TsNIIMash Developed Experiment to Search for Resources on the Moon

MOSCOW (Roscosmos PR) — The Federal Space Program of Russia for 2016–2025 provides for the launch in 2024 of the automatic interplanetary station Luna-26, designed for remote studies of the surface of the Earth’s natural satellite from a circumlunar polar orbit. Among the tasks of the station are mapping the mineralogical composition and mapping the distribution of water ice on the Moon.

The exploration and determination of the properties of lunar resources, as well as the evaluation and control of the activities on the Moon of foreign public and private spacecraft will become important tasks for the long-term Russian program for the exploration and development of the “neighbor” of the Earth. One of the methods for their implementation is the monitoring of the lunar surface in the infrared range.

The Central Research Institute of Mechanical Engineering (TsNIIMash, part of the Roscosmos State Corporation) has developed proposals for conducting an experiment to determine the properties of objects on the lunar surface with low reflectivity and dimensions of the order of several centimeters using infrared optoelectronic equipment on a spacecraft with a circumlunar orbits with a height of 50–100 km. Remote determination of temperature, emissivity, and size of objects will make it possible to draw preliminary conclusions about their mineralogical composition, density, and mass.

Such equipment can be installed on the lunar orbiter following Luna-26.

According to Russian scientists, lunar craters (for example, Shackleton and De Gerlach), which have a strong elevation difference and a favorable temperature range of the Moon’s surface, are promising areas for infrared observations.