NASA says Artemis 3 astronauts will install moonquake detector

NASA plans to have Artemis 3 astronauts place a moonquake detector on the Moon when the mission lands.

Artist’s Illustration: Two suited crew members work on the lunar surface. (NASA)

NASA said this week its Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland is building a moonquake detector for astronauts to deploy when they land on the Moon during the Artemis 3 mission.

The space agency selected the instrument, the Lunar Environment Monitoring Station (LEMS) as one of the first three potential payloads of Artemis 3. LEMS is a compact, autonomous seismometer made to sustain long-term monitoring of ground motion from moonquakes around the celestial body’s south pole.

It is intended to work on the lunar surface from three months up to two years and could become a key station in a future global lunar geophysical network. Moonquakes were first observed by Apollo missions when they placed seismometers between 1969 and 1972.These quakes are caused by the same tug of gravity that causes ocean tides. The Moon’s surface trembles as it expands and contracts due to temperature changes.

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Seismic data was collected on the Earth facing side of the Moon near the equator. But scientists do not yet have seismic data from the lunar south pole that can help them understand the local and global lunar surface structure.

The other candidate instruments are the Lunar Effects on Agricultural Flora Instrument, which is led by researchers at Space Lab Technologies, and the Lunar Dielectric Analyser instrument led by researchers at the Tokyo University and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. (JAXA)

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