Nine American scientists join South Korea’s first mission around the lunar orbit that begins next year.
The Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO) is expected to launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in August 2022 from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The spacecraft will orbit the orbit moon for about a year, which according to South Korea’s first space exploration mission traveled beyond Earth’s orbit a statement from NASA.
NASA announced on Tuesday (March 30) that it has selected nine U.S. scientists to participate in the mission as part of the agency’s KPLO participating scientific program. The new members will work with the five scientific instruments of the spacecraft, which measure the lunar surface from an orbit to learn more about the moon’s environment and resources and to identify potential landing sites for future missions.
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“The KPLO participating scientific program is an example of how international collaboration can leverage the talents of two space agencies to achieve greater scientific and exploratory success than individual missions,” KPLO project manager Sang-Ryool Lee said in the statement. . ‘It’s fantastic that the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI)’s lunar mission has NASA as a partner in space exploration. We are excited to see the new knowledge and opportunities that will emerge from the KPLO mission as well as future joint KARI-NASA activities. ‘
The nine scientists selected by NASA include William Farrand, Caleb Fassett, Ian Garrick-Bethell, Rachel Klima, Mikhail Kreslavsky, Shuai Li, Gorden Videen, Jean-Pierre Williams and Naoyuki Yamashita, who are linked to a series of academic and research institutions. The new members will join the KPLO science team later this year and be funded for three years, according to the NASA statement.
“It is important that the participating scientists are well embedded in the existing KARI and NASA teams long before the mission is launched,” said Shoshana Weider, leader of the KPLO participating scientific program of NASA’s Planetary Science Division. , said in the statement. “This means that they will have enough time to work with their KARI colleagues during the pre-launch mission planning phase, which will help maximize the scientific return of their projects and the mission as a whole.”
KPLO is a joint mission between KARI and NASA. Korea will manage the production and operation of the orbit, while NASA will support the mission with the development of one of the scientific payloads, as well as assistance with communications and navigation for the spacecraft, according to a agreement signed in 2016.
The orbit’s scientific instruments contain three cameras, a magnetometer and a gamma-ray spectrometer. NASA will provide one of the cameras, called ShadowCam, which will be used to map the reflection in permanent shadow regions at the lunar poles to look for evidence of frost or ice deposits on the lunar surface. ShadowCam, based on NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter’s Narrow Angle Camera, will record high resolution optical images.
In addition to investigating the physical properties of the lunar surface, the KPLO mission aims to expand South Korea’s technological capabilities in space exploration and to develop tools for space exploration in future missions. Data collected from this mission will also help in the planning of NASA’s Artemis program, according to the statement.
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