DAPPER

A Roadmap for Science on the Moon

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Sep 2020 17:41:56 +0000

A Roadmap for Science on the Moon Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 09/30/2020 - 11:41

Daniel Strain

From CU Boulder Today: Scientists at CU Boulder have laid out a roadmap for a decade of scientific research at the moon.

Teams from the university will participate in four upcoming or proposed space missions that seek to use the moon as a unique laboratory for peering back to the dawn of the cosmos—collecting unprecedented data on an epoch in the life of the universe before the first stars formed.

The first of these efforts will deploy an instrument called Radiowave Observations at the Lunar Surface of the photoElectron Sheath (ROLSES). It’s slated to land on the moon in just over a year. Another involves a proposed satellite known as the Dark Ages Polarimetry Pathfinder (DAPPER). It could be in orbit around the Moon by the decade’s midway mark.

“It’s a completely unexplored part of the early universe, which we call the Dark Ages,” said Jack Burns, a professor in the Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences at CU Boulder. “We have no data from this period and no prospect of getting any data using traditional telescopes like the Hubble Space Telescope.”

Burns described the four missions during a virtual talk this month at the annual meeting of Lunar Exploration Advisory Group (LEAG), a scientific advisory body for NASA.

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, who also attended the meeting, shared in the excitement. Read more…

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NASA patented a faster, cheaper route to the moon. The first spacecraft to use it could make Nobel Prize-winning discoveries about the universe.

Anonymous — Wed, 02 Sep 2020 21:57:53 +0000

NASA patented a faster, cheaper route to the moon. The first spacecraft to use it could make Nobel Prize-winning discoveries about the universe. Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 09/02/2020 - 15:57

Dave Mosher

From Business Insider: The moon is both seductively close to Earth and cosmically far away: Decades after the end of the space race, it remains extraordinarily expensive and difficult to actually get there.

The journey just got a bit easier, however, thanks to a freshly published NASA invention. The agency's patent doesn't cover a new piece of equipment or lines of code, but a trajectory — a route designed to save a lunar-bound mission time, fuel, and money and boost its scientific value.

On June 30, the US Patent and Trademark Office granted and published NASA's patent for a series of orbital maneuvers, which Business Insider first learned about via a tweet by a lawyer named Jeff Steck.

The technique isn't meant for large spaceships that carry astronauts or rovers, but for smaller, more tightly budgeted missions tasked with doing meaningful science. And the first spacecraft to take advantage of this new orbital path could deliver unprecedented discoveries from the far side of the moon. Read more...

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Dark Ages Polarimeter Pathfinder

Anonymous — Thu, 16 Jul 2020 22:01:49 +0000

Dark Ages Polarimeter Pathfinder Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 07/16/2020 - 16:01

Bert Hawkins & Richard Bradley

From NRAO eNews: The NRAO Central Development Laboratory (CDL) is assisting with the development of the Dark Ages Polarimeter Pathfinder (DAPPER), a lunar-orbiting spacecraft concept designed to measure the spectrum of highly-redshifted hydrogen emitted during Cosmic Dawn, the epoch of initial star formation in the evolution of the Universe. The challenge of this measurement in the 20-100 MHz frequency range is the rather weak, isotropic nature of the hydrogen radiation in the presence of strong foreground emission that is many orders of magnitude brighter. DAPPER has several advantages over ground-based instruments in that it is above the signal distorting effects of the ionosphere, clear of local environmental effects that are difficult to model, and will acquire sky data during the time in its orbit when the Moon shields the spacecraft from Earth-based radio interference. It also incorporates a novel dynamic polarimetry technique, developed by Richard Bradley’s group at the CDL, to help separate the foreground spectrum from that of Cosmic Dawn hydrogen.

NASA Ames Research Center is hosting the DAPPER project, led by PI Jack Burns (University of Colorado, Boulder) and Co-Is Richard Bradley (NRAO CDL) and Stuart Bale (Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory). The purpose of our current two-year program is to advance the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of the instrumentation to TRL 6 – eliminating the technological risks of the mission. The NRAO CDL will lead the development of the 60-100 MHz antenna, receiver / calibration modules, signal processing algorithms, and the ground-based engineering prototype that will be deployed at the Green Bank Observatory (GBO). The Space Sciences Laboratory will perform the space environmental tests on our prototype hardware and migrate the software to an FPGA-based platform. Data from the GBO deployment will be used by the University of Colorado group to evaluate and advance the capabilities of their machine-learning-based data analysis pipeline for DAPPER. Read more…

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Under a DAPPER Moon: NASA Eyes Wild Radio Science Projects on the Lunar Farside

Anonymous — Mon, 23 Dec 2019 20:14:36 +0000

Under a DAPPER Moon: NASA Eyes Wild Radio Science Projects on the Lunar Farside Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 12/23/2019 - 13:14

Meghan Bartels

From Space.com: NASA's quest to return humans to the moon could boost a field of research that might not seem particularly lunar in nature: cosmology.

But the far side of the moon could be a powerful place to answer some of the most compelling questions about the universe — and NASA's push to bring humans back to the moon could cut the prices enough to make this science a reality. Even a scientist leading the push for NASA to investigate these missions admits it wasn't the most intuitive idea when he first heard about it.

"We were [science fair] judges together and they were asking me what I thought about telescopes on the moon," Jack Burns, an astrophysicist at the �鶹��Ƶ, told Space.com. "And I said, I didn't think much about it at all. It just didn't occur to me."

Since then, he and his colleagues have thought about it a lot. Their conclusion is that observatories on the far side of the moon offer a unique opportunity for modern astronomers. Burns has spent this year thinking through two specific mission concepts designed to take advantage, focusing particularly on the period before stars began to form, called the dark ages. Read more...

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Alien Hunters Need the Far Side of the Moon to Stay Quiet

Anonymous — Fri, 15 Nov 2019 21:35:04 +0000

Alien Hunters Need the Far Side of the Moon to Stay Quiet Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 11/15/2019 - 14:35

Daniel Oberhaus

From Wired: China made history earlier this year when its Chang'e-4 lander became the first spacecraft to land on the far side of the moon. During the two-week lunar days, the lander and its small rover, Yutu 2, beam images and other data to an orbiter for relay back to Earth. Together they’ve furnished planetary scientists with unprecedented access to the backside of our Janus-faced neighbor. But not everyone was thrilled that China crossed into this new lunar frontier, and few have been more vocal about their concerns than the scientists involved in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.

Last month, the SETI permanent committee of the International Astronautical Association hosted its second round of negotiations about the lunar farside in Washington, DC. The exploration of the moon might seem like an issue outside the purview of this group of professional alien hunters, but the far side of the moon is the most radio quiet place in the inner solar system and they want to keep it that way in case ET calls. Indeed, they argue that the fate of the lunar farside may determine whether we ever detect a signal from an extraterrestrial intelligence.

“At the moment, SETI is not doomed, but it might be doomed in the next 50 years and that’s being optimistic,” says Claudio Maccone, an astrophysicist and the chair of the IAA SETI committee. “We must insist on this topic while there is still time to do something.”

On Earth, radio astronomers must contend with interference from television broadcasts, cell phone signals, satellites, and the atmosphere as they scan the cosmos for faint signals from primordial stars, organic molecules, or intelligent life. This makes the lunar farside an attractive site for future radio telescopes because the moon blocks all the radio signals from Earth. It’s like the difference between stargazing in New York City and stargazing in the middle of the desert—in the city light pollution obscures almost all of the good stuff. Read more...

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New Mission To Far Side Of The Moon Explores Origins Of The Universe

Anonymous — Wed, 09 Jan 2019 16:53:12 +0000

New Mission To Far Side Of The Moon Explores Origins Of The Universe Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 01/09/2019 - 09:53

Carl Bilek

From Colorado Public Radio - Colorado Matters: Fifty years after U.S. astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first person to walk on the Moon, China landed a rover on the far side of the Moon last week for the first time in history.

Jack Burns, an astrophysicist at CU Boulder, sees the landing as the dawn of a new space age. Burns talked with Colorado Matters about the accomplishment, and what could be next when it comes to exploring the far side of the Moon.

Burns is now leading a mission to develop a satellite called DAPPER, which stands for Dark Ages Polarimetry Pathfinder, with the ultimate goal of placing an array of telescopes on the far side of the Moon to study the origins of the universe. The far side of the Moon is uniquely suited for deep space research because it's dark and it blocks interference from radio transmissions from the Earth. Listen now.

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CU researcher leads lunar observation project: Satellite will help the study of the universe’s “dark ages”

Anonymous — Mon, 01 Oct 2018 21:59:57 +0000

CU researcher leads lunar observation project: Satellite will help the study of the universe’s “dark ages” Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 10/01/2018 - 15:59

Charlie Brennan

From the Daily Camera: University of Colorado researchers are planning to put a satellite in orbit around the moon to observe what they call the universe’s “dark ages” — an era just 15 million to 30 million years after the Big Bang, before the first stars illuminated the cosmic dawn. “What we’re doing is we’re really opening up a whole new window to the early universe that has never been explored before,” said Jack Burns, a CU professor of astrophysics and planetary science and also vice president emeritus for academic affairs and research at the university. Read more...

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Dark side of the moon holds clues to early universe

Anonymous — Tue, 25 Sep 2018 19:18:19 +0000

Dark side of the moon holds clues to early universe Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 09/25/2018 - 13:18

Daniel Strain

From CU Boulder Today: The far side of the moon could give CU Boulder researchers an unprecedented look back at the early “dark ages” of the universe before the first stars had begun to flare into existence. NASA recently picked the Dark Ages Polarimetry Pathfinder (DAPPER) as one of nine small satellite missions that it will study for a potential launch next decade. The DAPPER team, which is led by CU Boulder astrophysicist Jack Burns and includes scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, the National Radio Astronomy Observatory and NASA’s Ames Research Center, will spend the next six months crafting a detailed design of this proposed mission.

The goal is to put a satellite in orbit around the moon and, from the isolated environment of the lunar far side, observe signals from clouds of hydrogen gas in the early cosmos.

A 2018 study discovered a possible signal from the universe's first stars, which would have been blue and much bigger than stars today.

If greenlighted, the mission would allow astrophysicists to unwind the universe’s clock, revealing new information about how stars, galaxies and black holes came into being. Burns said that DAPPER could also mark a new step in lunar exploration, transforming the moon into a laboratory for far-reaching science. Read more...

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NASA Astrophysics Eyes Big Science with Small Satellites

Anonymous — Wed, 12 Sep 2018 20:02:53 +0000

NASA Astrophysics Eyes Big Science with Small Satellites Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 09/12/2018 - 14:02

Sarah Loff

From NASA: NASA has selected nine proposals to study using small satellites, or SmallSats, for advanced astronomical space-based observations. The proposed SmallSat studies are a fraction of the size, weight, and cost of a typical space-bound astrophysics mission. They cover a mass range from 12 kg to 180 kg. Formation flying, or “constellations” of such satellites were considered as well. These SmallSats are envisioned as being larger than CubeSats already being developed, but smaller than Small Explorer (SMEX) missions.

The selected studies will carry out a detailed analysis of the mission needed to accomplish the proposed science. This analysis will allow a more optimum and more detailed design of the mission, including a more accurate cost assessment. The science goals of the nine missions include studies of planets outside our solar system, or exoplanets, in the X-ray band, with an external occulture ‘star shade’ to blot out the light of a host star, and to measure the masses of exoplanets by detecting wobble in their host star; finding and studying the explosions and collisions of compact objects that produce gravity waves; doing extremely precise x-ray imaging and extremely precise x-ray spectroscopy; and studying the evolution of the Universe both before galaxies formed and at the peak of galaxy formation.

SmallSats are an exciting example of how new technology and clever thinking can take something the size of a dorm-room fridge and do cutting edge astrophysics,” said Paul Hertz, Astrophysics division director at NASA Headquarters, Washington. “The results of these studies will tell us what we can, and what we cannot, do for relatively low cost to achieve big science results.”

The missions and the Principal Investigators selected for study are:

X-ray Quantum Calorimeter Satellite (XQSat), Philip Kaaret at University of Iowa in Iowa City
Dark Ages Polarimetry Pathfinder (DAPPER), Jack Burns at University of Colorado in Boulder
Gravitational-wave Ultraviolet Counterpart Imagers (GUCI++), Stephen Cenko at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland
Miniature Distributed Occulter Telescope (mDOT), Bruce Macintosh at Stanford University in California
MicroArcsecond Small Satellite (MASS), Michael Shao at the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, California
Smallsat Exploration of the Exospheres of Nearby Hot Jupiters (SEEJ), Scott Wolk at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts
Virtual Telescope for X-ray Observations (VTXO), John Krizmanic at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County
HREXI SmallSat Pathfinder (HSP), Jonathan Grindlay at Harvard College in Cambridge, Massachusetts
Infrared SmallSat for Cluster Evolution Astrophysics (ISCEA), Yun Wang at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California

The studies will take place over a six-month period concluding in Spring of 2019. Depending upon the results of the studies, some of these concepts may be submitted to an upcoming Astrophysics Explorers competition to actually build and fly the mission.

If proven feasible, such platforms could provide new and exciting avenues from which to study specific aspects of the Universe at a comparatively low cost. Such satellites would “hitch a ride” to space aboard launches for other, more sizable spacecraft, or be deployed from the International Space Station. Read more...

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