NASA chooses ASU ShadowCam to map moon's shadowed regions
NewsMay 10, 2017
TEMPE, Ariz. NASA has selected an instrument developed by a faculty member at Arizona State University's School of Earth and Space Exploration and Malin Space Science Systems (MSSS) to map the terrain and search for ice deposits in the moon's permanantly shadowed regions (PSRs).
The ShadowCam instrument -- the brainchild of ASU's Mark Robinson and engineers at San Diego-based MSSS -- will fly on the Korea Aerospace Research Institute’s (KARI) first lunar exploration mission, Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO). KARI is providing NASA with about 33 pounds of payload mass aboard the KPLO, which is scheduled to launch into lunar orbit in December 2018; ShadowCam will join four KARI-developed instruments on KPLO.
ShadowCam's mission will be to map the reflectance within the moon's PSRs to search for evidence of frost or ice deposits. The instrument’s optical camera is based on the narrow angle camera used on the 2009-launched Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, but NASA says that the ShadowCam is 800 times more sensitive, which will enable it to obtain high-resolution, high signal-to-noise imaging of the moon’s dark side. ShadowCam will observe the PSRs monthly to detect seasonal changes and will measure the terrain inside the craters, including boulder distribution.
"The telescope and much of the electronics will be identical," says Robinson, who is ShadowCam's principal investigator. "The big difference is swapping out the current image sensor for one that is 800 times more sensitive, allowing high-resolution imaging within permanently shadowed regions, something the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera cannot accomplish."
Jason Crusan, director of NASA’s Advanced Exploration Systems Division in Washington, says of the ShadowCam mission: "Permanently shadowed regions have been a mystery because the perpetually dark interiors are difficult to image and existing research offers varying interpretations regarding the distribution of volatiles within these cold regions. Future missions in deep space will be safer and more affordable if we have the capability to harvest lunar resources, and ShadowCam has the potential to greatly increase our understanding of the quality and abundance of those resources in these regions.”
