Difference between revisions of "OpenLuna Science"

Revision as of 13:41, 23 March 2009

**OL Science Team meetings will commence in Feb 2009. Please contact Melissa (contact info at [1]) if you have relevant expertise & would like to participate in future meetings. Meeting notes will be posted here: OpenLuna Science.**

OpenLuna Science Team Meeting #2, Notes

Thursday March 19, 2009, 1:30 pm

In attendance: Dom, Simon, Ed, Bhairavi, Rhi, Mel, Rod

Future Meetings will start at 2:30 on thursdays.

Goals for today:

   Have an idea of what instruments we want on the rovers in order to come up with mass and power requirements for rover.

OpenLuna is happening in three stages:

   1)Scouting Missions
       Landers carry approx 5 rovers (200-300 kg depending on instruments (or is it 200-300 lbs?))
   2)Sample Return
       Returned mass should be comparable to a human.
   3)Manned Mission

In going through the list of the ideas thrown out last meeting, we kept/threw out ideas based on how much information the instruments gave about the lunar environment. So essentially 'learning about lunar environment' became aim.

Recap of 1st meeting from wiki:

   Review of instruments discussed at last meeting; revised list as follows: 
   SCOUTING CLASS MISSION SCIENCE/INSTRUMENTATION: (overarching goals = lunar environment characterization for human health & safety + identify candidate sites for human outpost)
•	Camera on each rover
•	Reflector on top of each rover for lazer ranging (why? -- talk to Matt)
•	Petri dish “mini-dome” or spores (seed a panel of the lander?)
•	Micrometeorite flux measurement: aerogel on each rover
•	Dosimeter: flux of one or more types of radiation
•	Save one rover for PR: just a camera & arm
•	LIDAR for dust settling (but ~100 lbs)
•	Mini-mass spectrometer (Carleton engineering, working with CSA – toaster sized)
•	Dost lofting at the terminator
•	Reactivity of lunar dust: measuring oxidation state
•	GPR, stratigraphy, look for permafrost (will help to identify candidate locations for base)
•	Lunar volatiles (He3?? -- probably lower priority for now)
   SCIENCE FOR LATER (once base has been established)
•	Test life detection tools on “planted” organic matter 
•	Plant growth experiments with regolith
•	Microwave sintering experiment; before & after shots, “lunar fire pit”
•	ChemMin – XRD, XRF
•	APXS ???
•	Trenches, stratigraphy, look for permafrost
•	Study carbon (meteorite implanted) in regolith
•	Geophysics (seismics, part of International lunar network) 
•      Also, once base has been established, study the Earth (CO2, etc...)

Aerogel/other instruments to detect micrometer meteor population:

   Instead of aerogel (which we would need to return on a later mission and
   would not give us actual rates of meteor) possibly a dish or blanket that measures
   the force of small particles.
   This would have to have communication back to earth.
   Rhiannon to look into more info about this.
   What is the lower limit detection on earth? What size would we want to see on the Moon?
   How sensitive of equipment would we need?

Blanket

   Is there a blanket out there (or that we could develop) that could be used
   as solar panals and could essentially be a 'recharging' station for the rovers?

Mineral identification (urgent now, or wait until base is established?)

   Possibly a spectrometer? Lidar?
   Bhairavi going to research this area.
       Whether we just need to shoot a signal or actually grab samples to analyze
   Electron Microprobe.
  

Communication:

   Needed for micrometerite population reporting ("blankets").
   Satellite launched before first Scouting Mission?
   If the lander was on the near-earth side, the rovers could communicate with
   the lander, and the lander with earth.

Questions:

   How much would a Lidar weigh?
   Communication methods?

Ideas:

   In the future could CPSX fund masters students to do work on this?
   Dosimeter?

People to be in contact with:

   Bill Cooke -> Micrometeor/meteor population
   Emily -> more info on LIDAR (+ talk to Phoenix team)
   U of Guelph -> plant growth/petri dish
   Bjarni -> simulant for testing lunar robotics, plus partner for science instruments?
   Paul -> verify maximum mass for payload on each lander (ie. rovers + science instruments + power source + communication antennae, etc...)    
   Phil -> invite him to future meeting to answer some questions for us
   Talmon -> He3

Next Meeting: April 2/09 2:30

   Diccuss landing site.
   So that we don't re-invent the wheel, it was suggested to investigate what instruments have already
   gone up to the moon.
       NASA has a list of future goals we could look at for more ideas.
       Rod has copy of list -> will e-mail it out to us
   Each OpenLuna UWO member study an Apollo mission to see what went well/what failed.
       **Lunar Source Book
   Come up with #'s about how much $$ goes into space exploration vs. war (or feeding the hungry, etc)

OpenLuna Science Team Meeting #1, Notes

February 4, 2009

In attendance: Dom, Simon, Matt, Haley, Ed, Mel

Absent: Rhi, Em, Rod, Laura, Annie

Location: University of Western Ontario, Centre for Planetary Science & Exploration, http://planetsci.uwo.ca/

Meeting Agenda:

1. Overview of the tasks at hand (scouting class & sample return class missions, for now);

2. Top-level brainstorming of major science goals & requirements on the planned near-term lunar robotic missions;

3. Discuss specific points:

•	Possible landing locations (regions, not specific sites) + rationale?
•	What instrumentation do we need on each of the rovers?
•	Science payload requirements for each of the landers?
•	What sort of payload space/mass do we need to plan for on the landers & satellite?
•	How small of a payload could be useful? Note that Science Payload = roughly 20 lbs per rover,
for ~10 rovers (exact mass of payload will determine the number of rovers, therefore limiting or increasing # of potential landing sites)

Results of brainstorming:

•	Camera on each rover (TBD)
•	Reflector on top of each rover for lazer ranging
•	Test life detection tools on “planted” organic matter
•	Petri dish “mini-dome” or spores (seed a panel of the lander?)
•	Plant growth experiments with regolith
•	Micrometeorite flux measurement: aerogel on each rover
•	Dosimeter: flux of one or more types of radiation
•	Save one rover for PR: just a camera & arm
•	LIDAR for dust settling (but ~100 lbs)
•	Mini-mass spectrometer (Carleton engineering, working with CSA – toaster sized)
•	Dost lofting at the terminator
•	Microwave sintering experiment; before & after shots, “lunar fire pit”
•	Reactivity of lunar dust: measuring oxidation state
•	ChemMin – XRD, XRF
•	APXS
•	Trenches, stratigraphy, look for permafrost
•	GPR, stratigraphy, look for permafrost
•	Study carbon (meteorite implanted) in regolith
•	Lunar volatiles
•	Geophysics (seismics, part of International lunar network) 

Landing sites: near south pole, permanently shadowed + sunlit areas, spanning to terminator “The D” – recently outgassing volcano