Discover What Lies Beneath: NASA’s Lunar Mission To Map the Moon’s Hidden Layers

NASA’s new Lunar Magnetotelluric Sounder, set to land on the Moon’s surface in 2025, aims to revolutionize our understanding of the Moon’s interior.

By measuring magnetic and electric fields, this first-of-its-kind extraterrestrial application of magnetotellurics will offer unprecedented insights into the Moon’s subsurface structure and composition, particularly at Mare Crisium, a unique geological area not previously studied by Apollo missions.

Pioneering Lunar Exploration Through CLPS

Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), through NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, has developed the Lunar Magnetotelluric Sounder (LMS), an innovative instrument designed to study the Moon’s mantle. By measuring electric and magnetic fields, the LMS will provide insights into the structure and composition of the Moon’s interior.

The LMS is carried aboard Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lunar lander, which launched on January 15, marking the first time an SwRI instrument will land on the Moon.

“For more than 50 years, scientists have used magnetotellurics on Earth for a wide variety of purposes, including to find oil, water, geothermal and mineral resources as well as to understand geologic processes such as the growth of continents,” said SwRI’s Dr. Robert Grimm, principal investigator of LMS. “The LMS instrument will be the first extraterrestrial application of magnetotellurics.”

Supporting NASA’s Artemis Program

NASA’s Artemis program is developing a series of increasingly complex missions to ultimately build a sustained human presence at the Moon for decades to come. To support these goals, LMS is part of a 14-day lunar lander mission to help understand the Moon’s subsurface in a previously unexplored location.

Mare Crisium is an ancient, 350-mile-diameter impact basin that subsequently filled with lava, creating a dark spot visible to the naked eye on the Moon. Early astronomers who dubbed dark spots on the moon “maria,” Latin for seas, mistook them for actual seas.

Exploring Mare Crisium’s Unique Geology

Mare Crisium stands apart from the large, connected areas of dark lava to the west where most of the Apollo missions landed. These vast, linked lava plains are now thought to be compositionally and structurally anomalous with respect to the rest of the Moon. From this separate vantage point, LMS may provide the first geophysical measurements representative of most of the Moon.

Magnetotellurics uses natural variations in surface electric and magnetic fields to calculate how easily electricity flows in subsurface materials, which can reveal their composition and structure. LMS will allow scientists to probe the interior of the Moon to depths up to 700 miles or two-thirds of the lunar radius. The measurements will shed light on the material differentiation and thermal history of our Moon, a cornerstone to understanding the evolution of solid worlds.

The LMS instrument ejects cables with electrodes at 90-degree angles to each other and distances up to 60 feet. The instrument measures voltages across opposite pairs of electrodes, much like the probes of a conventional voltmeter. The magnetometer is deployed via an extendable mast to reduce interference from the lander. The method reveals a vertical profile of the electrical conductivity, providing insight into the temperature and composition of the penetrated materials in the lunar interior.

The LMS Instrument: Design and Objectives

“The five individual subsystems of LMS, together with connecting cables, weigh about 14 pounds and consume about 11 watts of power,” Grimm said. “While stowed, each electrode is surrounded by a ‘yarn ball’ of cable, so the assembly is roughly spherical and the size of a softball.”

The LMS payload is funded for lunar delivery through NASA’s CLPS initiative. SwRI designed the instrument, developed the electronics box, and leads the scientific investigation. Contributions to the LMS include a magnetometer from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, which measures magnetic fields, and a magnetometer mast with four electrodes provided by Heliospace Corp. to measure electrical fields.

The CLPS initiative represents NASA’s investment in commercial lunar delivery services to foster industry growth and support sustainable lunar exploration. As the primary customer for CLPS missions, NASA envisions becoming one of many customers on future flights. The agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, oversees the development of seven out of ten CLPS payloads aboard Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lunar lander.

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