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Private Lunar Lander: “The Dawn of Radio Astronomy from the Moon Has Begun!”

Rough but productive landing of Odysseus Moon lander. Image credit: Intuitive Machines

From Leonard David's Inside Outer Space: “We can clearly say that the dawn of radio astronomy from the Moon has begun!” That’s the word from Jack Burns, a University of Colorado/Boulder astrophysicist. He is a co-investigator on the ROLSES instrument now on the Moon courtesy of the Intuitive Machines lunar lander, Odysseus.

ROLSES stands for Radio wave Observation at the Lunar Surface of the photo-Electron Sheath, designed to study the dynamic radio energy environment near the lunar surface. ROLSES is a NASA-supported payload under NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services, or CLPS, initiative.

The good news is that there was successful deployment of antennas for ROLSES and turning a spectrometer on to take good low radio frequency radio data.