Back in 2020, the Canadian Space Agency announced a variety of contracts focused on lunar exploration as part of the Lunar Exploration Accelerator Program (LEAP). These contracts, the Lunar Surface Autonomous Science Payloads (LSASP), were focused on developing payloads, instruments and/or subsystems that involve “highly visible science mission enabling capabilities.”
With NASA’s Artemis program refocusing attention on the Moon, SpaceQ is looking at one of those contracts: Magellan’s $607,258 contract to “develop a lunar impactor probe that will deliver instruments to the surface of the Moon, including sensors to detect water in the permanently shadowed regions of the Moon.” There hasn’t been a lot of publicity about the research, and it was time to see how Magellan has been approaching the problem.
The most interesting thing about the impactor probe they’re creating is that it’s not a traditional “impactor probe” in the first place. Magellan has a far more interesting and difficult task on their hands, but it’s one that could help open up the lunar economy.
Historical Impactor Probes
Impactors are not a new approach to space science. The essential idea behind most historical impactors missions is often little more than a deliberate crash landing. The USSR’s Luna 2 mission was an early lunar impactor mission that goes all the way back to 1959, which crashed a spacecraft onto the surface of the Moon as part of the Space Race of the mid 20th century. Since then there have been impactor-style missions on the Moon, Mars and even Jupiter and Saturn (where they were disintegrated in the atmosphere.) Impacting orbiters into the surface of a moon or planet in order to study the debris fields has become a comparatively common part of space science and experimentation.
Readers may remember the Deep Impact probe in 2005, which was intended to study the interior composition of a comet. The mission sent a 100kg copper mass into the comet Tempel 1, ejecting debris from the comet’s nucleus so that it could be studied. That was one modern example of a traditional impactor probe, albeit in a very novel location.
Magellan’s Lunar Impactor Probe
The lunar impactor probe contract, like all of the LSASP contracts, focuses more on technology than on specific pieces of equipment.
But the technology here is somewhat different than a typical impactor. The technology being investigated by Magellan isn’t just a copper mass intended to send up a debris field; the goal is to “deliver instruments to the surface of the Moon, including sensors to detect water in the permanently shadowed regions of the Moon.” In fact, it’s less of a traditional impactor and more of a penetrator, which is why its actual name is the “Multi-Purpose Autonomous Penetrator for Lunar Exploration,” or MAPLE.
In an email exchange with SpaceQ, Magellan Senior Engineer Paul Harrison expanded further on the project. MAPLE, unlike “soft-landers,” is “designed to intentionally impact the ground at high velocity (up to 180 m/s) so that we can access the sub-surface, down to half a metre or more.” Going down that far will allow scientists to search for volatiles, like water and carbon dioxide, that can’t be easily detected on the surface but are “known to exist in the lunar regolith.”
The search for CO2 and H2O on the Moon is critically important for the development of In-Situ Resource Utilization in space—not only will they be used to sustain any manned presence on the Moon, but they can be used to provide propellants for travel within cislunar and even interplanetary space.
Harrison goes on to say that “we can do other important science as well, such as estimating the density of the surface and sub-surface from the deceleration profile, measuring the thermal conductivity of the surface by observing temperature changes post-impact, and even using the impact itself to generate seismic waves…to better understand the Moon’s geophysical structure.” Imagery taken during descent can provide “important high-resolution context regarding the impact region,” and can be used to get information on “regions difficult to access by other means.”
An abstract for an upcoming presentation on “Penetrator Science Objectives for the Moon and Artemis” by Harrison and others at the 2022 International Planetary Probe Workshop (IPPW) provides some more information. It says that the focus of “penetrator experiments” like these is in creating “self-contained vehicles with a suite of instruments designed to survive and function after achieving certain depth into the regolith.” They can “act as a precursor or complementary mission to a lander to allow for targeting of a future landing site, or an array could bring more science detail on a larger area.”
If deployed into a permanent shadowed region (PSR), the Abstract says this kind of penetrator (like MAPLE) could “immediately provide geochemical information within the upper 1-2 m of regolith” by tracking deceleration, get thermal characteristics from the impact heat, and carry “a suite of sensors and instruments that provide data on the temperature, pressure, conductivity, and hardness” of the regolith.
Current State of Development
Unlike traditional impactors, however, these penetrators are still a new and experimental kind of space science that according to the IPPW abstract has been “yet to be operated successfully.” So how is Magellan’s development of MAPLE going?
Harrison’s email to SpaceQ said that development is ongoing, with expected successes and expected “learning experiences.” He said that “we performed two ‘soft-drop’ tests of a prototype at Magellan’s rocket manufacturing facility north of Winnipeg.” The tests were done from a helicopter, and had much lower impact speeds (30 and 47 m/s) but “proved a lot of the engineering principles.”
A bigger test at CFB Gagetown in New Brunswick, however, ended up with a somewhat surprising setback. Their “bigger scale drop” at Gagetown hit the desired speed (180 m/s) and the test article successfully penetrated the ground. In fact, however, it may have been a bit more successful than they were prepared for: Harrison said that “we were not able to retrieve the test article – we hypothesize that it hit a patch of soft ground and buried itself too deeply to be easily located.”
Harrison also said, however, that “this is pioneering work, however, and some missteps are inevitable…we’ve learned a lot about how to conduct these unique kinds of tests and how to improve on observation and tracking during the very rapid descent.” As the technology has “immense future potential, not just for the Moon but for other solar system destinations.” Magellan is “actively looking” for opportunities to do more field tests, seeking out both domestic and international opportunities.
“A few years away”
So will MAPLE be going to the Moon sometime soon? Harrison said that “it is still a few years away from spaceflight.” Testing is ongoing, and he’s confident that there will be “ample host opportunities” for further testing considering the “enormous interest in the Moon.”
Judging by his comments, there’s clearly more work to be done—but, equally clearly, Magellan continues doing the work that they were contracted to do. It’s not easy, it’s not straightforward, and it’s not flashy. If they succeed, though, this $600,000 contract to create MAPLE will have had a tremendous scientific and economic impact. So to speak.