January 19, 2011 AARC Noon Meeting:
Brian Day on Amateur Radio Participation in LADEE Lunar Science
Mr. Day has worked as a software engineer in the Silicon Valley since 1982, taught programming courses at San Jose State, and served as chairman of the observatory at Foothill College for 16 years.
AARC re-transmitted audio of this meeting on 145.585 MHz. We may perform same service on future AARC meetings.
Amateur Radio Participation in LADEE Lunar Science
The Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) spacecraft, an innovative example of NASAs new small, low cost, spacecraft technologies and missions, is scheduled to launch in May 2013, go into lunar orbit, then drop down to low altitude to directly sample and measure the lunar atmosphere as a critical part of the international science focus to increase scientific understanding of the lunar environment and processes.
Results from the LADEE mission will augment scientific knowledge and understanding regarding the critical atmospheric component of the lunar environment, supplementing lunar surface science results from the recent, highly successful, Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) mission, another mission controlled and operated by Ames Research Center locally, that, working in conjunction with the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), recently confirmed the presence of water and a water cycle on the moon.
Since the Earth and the Moon travel together through space, encountering streams of debris together, observations of meteors in the Earths atmosphere can allow us to make inferences as to what is happening on the lunar surface; information valuable to the LADEE science mission.
While meteor counts from visual and video observations will provide useful data and a way for the general public to participate in the science of the mission, counts made by radio observers listening for reflection events provide some unique advantages for the mission, as well as, some unique opportunities to experience and participate in a different, unique, mode of radio communications for research; forward scatter meteor detection.
Additional, specific, information and guidance on this LADEE mission science support opportunity will be made available through this web site as the program develops.
More information on the LADEE mission can be found at http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LADEE/main/.
Information on Forward Scatter Meteor Detection, and NASAs Forward Scatter Meteor RADAR system and program, including typical equipment requirements and configurations, can be found at http://www.nasa.gov/offices/meo/outreach/forward_scatter_detail.html.