NASA will launch Lunar Flashlight, an eco-fueled device to search for water on the Moon

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has been studying the Moon not only as part of the Artemis program worth more than $90 billion.

Here's What We Know

The federal agency will send a device called the Lunar Flashlight into space. This is a small-sized device, which is intended to search for water on the natural satellite of our planet. For this purpose, it is equipped with lasers that emit infrared light.

Lunar Flashlight will be launched on November 30. The device will be launched into a halo orbit to save fuel, in which the experts were limited due to the compact size of the satellite. The maximum distance between the Moon and Lunar Flashlight will be 70,000 km, and the minimum - 15 km.

It is at an altitude of 15 km Lunar Flashlight will be located above the South Pole, where, as scientists believe, the largest deposits of ice. Another feature of the device is that it will be the first spacecraft using a new type of environmentally friendly fuel. And its testing is no less important than the search for ice.

As we have already written, the Lunar Flashlight is equipped with lasers. The regolith will reflect infrared light and the ice will absorb it. The stronger the absorption, the more ice is on the surface of the moon. Representatives of the space agency say that this method of finding ice on the Moon will be used for the first time.

Source: phys.org