NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) has confirmed, for the first time, water on the sunlit surface of the Moon. This discovery indicates that water may be distributed across the lunar surface, and not limited to cold, shadowed places.

SOFIA has detected water molecules (H2O) in Clavius Crater, one of the largest craters visible from Earth, located in the Moon’s southern hemisphere. Previous observations of the Moon’s surface detected some form of hydrogen, but were unable to distinguish between water and its close chemical relative, hydroxyl (OH). Data from this location reveal water in concentrations of 100 to 412 parts per million – roughly equivalent to a 12-ounce bottle of water – trapped in a cubic meter of soil spread across the lunar surface. The results are published in the latest issue of Nature Astronomy.

“We had indications that H2O – the familiar water we know – might be present on the sunlit side of the Moon,” said Paul Hertz, director of the Astrophysics Division in the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Now we know it is there. This discovery challenges our understanding of the lunar surface and raises intriguing questions about resources relevant for deep space exploration.”

As a comparison, the Sahara desert has 100 times the amount of water than what SOFIA detected in the lunar soil. Despite the small amounts, the discovery raises new questions about how water is created and how it persists on the harsh, airless lunar surface.

Water is a precious resource in deep space and a key ingredient of life as we know it. Whether the water SOFIA found is easily accessible for use as a resource remains to be determined. Under NASA’s Artemis program, the agency is eager to learn all it can about the presence of water on the Moon in advance of sending the first woman and next man to the lunar surface in 2024 and establishing a sustainable human presence there by the end of the decade.

SOFIA’s results build on years of previous research examining the presence of water on the Moon. When the Apollo astronauts first returned from the Moon in 1969, it was thought to be completely dry. Orbital and impactor missions over the past 20 years, such as NASA’s Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, confirmed ice in permanently shadowed craters around the Moon’s poles. Meanwhile, several spacecraft – including the Cassini mission and Deep Impact comet mission, as well as the Indian Space Research Organization’s Chandrayaan-1 mission – and NASA’s ground-based Infrared Telescope Facility, looked broadly across the lunar surface and found evidence of hydration in sunnier regions. Yet those missions were unable to definitively distinguish the form in which it was present – either H2O or OH.

“Prior to the SOFIA observations, we knew there was some kind of hydration,” said Casey Honniball, the lead author who published the results from her graduate thesis work at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa in Honolulu. “But we didn’t know how much, if any, was actually water molecules – like we drink every day – or something more like drain cleaner.”

SOFIA offered a new means of looking at the Moon. Flying at altitudes of up to 45,000 feet, this modified Boeing 747SP jetliner with a 106-inch diameter telescope reaches above 99% of the water vapor in Earth’s atmosphere to get a clearer view of the infrared universe. Using its Faint Object infraRed CAmera for the SOFIA Telescope (FORCAST), SOFIA was able to pick up the specific wavelength unique to water molecules, at 6.1 microns, and discovered a relatively surprising concentration in sunny Clavius Crater.

“Without a thick atmosphere, water on the sunlit lunar surface should just be lost to space,” said Honniball, who is now a postdoctoral fellow at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “Yet somehow we’re seeing it. Something is generating the water, and something must be trapping it there.”

Several forces could be at play in the delivery or creation of this water. Micrometeorites raining down on the lunar surface, carrying small amounts of water, could deposit the water on the lunar surface upon impact. Another possibility is there could be a two-step process whereby the Sun’s solar wind delivers hydrogen to the lunar surface and causes a chemical reaction with oxygen-bearing minerals in the soil to create hydroxyl. Meanwhile, radiation from the bombardment of micrometeorites could be transforming that hydroxyl into water.

How the water then gets stored – making it possible to accumulate – also raises some intriguing questions. The water could be trapped into tiny beadlike structures in the soil that form out of the high heat created by micrometeorite impacts. Another possibility is that the water could be hidden between grains of lunar soil and sheltered from the sunlight – potentially making it a bit more accessible than water trapped in beadlike structures.

For a mission designed to look at distant, dim objects such as black holes, star clusters, and galaxies, SOFIA’s spotlight on Earth’s nearest and brightest neighbor was a departure from business as usual. The telescope operators typically use a guide camera to track stars, keeping the telescope locked steadily on its observing target. But the Moon is so close and bright that it fills the guide camera’s entire field of view. With no stars visible, it was unclear if the telescope could reliably track the Moon. To determine this, in August 2018, the operators decided to try a test observation.

“It was, in fact, the first time SOFIA has looked at the Moon, and we weren’t even completely sure if we would get reliable data, but questions about the Moon’s water compelled us to try,” said Naseem Rangwala, SOFIA’s project scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley. “It’s incredible that this discovery came out of what was essentially a test, and now that we know we can do this, we’re planning more flights to do more observations.”

SOFIA’s follow-up flights will look for water in additional sunlit locations and during different lunar phases to learn more about how the water is produced, stored, and moved across the Moon. The data will add to the work of future Moon missions, such as NASA’s Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER), to create the first water resource maps of the Moon for future human space exploration.

In the same issue of Nature Astronomy, scientists have published a paper using theoretical models and NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter data, pointing out that water could be trapped in small shadows, where temperatures stay below freezing, across more of the Moon than currently expected. The results can be found here.

“Water is a valuable resource, for both scientific purposes and for use by our explorers,” said Jacob Bleacher, chief exploration scientist for NASA’s Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate. “If we can use the resources at the Moon, then we can carry less water and more equipment to help enable new scientific discoveries.”

SOFIA is a joint project of NASA and the German Aerospace Center. Ames manages the SOFIA program, science, and mission operations in cooperation with the Universities Space Research Association, headquartered in Columbia, Maryland, and the German SOFIA Institute at the University of Stuttgart. The aircraft is maintained and operated by NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center Building 703, in Palmdale, California.

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The post NASA’s SOFIA Discovers Water on Sunlit Surface of Moon, October 26, 2020 first appeared on The Black Vault.

According to the summary of the memorandum:

“Three unmanned lunar launchings this year, together with other new evidence and further analysis, clearly indicate a continuing strong Soviet interest in lunar exploration. We still cannot state conclusively, however, that the Soviets are in a race with the US for a manned lunar landing. On balance, we have no basis for changing our earlier estimate that the chances are better than even that the Soviets will seek to accomplish a manned lunar landing ahead of or in close competition with the US. It remains possible nevertheless, that Soviet lunar objectives are less ambitious.”

Previously, this document was released before, with heavy redactions in paragraph 12. The original release was sent to the National Security Archive.  In March of 2019, The Black Vault requested a Mandatory Declassification Review (MDR) request to the CIA for a review of the record. Below, is the result.

Document Archive

Soviet Intentions Concerning Manned Lunar Landing, 25 April 1963 [12 Pages, 4.2MB]

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The post Soviet Intentions Concerning Manned Lunar Landing, 25 April 1963 first appeared on The Black Vault.

The Lunex Project was a US Air Force 1958 plan for a crewed lunar landing prior to the Apollo Program. The final lunar expedition plan in 1961 was for a 21-person underground Air Force base on the Moon by 1968 at a total cost of $7.5 billion. The primary distinction between the later Apollo missions and Lunex was the orbital rendezvous maneuver. The Lunex vehicle, composed of a landing module and a lifting body return/re-entry module, would land the entire vehicle and all astronauts on the surface, whereas the final Apollo mission involved a separate ascent module leaving the command module and service module connected in lunar orbit with a single astronaut. The original plan for Apollo was for direct ascent, similar to Lunex.

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Lunar Expedition Plan, LUNEX, May 1961 [227 Pages, 9.5MB]

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The post The Lunex Project, Air Force Lunar Landing Project, 1958-1961 first appeared on The Black Vault.

 SAMOS To The Moon: The Clandestine Transfer of Reconnaissance Technology Between Federal Agencies, October 2001 [8 Pages, 1.71MB] – Among those who share a passing interest in the history of astronautics, two popular myths remain in vogue. The first contends that the U.S. Air Force, which began American work on reconnaissance satellites with the SAMOS Project failed in the late 1950s in its efforts to create a near real time film imaging system. Second. and entirely dependent on the first axiom. . the electro-optical imaging system developed later by the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) represents the first application of near real time satellite imaging. The actual story, as you might suppose at this point, is rather different.

https://documents.theblackvault.com/documents/spysatellites/foia-samos.pdf

The post SAMOS – Satellite and Missile Observation System first appeared on The Black Vault.

Project Horizon was a 1959 study to determine the feasibility of constructing a scientific / military base on the Moon. During this time, the U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force had responsibility for the U.S. space program.

On 8 June, 1959, a group at the Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA) produced for the U.S. Department of the Army a report entitled Project Horizon, A U.S. Army Study for the Establishment of a Lunar Military Outpost. Some reasons cited were military and scientific advantages over other nations. The program would also assure demand for the rockets ABMA was designing.

According to the documents:

“The lunar outpost is required to develop and protect potential United States interests on the moon; to develop techniques in moon-based surveillance of the earth and space, in communications relay, and in operations on the surface of the moon; to serve as a base for exploration of the moon, for further exploration into space and for military operations on the moon if required; and to support scientific investigations on the moon.”

Below you will find the documents obtained about the plans.

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 Project Horizon – Volume 1 Summary and Supporting Considerations [57 Pages]

 Project Horizon – Volume 2 Technical Considerations and plans [323 Pages]

The post Project Horizon first appeared on The Black Vault.

Below are declassified and released records regarding the Space Race.

 The Deadlock of the Space Race, 27 May 1993 [82 Pages, 16.5mb]

 Five Years of Soviet Space Investigation [29 Pages, 12.23mb]

 Launch on Demand [48 Pages, 3mb]

 Proceeding of Meeting on Problems and Techniques Associated with the Decontamination and Sterilization of Spacecraft, June 29, 1960 [60 Pages, 18.48MB] – A meeting was held of representatives of agencies concerned with the development of space vehicles and those investigating decontamination and sterilization procedures. Recommendations resulting from the deliberations include: (1) a body of related information be accumulated, (2) standard operating procedures be established, (3) acceptable limits of contamination be determined, (4) NASA policy be clarified, (5) new sterilizing agents be developed, (6) compatibility studies be pursued, (7) sterile manufacture of parts be investigated, and (8) a working level group should be formed to implement recommendations and procedures.

 Space Race and the 1930s [33 Pages, 4.9mb]

 Surface Characteristics of the Moon, Mars, and Venus, March 1965 [90 Pages, 2.3MB] – Report on Surveys of Soviet-Bloc Scientific and Technical Literature.

 Ten Steps Into Space, December 1956 [214 Pages, 18.9mb]

 The New Space Race [57 Pages, 12.3mb]

The post The Space Race first appeared on The Black Vault.

Project A119, also known as “A Study of Lunar Research Flights”, was a top-secret plan developed in 1958 by the United States Air Force. The aim of the project was to detonate a nuclear bomb on the Moon which would help in answering some of the mysteries in planetary astronomy and astrogeology, and had the explosive device not entered into a lunar crater, the flash of explosive light would have been faintly visible to people on earth with their naked eye, a show of force resulting in a possible boosting of domestic morale in the capabilities of the United States, a boost that was needed after the Soviet Union took an early lead in the Space Race and who were also working on a similar project.

Neither the Soviet nor the US Project A119 were ever carried out, being cancelled primarily out of a fear of a negative public reaction, with the potential militarization of space that it would also have signified, and because a moon landing would undoubtedly be a more popular achievement in the eyes of the American and international public alike.

The existence of the US project was revealed in 2000 by a former executive at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Leonard Reiffel, who led the project in 1958. A young Carl Sagan was part of the team responsible for predicting the effects of a nuclear explosion in low gravity and in evaluating the scientific value of the project. The project documents remained secret for nearly 45 years, and despite Reiffel’s revelations, the United States government has never officially recognized its involvement in the study. (Source: Wikipedia)

Below are the documents that have been released on Project A119:

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 A STUDY OF LUNAR RESEARCH FLIGHTS, VOLUME I [190 Pages, 5.9MB] – Nuclear detonations in the vicinity of the moon are considered in this report along with scientific information which might be obtained from such explosions. The military aspect is aided by investigation of space environment, detection of nuclear device testing, and capability of weapons in space. A study was conducted of various theories of the moon’s structure and origin, and a description of the probable nature of the lunar surface is given. The areas discussed in some detail are optical lunar studies, seismic observations, lunar surface and magnetic fields, plasma and magnetic field effects, and organic matter on the moon.

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