Although the moon is a relatively primitive body geologically,
its arrested development provides insights into the early evolution
of other rocky bodies like Venus, Earth, and Mars
The Lunar Magnetotelluric
Sounder is a geophysical instrument designed to probe the moon's deep interior
and provide new information
on the structure and geological evolution of our companion world.
signals that we're looking at from the solar wind
and the Earth's magnetosphere have frequencies that are way below
what you might be familiar with as radio waves.
These signals take minutes or even hours to complete a single cycle.
The benefit of these
very low frequency signals is that they penetrate deeply into the moon,
This allows us to determine
the temperature and composition of the interior of the moon.
The magnetic fields are measured by a magnetometer
The electric fields are measured between four probes
that are deployed at 90 degree angles around the lander.
LMS will be among the first
geophysical measurements to assess interior properties of the moon
Since Apollo. LMS is both simpler to operate
and has better performance than these Apollo era experiments, Its demonstration
paves the way for an even better version on a later CLPS mission,
as well as opportunities for other worlds, including Mars.
Our team at Southwest Research Institute, Heliospace Corporation,
and NASA Goddard all contributed
to this first extraterrestrial magneto measurement.
Commercial Lunar Payload Services NASA and American companies working together.