Yes, there is water on the moon.
But what’s it like? How much is there? Where is it? And, on everyone’s mind, could humans drink it or at least mine the molecules and live off the liquid should we relocate to space?
These questions and more could be answered with the help of the Lunar Trailblazer, a dishwasher-sized shiny satellite that left Littleton in late January, enroute to Cape Canaveral. In Florida, the smallish satellite will hitch a ride on a Space X Falcon 9 rocket as soon as Wednesday and head toward a comfortable orbit around the moon.
“We hope it leads to our understanding of the water cycle on the moon — where water is located and how it changes over time, given the different temperatures, solar radiation exposure, dark side to light side and all that,” said Ryan Pfeiffer, Lockheed Martin’s program manager for the Lunar Trailblazer project, at the Waterton campus in Littleton.
It’s not the first moon mission for Lockheed Martin’s space division, which is headquartered just south of Chatfield State Park. Lockheed was part of 1998’s Lunar Prospector to map out moon surfaces. It’s been NASA’s primary contractor for the Orion spacecraft on the Artemis missions — the one sending humans back to the moon. And while Lockheed had started on the moon rover vehicle for the Artemis III mission, it bowed out last fall due to business strategy conflicts with a partner on the project.
To read the entire story, visit The Colorado Sun.