: LAMP

+ Official LAMP web site

Principal Investigator for LAMP : Randy Gladstone (acting)
Space Science and Engineering Division, Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, TX 78228 ; 210-522-3581

Goals

Reflected Lyman-alpha sky-glow and starlight produce sufficient signal for even a small UV instrument like LAMP to see in the Moon's permanently shadowed regions. The LAMP investigation offers to exploit this to: (i) spectrally identify the locations of any exposed water-ice deposits in the Moon's PSRs, (ii) directly map even the darkest PSRs, and (iii) demonstrate the feasibility of low-light starlight/sky-glow vision applications for operational use on future landed missions. LAMP is a low-risk, high-heritage investigation based on a rebuild of an existing instrument. LAMP offers to enhance the exploration and science value of LRO by (i) addressing LRO-AO measurement objectives, (ii) testing a novel polar/night vision system for future robotic and human landed missions, and (iii) collecting lunar atmospheric science datasets that LRO would not otherwise obtain.

Measurement Objectives include:

+ Identify and localize exposed water frost in Permanently Shadowed Regions (PSRs).
+ Collect landform-scale mapping in all PSRs.
+ Demonstrate the feasibility of natural starlight and sky-glow illumination for future missions.
+ (Supplemental) Assay the lunar atmosphere and its variability.

Image Above : The LAMP instrument is an imaging UV spectrometer
with the capability to achieve LAMP's Group 1 and 2 investigation objectives.