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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1980

Research on lunar Mare emplacement and impact cratering experiments

A model was derived enabling the interpretation of lunar styles of volcanism through the analysis of various surface features. The model was applied to several areas on the Moon, including the Orientale Basin, the Smythii Basin, the Herigonious region, and several highland areas. Concurrent with the application of the model, several topical studies of various aspects of lunar volcanism were completed. A series of impact crater experiments was conducted at NASA Ames in order to determine the effect that viscous targets would have on cratering mechanics and morphology for application in studies of Martian ejecta flow craters. The results of the experiments led to a model that can account for the formation of multiple flow lobes and the general morphology of some aspects of Martian craters.

Greeley, R.↗
NASA NTRS2012

Antenna Deployment for a Pathfinder Lunar Radio Observatory

A first step in the development of a large radio observatory on the moon for cosmological or other astrophysical and planetary goals is to deploy a few antennas as a pathfinder mission. In this presentation, we describe a mechanism being developed to deploy such antennas from a small craft, such as a Google Lunar X-prize lander. The antenna concept is to deposit antennas and leads on a polyimide film, such as Kapton, and to unroll the film on the lunar surface. The deployment technique utilized is to launch an anchor which pulls a double line from a reel at the spacecraft. Subsequently, the anchor is set by catching on the surface or collecting sufficient regolith. A motor then pulls in one end of the line, pulling the film off of its roller onto the lunar surface. Detection of a low frequency cutoff of the galactic radio background or of solar radio bursts by such a system would determine the maximum lunar ionospheric density at the time of measurement. The current design and testing, including videos of the deployment, will be presented. These activities are funded in part by the NASA Lunar Science Institute as an activity of the Lunar University Network for Astrophysical Research (LUNAR) consortium. Part of this research was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

MacDowall, Robert J.↗
NASA NTRS2022

Research Campaign: Lunar Gravitational-wave Antenna

The Lunar Gravitational-wave Antenna (LGWA) is a mission conceived as a network of stations to measure the vibrations of the Moon caused by gravitational waves (GWs). The long-term vision is to accomplish ground-breaking, paradigm shifting science in the coming decades on the Moon. LGWA will lead to the first observation of GW signals in the decihertz band greatly expanding our understanding of the universe and laying out a path to eventually probe the moment of its creation. LGWA stations will also be unique contributions to a lunar geophysical network shedding light on the Moon’s formation history. LGWA is a project of inclusion and international collaboration, where space-faring and space-aspiring nations can contribute to the LGWA network with their own stations whose cost depends on the targeted station lifetime and deployment location. With respect to the baseline concept proposed here, different sensor technologies can be implemented over time with the goal to continually increase the performance of the LGWA network. The broader context of lunar GW detection and its long-term vision are outlined in an accompanying topical white paper.

Lorella Angelini↗
NASA NTRS2012

Topographically Induced Thermal Effects on Lunar Hydrogen Distributions: Correlated Observations from the LRO LEND and LOLA Instruments

The question of whether water exists on the Moon's surface has long been an enigma to Lunar researchers. Largely, this was due to the thermally extreme lunar surface environment that would seem to preclude any long term maintenance, manufacture, transport or accumulation of hydrogen (H) volatiles over most of the lunar surface. As a result, for many years the cold permanent shadow regions (PSR) in the bottoms of craters near the lunar poles appeared to provide the basic conditions at least for maintenance of lunar hydrogen. Importantly, recent discoveries indicate that there is some hydrogen at the poles. However, the picture of the lunar hydrogen budget may be more complex than the PSR hypothesis has suggested. This evidence comes from observations by the Lunar Exploration Neutron Detector (LEND) onboard the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) that inclici1te 1) some H concentrations lie outside PSR and 2) though a few of the larger PSR's have high hydrogen, PSR does not appear to be an independent factor influencing the large-scale suppression of polar epithermals observed by LEND and the Lunar Prospector Neutron Spectrometer. In this research we investigate the possibility that the thermal contrast between pole-facing and equator facing-slopes is a factor influencing the surface distributions of lunar H. We perform this bulk correlated observation and study by developing a thermal proxy from slope data of the Lunar Orbiting Laser Altimeter (LOLA) digital elevation model (DEM) which is registered with the collimated LEND epithermal map. From the LOLA transforms we impose a thermal functional decomposition and systematic statistical analysis of the LEND epithermal map. Our hypothesis testing suggests in most high latitude bands studied> +/- 45 deg: Epithermal rates in pole-facing slopes are significantly lower than epithermal rates in equivalent equator-facing slopes. As a control study, we find that there is no statistically significant difference between equivalent east and west facing slopes. This finding suggests topographic modulation of insolation is a factor influencing the lunar H budget. Importantly, this result is consistent with observations in terrestrial, Martian research.

McClanahan, T. P.↗
NASA NTRS1990

Life sciences research using a lunar laboratory

The necessity for life sciences research on the lunar surface in order to determine the consequences of returning from extended missions in various low gravity environments and of transiting through high multiple gravity forces during decelerations is discussed. The functions of a lunar gravitational biology laboratory are outlined. Lunar science objectives include investigations in developmental biology including the evaluation of the capacity of diverse organisms to undergo normal development and the evaluation of the use of the lunar environment to study specific developmental phenomena in ways that cannot be accomplished by earth-based research. The need for musculoskeletal studies to examine the dynamics of osteoclast and osteoblast formation and breakdown and to address bone and demineralization problems is discussed. Biological adaptation to hypogravic environments and the effects of radiation and electromagnetic environmental factors are also considered.

Cipriano, Leonard F.↗
NASA NTRS1985

Strategies for a permanent lunar base

One or more of three possible objectives, encompassing scientific research, lunar resource exploitation for space infrastructure construction, and lunar environment self-sufficiency refinement with a view to future planetary habitation, may be the purpose of manned lunar base activities. Attention is presently given to the possibility that the early phases of all three lunar base orientations may be developed in such a way as to share the greatest number of common elements. An evaluation is made of the cost and complexity of the lunar base, and the Space Transportation System used in conjunction with it, as functions of long term base use strategy.

Duke, M. B.↗
NASA NTRS2010

The Smallest Lunar Grains: Analytical TEM Characterization of the Sub-micron Size Fraction of a Mare Soil

The chemical composition, mineralogical type, and morphology of lunar regolith grains changes considerably with decreasing size, and below the approx.25 m size range the correlation between these parameters and remotely-sensed lunar surface properties connected to space weathering increases significantly. Although trends for these parameters across grain size intervals greater than 20 m are now well established, the 0 to 20 m size interval remains relatively un-subdivided with respect to variations in grain modal composition, chemistry and microstructure. Of particular interest in this size range are grains in the approximate < 1 m diameter class, whose fundamental properties are now the focus of lunar research pertaining to electrostatic grain transport, dusty plasmas, and lunar dust effects on crew health and exploration systems. In this study we have used analytical transmission electron microscopy (TEM) to characterize the mineralogy, microstructure and major element composition of grains below the 1 m size threshold in lunar soil 10084.

Thompson, M.↗
NASA NTRS2007

Lunar e-Library: A Research Tool Focused on the Lunar Environment

As NASA plans and implements the Vision for Space Exploration, managers, engineers, and scientists need lunar environment information that is readily available and easily accessed. For this effort, lunar environment data was compiled from a variety of missions from Apollo to more recent remote sensing missions, such as Clementine. This valuable information comes not only in the form of measurements and images but also from the observations of astronauts who have visited the Moon and people who have designed spacecraft for lunar missions. To provide a research tool that makes the voluminous lunar data more accessible, the Space Environments and Effects (SEE) Program, managed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) in Huntsville, AL, organized the data into a DVD knowledgebase: the Lunar e-Library. This searchable collection of 1100 electronic (.PDF) documents and abstracts makes it easy to find critical technical data and lessons learned from past lunar missions and exploration studies. The SEE Program began distributing the Lunar e-Library DVD in 2006. This paper describes the Lunar e-Library development process (including a description of the databases and resources used to acquire the documents) and the contents of the DVD product, demonstrates its usefulness with focused searches, and provides information on how to obtain this free resource.

McMahan, Tracy A.↗
NASA NTRS2009

High-Grading Lunar Samples

Astronauts on long-duration lunar missions will need the capability to high-grade their samples to select the highest value samples for transport to Earth and to leave others on the Moon. We are supporting studies to define the necessary and sufficient measurements and techniques for high-grading samples at a lunar outpost. A glovebox, dedicated to testing instruments and techniques for high-grading samples, is in operation at the JSC Lunar Experiment Laboratory. A reference suite of lunar rocks and soils, spanning the full compositional range found in the Apollo collection, is available for testing in this laboratory. Thin sections of these samples are available for direct comparison. The Lunar Sample Compendium, on-line at http://www-curator.jsc.nasa.gov/lunar/compendium.cfm, summarizes previous analyses of these samples. The laboratory, sample suite, and Compendium are available to the lunar research and exploration community. In the first test of possible instruments for lunar sample high-grading, we imaged 18 lunar rocks and four soils from the reference suite using the Multispectral Microscopic Imager (MMI) developed by Arizona State University and JPL (see Farmer et. al. abstract). The MMI is a fixed-focus digital imaging system with a resolution of 62.5 microns/pixel, a field size of 40 x 32 mm, and a depth-of-field of approximately 5 mm. Samples are illuminated sequentially by 21 light emitting diodes in discrete wavelengths spanning the visible to shortwave infrared. Measurements of reflectance standards and background allow calibration to absolute reflectance. ENVI-based software is used to produce spectra for specific minerals as well as multi-spectral images of rock textures.

Allen, Carlton↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Unbounded Learning Environments as an Approach to Preserving Design Flexibility Demonstrated With Nasa Stem Enhancement in Earth Science (SEES) Students

The Artemis Lunar program is providing opportunity for young scientists and engineers to contribute towards leading edge design concepts regarding early on-surface work areas that are aligned with major national initiatives. Therefore, it is imperative in any discovery process that those young scientists and engineers be provided the bandwidth or operating in a ‘greenfield’ technology environment that encourages new ideas, and perhaps the discovery of ideas that would not be realized within typical structured engineering constraints. To facilitate this concept, the use of unbounded teaching methods was utilized to provide a low-constraint environment from which students can design and discover the requirements that are bounded by the natural environment of the lunar surface, and then build up design requirements un-hindered by budgetary and/or logistics realizations of the moment funding capabilities. Specifically, this design exercise provided the students to operate with unlimited budgets, and unlimited up-mass lifts to the lunar surface to develop a preliminary feasible process for establishing a working lunar research based upon the near-area permanently shadowed regions within the lunar surface. In concept, working near PSRs will be advantageous as they receive near eternal shielding from solar radiation and may potentially host numerous volatile substances such as water ice, methane, hydrogen sulfide and helium-3 that will be the target of scientific investigation and in-situ resource utilization ISRU. The advantage of an upstream working area is that the quality of return materials could potentially be exponential when including an upstream analysis prior to earth-return missions. Furthermore, it’s well known within the scientific and engineering community that working with the base materials in front of human eyes elucidates new features and observations that may not survive when stored and shipped to Earth. Finally, it is theorized that these methods and techniques developing on the lunar surface would be applicable to other planets or cometary surfaces.

Education↗
NASA NTRS1974

Bibliography

Bibliographical listing of recently published work pertaining to 15 subject areas of lunar research, with brief abstracts for each item listed. Subject areas covered include: motion of the moon in space, dynamics of the earth-moon system, and lunar astronautics; librations; shape and gravitational field; internal structure, thermal and stress history; chemical composition; lunar exosphere; lunar coordinates and mapping of the moon; physical structure of the lunar surface; photometry of the moon; thermal emission of the lunar surface; electromagnetic properties; exploration of the moon by spacecraft.

Kopal, Z.↗
NASA NTRS1991

GENESIS 2: Advanced lunar outpost

Advanced, second-generation lunar habitats for astronauts and mission specialists working on the Moon are investigated. The work was based on design constraints set forth in previous publications. Design recommendations are based on environmental response to the lunar environment, habitability, safety, near-term technology, replaceability and modularity, and suitability for NASA lunar research missions in the early 21st century. Scientists, engineers, and architects from NASA/JSC, Wisconsin aeronautical industry, and area universities gave technical input and offered critiques at design reviews throughout the process. The recommended design uses a lunar lava tube, with construction using a combination of Space Station Freedom-derived modules and lightweight Kevlar-laminate inflatables. The outpost includes research laboratories and biotron, crew quarters and support facility, mission control, health maintenance facility, and related areas for functional and psychological requirements. Furniture, specialized equipment, and lighting are included in the design analysis.

Moore, Gary T.↗
NASA NTRS2004

Remote Sensing Information Applied to Geological Study of Planets

The Planetary Geology and Geophysics tasks under this grant have concentrated on the development and testing of tools for remote compositional analyses for the Moon and other airless bodies (especially asteroids). The grant has supported the PI and her students. Detailed analyses of space-weathering analogs were undertaken. Lunar research included development of models for regolith evolution and redistribution of materials across the Moon, with particular emphasis on the interior of South Pole-Aitken Basin. Lunar compositional analyses identified general rock types using Clementine data and mapped their distribution globally and locally based on the type of mafic mineralogy present (or lack thereof). Progress in these areas has been extensively discussed in the literature and in proposals submitted to the PGG program in 2003 and 2004.

Pieters, Carle M.↗
NASA NTRS2010

The Pilot Lunar Geologic Mapping Project: Summary Results and Recommendations from the Copernicus Quadrangle

The first systematic lunar geologic maps were completed at 1:1M scale for the lunar near side during the 1960s using telescopic and Lunar Orbiter (LO) photographs [1-3]. The program under which these maps were completed established precedents for map base, scale, projection, and boundaries in order to avoid widely discrepant products. A variety of geologic maps were subsequently produced for various purposes, including 1:5M scale global maps [4-9] and large scale maps of high scientific interest (including the Apollo landing sites) [10]. Since that time, lunar science has benefitted from an abundance of surface information, including high resolution images and diverse compositional data sets, which have yielded a host of topical planetary investigations. The existing suite of lunar geologic maps and topical studies provide exceptional context in which to unravel the geologic history of the Moon. However, there has been no systematic approach to lunar geologic mapping since the flight of post-Apollo scientific orbiters. Geologic maps provide a spatial and temporal framework wherein observations can be reliably benchmarked and compared. As such, a lack of a systematic mapping program means that modern (post- Apollo) data sets, their scientific ramifications, and the lunar scientists who investigate these data, are all marginalized in regard to geologic mapping. Marginalization weakens the overall understanding of the geologic evolution of the Moon and unnecessarily partitions lunar research. To bridge these deficiencies, we began a pilot geologic mapping project in 2005 as a means to assess the interest, relevance, and technical methods required for a renewed lunar geologic mapping program [11]. Herein, we provide a summary of the pilot geologic mapping project, which focused on the geologic materials and stratigraphic relationships within the Copernicus quadrangle (0-30degN, 0-45degW).

Skinner, J. A., Jr.↗
NASA NTRS1972

Engineering potential for lunar missions after Apollo.

The need for continuing post-Apollo lunar research is defined by outlining problems in stellar, planetary, biological, and social evolution which require specific studies of the moon. Engineering capabilities existing immediately after the Apollo program are described in the areas of launch vehicles and spacecraft, lunar surface mobility, instrumentation, and communications.

Burke, J. D.↗
NASA NTRS2012

Comparative Mineralogy, Microstructure and Compositional Trends in the Sub-Micron Size Fractions of Mare and Highland Lunar Soils

The morphology, mineralogy, chemical composition and optical properties of lunar soils show distinct correlations as a function of grain size and origin [1,2,3]. In the <20 m size fraction, there is an increased correlation between lunar surface properties observed through remote sensing techniques and those attributed to space weathering phenomenae [1,2]. Despite the establishment of recognizable trends in lunar grains <20 in size [1,2,3], the size fraction < 10 m is characterized as a collective population of grains without subdivision. This investigation focuses specifically on grains in the <1 m diameter size fraction for both highland and mare derived soils. The properties of these materials provide the focus for many aspects of lunar research including the nature of space weathering on surface properties, electrostatic grain transport [4,5] and dusty plasmas [5]. In this study, we have used analytical transmission and scanning transmission electron microscopy (S/TEM) to characterize the mineralogy type, microstructure and major element compositions of grains in this important size range in lunar soils.

Thompson, M. S.↗
NASA NTRS1982

Planetary science: A lunar perspective

An interpretative synthesis of current knowledge on the moon and the terrestrial planets is presented, emphasizing the impact of recent lunar research (using Apollo data and samples) on theories of planetary morphology and evolution. Chapters are included on the exploration of the solar system; geology and stratigraphy; meteorite impacts, craters, and multiring basins; planetary surfaces; planetary crusts; basaltic volcanism; planetary interiors; the chemical composition of the planets; the origin and evolution of the moon and planets; and the significance of lunar and planetary exploration. Photographs, drawings, graphs, tables of quantitative data, and a glossary are provided.

Taylor, S. R.↗