The US space agency NASA has taken a crucial step in preparing for humanity's return to the Moon, selecting three advanced scientific instruments that will play a critical role in exploring our natural satellite. Two of these instruments will be integrated onto a revolutionary Lunar Terrain Vehicle (LTV), while the third is planned for a future mission in lunar orbit. This selection forms the foundation for the scientific goals of the ambitious Artemis program, which aims to establish a long-term human presence on the Moon and prepare for future missions to Mars.

The Lunar Terrain Vehicle (LTV) is at the center of a new era of exploration. Unlike its predecessors from the Apollo program, this vehicle is designed for multiple and long-duration missions. It will be the first crewed vehicle on the lunar surface in over fifty years, capable of transporting two astronauts and a significant amount of scientific equipment. One of its key features is the ability to be remotely operated, which will allow scientists on Earth to continue research and data collection even when astronauts are not present. This dual functionality will drastically expand the reach and efficiency of exploration, enabling the coverage of a significantly larger area of the lunar surface than ever before.

Nicky Fox, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington, highlighted the importance of this project. "The Artemis Lunar Terrain Vehicle will take humanity further than ever before across the lunar frontier on an epic journey of scientific research and discovery," she stated. "By combining the best of human and robotic exploration, the scientific instruments selected for the LTV will deliver discoveries that will inform us about Earth's nearest neighbor, but also contribute to the health and safety of our astronauts and spacecraft on the Moon."

AIRES: Detailed mapping of lunar minerals and volatiles

The first of the two instruments intended for the LTV is the Artemis Infrared Reflectance and Emission Spectrometer (AIRES). Its primary task will be the identification, quantification, and mapping of lunar minerals and, more importantly, volatiles. Volatiles are materials that evaporate easily, such as water ice, ammonia, or carbon dioxide. Finding and understanding the distribution of these resources, especially water, is crucial for future long-term missions, as they could be used for drinking, producing oxygen for breathing, and as a raw material for rocket fuel.

AIRES will function by capturing high-resolution spectral data that will be overlaid on images taken in the visible spectrum. This will allow scientists to create detailed mineralogical and chemical maps of the lunar surface. The instrument will be able to analyze specific geological formations, such as craters or rocks, as well as capture wide panoramas to get a comprehensive picture of resource distribution across the Moon's south polar region. The south pole was strategically chosen as the primary area of exploration due to the so-called "permanently shadowed craters" where temperatures never rise above freezing, making them ideal candidates for preserving water ice for billions of years. The team behind the AIRES instrument is led by Phil Christensen of Arizona State University in Tempe.

L-MAPS: A look deep beneath the lunar surface

The second instrument that will be on the LTV is the Lunar Microwave Active-Passive Spectrometer (L-MAPS). While AIRES will analyze the surface, L-MAPS will peer beneath it, helping scientists define the structure of the lunar regolith (the layer of dust and rock on the surface) and search for possible locations of subsurface ice. This instrument is actually a package consisting of two parts: a spectrometer and a ground-penetrating radar (GPR).

The radar will send signals deep into the lunar soil and analyze their echoes, thereby creating a three-dimensional map of subsurface structures to a depth of an impressive 40 meters. Simultaneously, the spectrometer will measure the temperature and density of the material below the surface. The combination of this data will provide an unprecedented insight into the composition and stratigraphy of the lunar subsurface. This will not only allow for the location of potential ice deposits protected from the harsh conditions on the surface but also a better understanding of the Moon's geological history. The L-MAPS instrument team is led by Matthew Siegler of the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Synergy of instruments and orbital perspective

The data collected by AIRES and L-MAPS will be complementary. Together, they will create a comprehensive picture of the components of the lunar surface and subsurface, which is key to supporting human exploration and planning future operations. Furthermore, these discoveries will provide important clues about the history of rocky worlds in our solar system, including Earth. The characterization of lunar resources will reveal what the Moon is made of, where potential ice reserves are located, and how the Moon changes over time under the influence of the solar wind and micrometeorite impacts.

In addition to the instruments that will be integrated onto the LTV, NASA has also selected a third instrument for a future orbital mission. This is the Ultra-Compact Imaging Spectrometer for the Moon (UCIS-Moon). Its role will be to provide regional and global context for the detailed discoveries the LTV will make on the ground. From orbit, UCIS-Moon will map geology and volatiles over a wide area and, importantly, will measure how human activities affect these sensitive resources. This is a crucial element for ensuring the sustainability of future lunar bases.

The UCIS-Moon spectrometer will help identify the most scientifically valuable areas for future crewed missions, guiding astronauts to locations where they can collect the most representative samples. Its wide-view images will provide the overall context for these samples, allowing scientists to understand how an individual location fits into the broader geological picture. This instrument will provide the highest spatial resolution data to date on surface water on the Moon, mineral composition, and thermophysical properties. The UCIS-Moon instrument team is led by Abigail Fraeman of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California.

The path to new discoveries

Joel Kearns, deputy associate administrator for exploration in the Science Mission Directorate, emphasized the synergy of the selected instruments. "Together, these three scientific instruments will make significant progress in answering key questions about what minerals and volatiles are present on and below the surface of the Moon," he said. "With these instruments on the LTV and in orbit, we will be able to characterize the surface not only where astronauts explore, but across the entire south polar region of the Moon, offering exciting opportunities for scientific discovery and exploration in the years to come."

In parallel with the instrument selection, NASA has been working with three companies competing to build the lunar terrain vehicle: Intuitive Machines, Lunar Outpost, and Venturi Astrolab. All three companies have successfully completed preliminary design reviews. These reviews confirm that the initial design of each commercial lunar rover meets all of NASA's system requirements, that the correct design options have been selected, interfaces identified, and verification methods described. NASA will now evaluate the task order proposals it will receive from each LTV provider and make a selection decision for a demonstration mission by the end of 2025. Through the Artemis program, NASA will address high-priority science questions, focusing on those that can best be resolved by human explorers on-site, using advanced robotic systems on the surface and in orbit.

The original article was published on the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory portal. Source: NASA Selects Instruments for Artemis Lunar Terrain Vehicle