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Exploring the Moon’s south pole for water
The Moon always attracts people’s attention; it is fraught with many mysteries, which researchers try to reveal. There are craters in the south pole that have remained dark for billions of years; however, researchers claim that the region may include water. NASA encourages different research teams to create technologies to look for and extract water from these areas by using fiber laser technology.
Femtosats and laser technology
One group of researchers has proposed a technique based on the combination of laser beam power with femtosats (compact, disposable satellites) to look for water on Earth’s moon. “NASA selected eight university teams, including a joint team of researchers from the Colorado School of Mines and the University of Arizona, to develop fiber laser technology to support efforts to find and harvest water at the moon’s south pole.”
Laser-powered lunar exploration
Colorado School of Mines studies the concept of laser system application to power laser beam lights and machinery employed for lunar exploration. The researchers plan to apply femtosats, tiny satellites about the size of a stick of butter with laser systems, to verify the viability of using laser beam signals for power and communication in a lunar environment.
Advantages of compact satellites
The peculiarities of these compact satellites are that they are considered to have a low cost; therefore, it is possible to buy tens, hundreds, maybe even thousands for the price of one standard satellite. Insufficient research about the environment of the moon’s south pole led to the combination of the disposal spacecraft with a fiber laser is an ideal technique to examine these areas without risking hurt to a more expensive satellite.
Mission concept for lunar water search
The researchers proposed to conduct a mission in which is that a lander-mounted fiber laser system will land on the surface of the Moon and set the femtosats into action at various points on the lunar surface, applying a jack-in-the-box-like technique. The femtosatellites obtain the laser beam signal from the laser system and transmit it back to prove the validity of applying the fiber laser for communication.
Ultimately, the researchers are currently creating the complete fiber laser system, a task that is quite uncommon, especially in the aerospace sector. This mission is a step toward creating the required laser technologies to search for and extract water on the lunar surface.