Detecting water and ice on the moon

A shoebox-sized spacecraft designed and built at ASU entered orbit around the moon and successfully demonstrated that its neutron spectrometer can detect water and ice at the lunar surface.

During a lunar flyby, the Lunar Polar Hydrogen Mapper (LunaH-Map) CubeSat’s neutron spectrometer collected nearly three hours of data from the moon’s surface from a distance of about 800 miles. After the neutron spectrometer collected the data, challenges with LunaH-Map’s thruster valve prevented it from adjusting course to achieve its planned orbit across the moon’s south pole to map hydrogen enrichments (indicators of water-ice).

"We are thrilled that the LunaH-Map team was able to use this opportunity to demonstrate the capability of its neutron spectrometer in flight, even though the mission could not be completed as planned. SIMPLEx missions are inherently risky, as they are designed to test the bounds of what can be achieved with lower-cost missions,” says Lori Glaze, Director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C.