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NASA’s robotic missions to the Moon

NASA now plans to spend $5 billion between 2005 and 2020 to launch a dozen robotic missions to the moon, or one per year, beginning in 2008.

The idea is to have robots map the moon, search for water ice, survey potential landing sites, and test prototypes for oxygen production and electrical power plants, among other things.The robotic craft also would help determine how to protect human explorers from deadly cosmic and solar radiation they would be exposed to outside Earth’s magnetic field.

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter would return a global topographical map of the moon, measure deep space radiation in lunar orbit and attempt to find water ice at the lunar poles.NASA’s Lunar Prospector and the Pentagon’s Clementine spacecraft yielded evidence in the 1990s of abundant stores of water ice trapped beneath the surface at the poles.Scientists think humans could convert water ice into oxygen and hydrogen for breathing air as well as rocket propellant for missions to Mars or elsewhere in the solar system.

NASA’s plans for a second robotic spacecraft, which would launch in 2009, are much less mature. Vondrak said the spacecraft likely would be a lander with instruments that would verify the existence of water ice and measure radiation.

The 10 missions that would follow have yet to be defined.

In a Gallup poll, 68% of those surveyed support the new plan to return to the moon, then travel to Mars and beyond.

Robotic missions to the Moon would begin no later than 2008, followed by an extended human expedition as early as 2015. Lunar exploration would lay the groundwork for future exploration of Mars and other destinations. A new spacecraft to support these journeys — the Crew Exploration Vehicle — would be tested before the end of this decade.

posted by: kyawoo at 10:41 | link | comments |
unmanned missions, moon

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