Around and around it goes: NASA’s veteran Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter continues to circle the moon because it first entered lunar orbit in June 2009.
Over the 14 years since its launch, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft has produced images and data proven which have transformed our understanding of Earth’s celestial neighbor.
While the aging craft stays on task — now helping plot out where NASA’s Artemis astronauts will boot their way across select lunar south pole regions — how long will this venerable orbiter last?
Related: Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter: A guide to NASA’s venerable lunar orbiter
Operational health
Mark Robinson is the principal investigator for LRO’s super-powerful Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC for brief).
Robinson told Space.com that the massive limiting factor for LRO’s operational health, aside from a catastrophic failure of considered one of its moving parts, is the lifetime of the spacecraft’s batteries. “They do not last ceaselessly,” he said, adding that these batteries are must-haves during solar panel power-reducing eclipses as LRO zips across the moon.
As for onboard propellant, the orbiter just isn’t flying on fumes. Fuel-wise, LRO is forecasted to stay in fine condition for several years, Robinson said. The craft began its fifth prolonged mission in October 2022 and ground controllers have gotten very clever in LRO fuel management, he said.
Library of lunar scenery
LRO’s lengthy and ongoing tour of duty across the moon has produced an enormous library of photography, revealing the lunar scenery from different angles and lighting conditions.
“There’s been a tremendous, unexpected science return,” Robinson added, similar to discovering recent impact craters. As well as, coupled with onboard science-sleuthing gear, one LRO big surprise is the overturn of topside lunar regolith, a process that is occurring far faster than previously thought.
Then there’s LRO-gleaned data which will indicate more moderen volcanic activity on the moon than conventional wisdom suggests — and perhaps outbursts in the long run. “It’s controversial, but that is fun,” said Robinson.
Recently, LRO imagery has been used to assist sort out the perfect places to plop down robotic assets – even spotting the crash debris of the Japanese company’s Ispace moon lander, Hakuto-R, after it plummeted to its downfall on April 25. Due to imagery snapped years earlier by LRO of the crash area, a before/after-the-fact distinction made pinpointing the wreckage possible.
Making a difference
On a more positive note, LRO’s resolving power can aid in charting future lunar rover expeditions and help scope out promising locales that maximize science return, Robinson said. “Immediately we’re collecting observations of all potential Artemis [human] landing regions, 13 of them,” he said, “and NASA and the science community are demanding to go to specific places which can be way more difficult, landing-wise.”
Moreover, LRO data is getting used to construct digital terrain models for several American corporations that may deliver equipment to the lunar surface through the Industrial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative.
“It’s quite gratifying to feel like you make a difference scientifically, in addition to from an exploration or engineering standpoint,” said Robinson. “I prefer to imagine an astronaut having a display unit on the arm of their spacesuit, our LRO data in order that they can see what’s over that next hill.”
However, in some unspecified time in the future, LRO will likely be not.
“I will be sad at first, but then perhaps relieved. It has been a giant responsibility and loads of work for the LRO team,” Robinson said. “There are lifetimes of information to investigate. I’ll have more time to work with all the knowledge LRO has produced.”
What’s next?
“LRO is currently funded to operate through September 2025, the top of our current prolonged mission. We anticipate proposing for a sixth extension, which might fund operations from 2025 through 2028,” said Noah Petro, LRO’s deputy project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, and newly named project scientist for the Artemis 3 mission.
Petro said that each one LRO systems show a “graceful degradation,” but nothing is anticipated to affect its ability to proceed collecting data.
Meanwhile, NASA is funding a mission concept study to take into consideration what a post-LRO orbital mission might appear like.
Called the Lunar Exploration Science Orbiter (LExSO), Petro said it’s one option being considered to fill the gap left behind once LRO’s mission is concluded “and we expect any solution to deal with agency priorities including science and exploration objectives.”
Next-generation observations
“I feel strongly that it is important to plan for and implement the following generation of orbital observations of the moon,” said Carle Pieters, a noted lunar researcher at Brown University in Windfall, Rhode Island.
Amassed LRO digital images document how the present lunar surface does change, nonetheless slowly. “A number of contemporary sensors are actually also available to supply additional details concerning the physical and compositional character of materials across the surface and the way properties alter with time-of-day,” Pieters told Space.com, data particularly essential for the evolving investigations into lunar water ice.
The information provided by those sensors will likely be hard to switch once LRO reaches the top of its lifetime.
Leadership role
“On account of its intimate relation and proximity to Earth, the moon has been a reliable witness to activities on this small a part of the solar system that we inhabit. We’ll, and must, proceed to document and monitor the properties of the moon and learn from them,” Pieters said. “The remarkable reliability and productivity of LRO, which continues to supply data greater than a decade beyond its planned lifetime, made us overconfident and lazy.”
Pieters co-chaired a recent report for the Lunar Exploration Evaluation Group (LEAG) that underscored the necessity for continuous lunar orbital capabilities. It deemed it “essential” for the U. S. to preserve a leadership role on the moon throughout the coming many years of international science and exploration.
“Plans have to be made now to make sure continuity,” the report concluded.