Luna 51 - Spring 2000

Europe is going to the Moon

A HIGHLY innovative budget-priced mission to explore the Moon has officially been given the go-ahead by the European Space Agency at a meeting in Paris on 9 and 10 November. The SMART-1 project—a small lunar orbiter—is to be the first in a new line of Small Missions for Advanced Research in Technology (SMART) which will demonstrate vital new technologies for future deep space missions. The 350 kg probe is scheduled for launch atop an Ariane 5 as an auxiliary payload at the end of 2002, with an expected arrival in lunar orbit in early 2004.

Artist’s impression of Europe’s SMART-1 spacecraft as it nears the Moon.

The cruise to the Moon journey time of 17 months is so long because the probe will primarily be powered by solar electric propulsion, the most important technology to be flown on SMART-1. The spacecraft will employ a stationary plasma thruster which uses xenon gas as a propellant. Electrical solar power will be used to expel the gas at very high speed, generating, by reaction, the movement of the satellite. "Compared with conventional chemical systems, electric propulsion expends very little mass to accelerate a spacecraft. But it ejects the propellant plasma up to ten times faster than a classical engine and so is ten times more efficient. SMART-1 is truly going to live up to its name!" says Project Manager Giuseppe Racca.

SMART-1 will remain in lunar orbit for six months, during which time it will attempt to accomplish a variety of mission objectives with its Scientific and Technology Payload consisting of seven instruments. The lunar science payload consists of three instruments: a compact X-ray spectrometer (D-CIXS, provided by the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, UK), a micro-imager (AMIE, developed in the framework of ESA's Technology Research Programme in conjunction with CSEM Switzerland) and an Infrared Spectrometer (SIR, Max-Planck-Institut für Aeronomie, Lindau, Germany).

According to SMART-1 Project Scientist Bernard Foing, the SMART-1 science mission will address key questions about the Moon: the origin of the Earth-Moon system and the role of accretional processes, long-term volcanic and tectonic activity on Earth’s natural satellite, the thermal and dynamic processes responsible for lunar evolution and the external processes on the Moon’s surface such as erosion, and ice deposition. Visit the SMART-1 homepage at: http://sci.esa.int/smart1

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