it has a very important science goal,” Prof Bowles said.

“We think there is water at the Moon’s poles as ice and that there may be very thin layers of water on the surface,” Prof Bowles continued, adding “the Lunar Trailblazer spacecraft’s mission is to try to map and understand this”.

(PA Graphics)

The Trailblazer craft is scheduled to be launched onboard SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket at 7.17pm Eastern Standard Time on Wednesday, which is 17 minutes past midnight in the UK on Thursday, at the earliest and has a four-day launch window.

It will share the journey with Intuitive Machine’s privately owned Athena lunar lander and a probe ship made by an asteroid mining company.

With the Trailblazer’s relatively small engines, the satellite will use the gravity of the Sun, Moon and Earth once it leaves the Falcon 9 rocket to guide it to the Moon’s surface.

(PA Graphics)

The Lunar Thermal Mapper (LTM) camera, which was designed by Oxford scientists, is one of two instruments on the spacecraft.

The LTM camera will measure the surface temperature on the Moon, while an instrument known as the HVM3 made by scientists at Nasa’s jet propulsion laboratory will measure how sunlight is absorbed and reflected by water layers.

Dr Katherine Shirley and Dr Bea Chikani have been working on the project (Department of Physics/University of Oxford/PA)

Prof Bowles said he hopes the mission will provide information on soil chemistry, whether the amount of water is usable, and whether “chemical processes are there so that we could make more water if we needed to”.

“The team worked extremely hard to get the instrument built, doing a lot of the work during the pandemic in a really challenging environment,” Prof Bowles said, “but we got there in the end, which is the most important thing, and now we are ready to go to the Moon.”