ROOM
21
Special Report
Exploring Mars
In the last couple of decades, through the
Mars rovers and other spacecraft, scientists
have learned a lot about Mars’ history, but
there is still plenty to discover. In 2018, NASA
plans to launch the InSight spacecraft, led by
Bruce Banerdt at JPL, to probe the interior
of Mars using a seismometer. In parallel, JPL
has developed the MarCO (Mars Cube One)
spacecraft as the first interplanetary cubesats,
intended as pathfinders for the space science
community. Two MarCO spacecraft are
scheduled to launch on the same rocket as
InSight in May 2018, but will make their own
way to Mars.
A small propulsion system has been designed
to adjust their flight path en route. The two
spacecraft will execute a close flyby of the red
planet and relay engineering telemetry from
InSight as it lands, when it will be out of direct
line of sight from Earth.
MarCO’s mission objective is not science – its
relay function serves an engineering purpose –
but it is easy to imagine how it could be turned
into a science orbiter. If we had added a bigger
propulsion system to provide that extra few
km/s of Delta-V, and a miniature spectrometer
to characterise the Martian atmosphere by
looking at the absorption of sunlight, just-like-
that we would have had a science mission in a
cubesat form factor.
Prof David Spencer of Purdue University
aims to go one better in formulating a mission
concept that uses a drag skirt to place a 12U
cubesat (a U is a measure of volume of about 1
litre) in an orbit at Mars that provides close-
up encounters of Phobos and Deimos. The
origin of the martian moons is unknown and
they are therefore ripe for scientific discovery.
Prof Spencer’s ‘Chariot’ mission was recently
awarded a NASA grant to mature his concept.
Exploring the Moon and asteroids
The Moon is so tantalisingly close that you
would think we’d understand all there is to
know about our celestial companion. You could
think that, but our lunar scientists would tell
you you’re wrong. A cubesat currently under
development to explore the Moon is Lunar
Flashlight, a mission that will use lasers to shed
light on the permanently darkened craters of
the Moon’s poles, to probe the composition of
the lunar surface within. Lunar Flashlight will
also be the first planetary cubesat mission to use
‘green’ propulsion.
Another project under development is the
Near-Earth Asteroid Scout, which will deploy
a solar sail that catches sunlight to steer a
flight path taking it from a lunar trajectory to
a rendezvous with a Near-Earth Asteroid. JPL
is working with NASA’s Marshall Space Flight
Center on both Lunar Flashlight and NEA Scout.
Lunar Flashlight, NEA Scout and a third
spacecraft, LunarIceCube, will all be dropped
off near the Moon as part of a ‘swarm’ of up to
13 cubesats, hitching a ride on the first flight of
NASA’s new heavy lift rocket, the Space Launch
System (SLS), planned for 2018.
LunarIceCube will use a compact broadband
infrared (IR) instrument (BIRCHES) to investigate
the origin of volatile gases on the Moon, their
distribution, and ongoing processes at the lunar
surface. To operate the infrared spectrometer
The Lunar Flashlight
(top) and NEA Scout
(bottom) cubesat
missions.
