2022 LSU Gumbo - Book - Page 179
LSU may be the first university in the world to land
technology on the moon next year as the U.S. returns
to the lunar surface again after 50 years.
The research mission, called Tiger Eye 1, aims to
take measurements of radiation in space and on the
moon. The technology will be onboard the IM-1
mission in early 2022, one of several commercial space
flights to bring technology to the moon ahead of the
Artemis mission scheduled for 2024, which aims to be
the first crewed lunar landing mission since Apollo 17
in 1972.
The Houston-based technology manufacturer
Intuitive Machines is the company that will be
providing the lunar lander containing the Tiger Eye,
and will be attached to a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
“We will be not only the first institution to take
these types of measurements both on the way to the
moon and on the moon, we’ll be the first university to
just land something on the moon, period,” said Jacob
Miller, an electrical engineering senior and student
project manager of the Tiger Eye mission.
The Tiger Eye mission is being operated almost
entirely by LSU students from the SpaRTAN lab
(Space Radiation Transport and Applied Nuclear
Physics), focused on understanding the impact space
radiation has on both the health of human spaceflight
crews and the resilience of space vehicle hardware
systems.
Jeff Chancellor, an LSU physicist, oversees the
SpaRTAN lab and the Tiger Eye mission. Chancellor
worked for or with NASA for 25 years before coming to
LSU.
The radiation device works by tracking the amount
of ionizing radiation that gets deposited onto it. It
does this with a pixelated sensor acting sort of like a
telescope, providing data on radiation doses both in
space and on the moon.
“They need to know what the radiation levels
are because there’s only a certain level of radiation
people can be exposed to in space before it becomes
really dangerous,” said Emily Friedman, a mechanical
engineering sophomore who will be taking over as
student project manager.
This sort of data hasn’t been collected on the
moon before and will be crucial to understanding for
future crewed missions, especially if lunar bases are
established, to help safeguard the health and safety of
people on the moon.
“Once you’re successful at doing something this
difficult, you have a good track record. It’s not easy but
it makes it easier to propose and do additional work,”
Chancellor said.
The mission is currently scheduled for 2022, but
could be delayed due to the difficulty in organizing
and launching space missions, Chancellor said.
The work being done on this mission will help pave
the way for NASA’s Artemis mission, whose long-term
goal is to set up human habitation on the moon.
“I honestly never really expected to be doing
something like this whenever I started at LSU…
hopefully this opens the doors for it to be sort of
commonplace for students at LSU to get the chance to
work on stuff like this,” Miller said.
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