L-DEPP
ESTEC Contract N° 4000103352/11/NL/AFThe Agency’s Directorate of Human Spaceflight (D-HSF) is currently pursuing a Lunar Lander mission
as part of its preparations for future human exploration. The objectives of this mission are to enable sustainable exploration through preparatory steps in key areas related to future human activities on the Moon. The Lunar Lander mission is planned for launch in 2018.Artistic view of Lunar Lander, Credits - ESA
The Lunar Lander mission shall embark a Lunar Dust Environment and Plasma Package (L-DEPP) to determine the physical properties and behaviour of levitated dust and plasma in the lunar environment in order to meet the defined mission objectives and address specific areas including:
- Charges, velocities and sizes of levitating lunar dust particles
- Temperature and density of the local plasma
- Electric surface potentials
- The radio spectrum associated with the plasma environment and transient events
Definition and preliminary design study of instruments considered in the model payload for the Lunar Lander project in support of these measurements are are the main scope of the current project.
A consortium of EU and US institutions/companies, namely:
- Astronomical Institute, AS CR, Prague, Czech Republic
- Czech Space Research Centre, Brno, Czech Republic
- Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planétologie, Toulouse, France
- Institut für Weltraumforschung, Graz, Austria
- Mullard Space Science Laboratory, Holmbury St. Mary, UK
- Technische Universität Braunschweig, Braunschweig, Germany
- Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics. Boulder, CO, US
- Space Science Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, US
- NASA Lunar Science Institute, Greenbelt, MD, US
The aim is to study following instruments and their potential implementation to the L-DEPP payload package:
- Dust analyser (ELDA)
- Langmuir probe (LP)
- Radio wave analyser (RADIO)
- Electron analyser (LEA)
- Ion analyser (LIA)
- Flux-gate magnetometer (MAG)
Final report will be delivered to ESA in May 2012.