The Federal Space Program of Russia for 2016-2025 provides for the launch of the Luna-26 automatic interplanetary station in 2024, intended for remote studies of the surface of the natural satellite of the Earth with an near-cloud polar orbit. Among the tasks of the station – mapping of mineralogical composition and mapping of water ice distribution on the moon.
Intelligence and definition of the properties of lunar resources, as well as evaluation and control of activities on the Moon of foreign public and private spacecraft will become important tasks for the long-term Russian research program and the development of the “Neighborhood” of the Earth. One of the methods of their implementation is the monitoring of the lunar surface in the infrared range.
Central Research Institute of Mechanical Engineering (TsNIIMASH, enters the state corporation “Roskosmos”) developed proposals for the experiment to determine the properties of objects on the surface of the moon with low reflectivity and sizes of the order of several centimeters using the optical-electronic equipment of the infrared range on cosmic The apparatus with an incense orbit with a height of 50-100 km. The distance determination of the temperature, the degree of blackness and size of objects will allow preliminary conclusions about their mineralogical composition, density and mass.
Such equipment can be installed on the following “LUNO-26” lunar orbital machine.
According to Russian scientists, promising areas for infrared observations are lunar crater (for example, Shekletton and de Gerls) with a strong height difference and a favorable range of the surface temperatures of the moon.
based on TsNIIMASH