Russia provides a neutron detector vital to LRO's primary mission...The Russian Institute of Space Research recently passed on the flight model of the LEND device to NASA Goddard.
LEND for "Lunar Exploration Neutron Detector," will be installed on LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter), and is expected to study analyze neutrons on the Moon's surface, in a more advanced version of the device used on Lunar Prospector in 1999 which first whiffed the signature hydrogen isotopes indicating a possibility of water near the lunar poles.
Scientists expect LEND to help determine, once and for all, if fossil water, perhaps the fortuitous remnant of cometary bombardment, is present in "cold traps," the abyssal craters, near the Moon's poles.
LEND will measure lunar neutron albedo with spatial resolution up to 5 kilometers Visible from neutron collimation from the lunar surface.
LEND for "Lunar Exploration Neutron Detector," will be installed on LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter), and is expected to study analyze neutrons on the Moon's surface, in a more advanced version of the device used on Lunar Prospector in 1999 which first whiffed the signature hydrogen isotopes indicating a possibility of water near the lunar poles.
Scientists expect LEND to help determine, once and for all, if fossil water, perhaps the fortuitous remnant of cometary bombardment, is present in "cold traps," the abyssal craters, near the Moon's poles.
LEND will measure lunar neutron albedo with spatial resolution up to 5 kilometers Visible from neutron collimation from the lunar surface.
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