Lunar Trailblazer spacecraft now equipped with water detection instrument, courtesy of NASA

Aug. 16 (UPI) — As NASA’s Lunar Trailblazer spacecraft nears completion, scientists have integrated highly advanced equipment capable of detecting the presence of water.

NASA stated in a press release on Wednesday that the Lunar Thermal Mapper (LTM), developed by the University of Oxford in England and contributed by the UK Space Agency, has been added to the spacecraft. It joins the High-resolution Volatiles and Minerals Moon Mapper (HVM3), which was integrated with the spacecraft last year.

Together, these cutting-edge instruments will enable scientists to accurately determine the abundance, location, and form of water on the moon, significantly advancing our understanding of lunar water resources.

The prestigious California Institute of Technology (Caltech) is leading the development of the Lunar Trailblazer program. The mission is scheduled to launch no earlier than early 2024.

The Lunar Trailblazer is planned to be launched as a secondary payload on NASA’s second Intuitive Machines lunar lander mission, alongside NASA’s Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment-1. The latter will focus on searching for subsurface lunar samples.

During its lunar orbit, the Lunar Trailblazer will utilize the HVM3 instrument to analyze the wavelengths of sunlight reflected off water formations on the lunar surface. In addition, the mission will employ the LTM instrument to scan and analyze the lunar terrain.

By comparing readings taken at different times of the day, the Lunar Trailblazer has the potential to identify variations in the presence of water on the moon.

Earlier this year, researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences discovered water in impact glass samples brought to Earth by China’s Chang’e-5 lunar mission. Impact glass is formed as a result of meteorite impacts that cause rocks to melt on the lunar surface.

In a paper published in the scientific journal Nature, the scientists stated, “It has been proposed that a hydrated layer exists at depth in lunar soils, buffering water cycle on the moon globally. However, a reservoir has yet to be identified for this hydrated layer.”

The Lunar Trailblazer mission will precede NASA’s Artemis moon mission, which aims to enable humans to return to the moon. NASA has made significant efforts to internationalize both the Artemis mission and its precursor missions.

Lunar Trailblazer principal investigator Bethany Ehlmann remarked, “With the combined power of both of these sophisticated instruments, we can better understand where and why water is on the Moon and support the next era of Moon exploration.”