Around and around: NASA’s veteran Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has been circling the moon since it first entered lunar orbit in June 2009.
In the 14 years since its launch, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft has produced images and data that have proven to change our understanding of Earth’s celestial neighbor.
While the old rover is still on a mission — now helping to determine where NASA’s Artemis astronauts will see their way through select regions of the moon’s south pole — how long will this venerable orbiter last?
Related: Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter: A Manual for the NASA Lunar Orbiter
Operational health
Mark Robinson is the principal investigator for the LRO Ultra Powerful Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC for short).
Robinson told Space.com that a big determinant of the operating health of the LRO, other than the catastrophic failure of one of its moving parts, is the life of the spacecraft’s batteries. “They don’t last forever,” he said, adding that these batteries are needed during solar eclipses to reduce the power of the solar panels while the LRO zips around the moon.
For onboard propellants, the orbiter does not fly on fumes. On the fuel side, LRO is expected to stay in good shape for several years, Robinson said. He said the rover launched its fifth expanded mission in October 2022 and the ground controllers have become very smart about managing the LRO’s fuel.
Moonscape Library
LRO’s long and continuous working tour around the Moon has produced a huge library of photography, revealing lunar scenery from various angles and lighting conditions.
“There has been an amazing and unexpected scientific comeback,” such as the discovery of new impact craters, Robinson added. In addition, along with the scientific spy equipment on board, one of the big surprises on LRO is the overturning of the upper lunar regolith, a process that happens much faster than previously thought.
Then there’s data collected from the LRO that may indicate more recent volcanic activity on the moon than conventional wisdom would suggest – and possibly future eruptions. “It’s controversial, but it’s fun,” said Robinson.
Recently, LRO images have been used to help pinpoint the best places to break robotic assets — even the discovery of the crash wreckage of the Japanese company’s Ispace moon lander, Hakuto-R, after it went down on April 25. Thanks to photographs taken years earlier by the LRO of the crash area, before/after discrimination made identification of the wreck possible.
Make a difference
On a more positive note, LRO’s analysis power can help plan future lunar rover expeditions and help identify promising sites that increase science return, Robinson said. Right now we are collecting notes for all potential Artemis [human] “The landing zones, 13 of them,” he said, “and NASA and the science community are calling for specific places that are more challenging and landing.”
Furthermore, LRO data is being used to build digital terrain models for several US companies that will deliver equipment to the lunar surface through the Commercial Lunar Surface Payload Services (CLPS) initiative.
“It’s gratifying to feel like you’re making a difference scientifically, and also from an exploration or engineering standpoint,” said Robinson. “I like to imagine an astronaut having a display unit on the arm of their spacesuit, looking at our LRO data so they can see over the next hill.”
On the other hand, at some point, LRO will not be.
Robinson said, “I’ll be sad at first, but maybe I’ll rest after that. It’s been a huge responsibility and a lot of work for the LRO team.” “There are lifespans for the data to analyze. I will have more time to work with all the information that the LRO has produced.”
What then?
said Noah Petro, deputy LRO project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and new project scientist on the Artemis 3 mission.
Petro said that all LRO systems show “graceful degradation,” but there is nothing expected that affects their ability to continue collecting data.
Meanwhile, NASA is funding a mission concept study to think about what a post-orbital mission might look like.
Named Lunar Exploration Science Orbiter (LExSO), Petro said it is one of the options being considered to fill the lagging void once the LRO mission is completed “and we anticipate any solution to address the agency’s priorities including science and exploration goals.”
Next Generation Notes
“I feel very strongly that it is imperative to plan and carry out the next generation of lunar orbital observations,” said Carl Peters, a lunar researcher at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.
LRO’s accumulated digital images document how the current lunar surface is changing, but slowly. “A suite of state-of-the-art sensors are now available to provide additional details about the physical and structural character of the materials across the surface and how the properties change with the time of day,” Peters told Space.com. in lunar water ice.
The data provided by these sensors will be difficult to replace once the LRO reaches the end of its life.
leadership role
“Because of its intimate relationship and proximity to Earth, the Moon has been a reliable witness to activities in this small part of the solar system in which we live. We will, and must, continue to document and observe the characteristics of the Moon and learn from them,” Peter said. “The remarkable reliability and throughput of the LRO, which continues to provide data more than a decade beyond its planned life, has left us overconfident and lazy.”
Peters co-chaired a recent report by the Lunar Exploration Analysis Group (LEAG) that emphasized the need for continued lunar orbital capabilities. And she considered it “essential” for the United States to maintain a leading role on the moon during the next decades of international science and exploration.
The report concluded that “plans must be put in place now to ensure continuity”.
