Lunar Landing
In its 40 year history, the university-based Mullard Space Science Laboratory has contributed to 250 rocket and satellite projects and worked with all the major space agencies around the world. Highlights include Giotto, the European probe that encountered Comet Halley in 1986, and the NASA/ESA Cassini probe, which is now returning spectacular data from Saturn and its moons. Their latest mission, called MoonLITE, is a lunar rocket scheduled to launch in 2013.

There are many scientific reasons for exploring the Moon, such as the possible existence of water. And studying the Moon’s structure may unlock the secrets of how the Earth and Moon were formed by an enormous impact about four-and-a-half billion years ago.

Technical Challenges
Professor Alan Smith, MoonLITE’s project leader at MSSL describes its inception, ‘we were looking at ‘penetrators’, which are high velocity impactors, instrumented probes for planetary exploration. We formed the UK Penetrator Consortium to bring forward the technology. The UK has a lot of experience in high impact technology. We had the idea of a lunar mission and simultaneously the Research Council wanted a high profile UK focus for its Space Program.’

The penetrators look like missiles. They are cylinders with a sharp nose and are full of batteries and scientific instruments that will transmit information. Smith explains, ‘One of the challenges is making it rugged enough, the other is operating the penetrator for a year below the lunar surface with very low power consumption and in extreme cold. We can do it, but it's going to take a bit of work. The actual penetration into the soil is actually the least of our worries because there is so much experience in the defence sector.

US Joins ‘Phase A’
The MoonLITE concept has been gathering momentum. The US has joined in what is called the Phase A, the technical development and testing part of the mission. Professor Smith’s enthusiasm is catching, ‘I'm always excited about new technology. I was brought up on Apollo. It’s part of how I came into space science. There’s a sense that Apollo scientifically never finished the job. I would like this to finish what Apollo started. To put something on the surface of the Moon and measure really interesting scientific stuff is very exciting’