Stowaways on NASA’s massive Moon rocket promise big science in small packages

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https://www.science.org/content/article/stowaways-nasa-s-massive-moon-rocket-promise-big-science-small-packages

By Erik Hand, Science Magazine. 

Excerpt: CubeSats packed on Artemis 1 will target lunar ice—if their batteries don’t fail them. When NASA’s most powerful rocket ever attempts its first flight this month, its highest profile payload will be three instrumented mannequins, setting off on a 42-day journey beyond the Moon and back. They are stand-ins for the astronauts that the 98-meter-tall rocket, known as the Space Launch System (SLS), is supposed to carry to the Moon as soon as 2025, as part of NASA’s Artemis program. But there will be other voyagers along for the ride when the SLS lifts off on 29 August: 10 CubeSats, satellites no bigger than a small briefcase, to probe the Moon, asteroids, and the radiation environment of deep space. ...Several SLS CubeSats will focus on lunar ice, which has intrigued researchers ever since NASA’s Lunar Prospector discovered a signal suggestive of water in the late 1990s. ...Researchers assume much of the hydrogen represents water ice delivered by ancient impacts of comets or asteroids and trapped in the coldest, darkest lunar recesses. But the hydrogen could also be implanted by the solar wind. When hydrogen ions in the wind strike oxygen-bearing minerals in lunar soil, it creates hydroxyl, which can be transformed into water through subsequent reactions.… 

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