Lunar Polar Orbiter considered for 1980
DOI: 10.1063/1.3023893
Another lunar mission is being studied at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the first US lunar mission since Apollo 17 in 1972. This one, to be launched in 1980, would be unmanned. It would consist of an instrumented polar‐orbiting spacecraft (at an altitude of 100 kilometers) and a smaller companion subsatellite (at an altitude of 5000 km), which would serve to track the orbiter for gravity sensing when it is hidden from the Earth by the Moon. The ensemble would be launched by a single Delta launch vehicle. The spacecraft would orbit the moon for one year, examining the Moon’s surface with a variety of instruments. These would measure lunar gravity, shape, magnetism and heat flow, and allow the determination of the chemical and mineral composition of the Moon’s surface.
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