NASA’s Arcstone instrument, designed to improve the accuracy of lunar calibration, successfully completed its technology demonstration, and now begins extended operations.
Arcstone launched on June 23 on a SpaceX Transporter-14 from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, on a six-month mission to measure light reflected by the Moon, which is a stable and potentially highly-accurate calibration source, for satellite sensors.
The mission, led by NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, uses a specially designed spectrometer system and is the first on-orbit instrument solely dedicated to improving the accuracy of lunar calibration. Measurements of sunlight reflected off the Moon are the first step in creating a new lunar model for the calibration of Earth-orbiting sensors — including those that map the surface of the Earth for commercial, scientific, and consumer use, such as the maps on cellphones.
“Since Arcstone is gathering measurements in space, the data it collects does not contain atmospheric effects that increase error, and operations are not dependent on having good weather,” said Cindy Young, principal investigator for the mission. “This helps us acquire consistent and frequent lunar sampling.”
Young added that Arcstone has already collected more than 240 lunar observations and has successfully demonstrated the measurement concept on-orbit.
Next steps for the science team include processing and validating the raw data to assess accuracy.
The Arcstone technology demonstration is a low-cost mission funded by NASA’s Earth Science Technology Office’s In-space Validation of Earth Science Technologies Program. Partners include the University of Colorado Boulder’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, the U.S. Geological Survey, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, Resonon Inc., Blue Canyon Technologies, and Quartus Engineering.
For more information on NASA’s Arcstone mission, visit:
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/arcstone/
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