HIGH ALTITUDE TESTING OF LUNASAT FUNCTION AND SURVIVABILITY FOR THE GREAT LUNAR EXPEDITION FOR EVERYONE

The aim of CU Boulder’s High Altitude Student Payload (HASP) team WhenBuffsFly is to aid in The Great Lunar Expedition for Everyone (GLEE) mission by raising their Technology Readiness Level (TRL) from level four to level five. The GLEE mission will deploy multiple solar powered 5 cm x 5 cm sensing boards, called LunaSats, over approximately 150 square meters on the Lunar surface. Using a radio mesh network, each LunaSat will autonomously record and transmit thermal, magnetic, acceleration, and regolith capacitance data over 6 Lunar hours (approximately one Earth week). HASP provides a long duration flight in a near-space environment, aiding in testing the efficiency of these LunaSats for up to twenty-four hours.

HASP has contributed to GLEE by its integration and findings from the sensors, which demonstrate a new form of distributed data collection. The LunaSat testing compares solar powered operations versus wired power from the HASP platform. During flight, temperature changes were monitored in an array and compared with the LunaSats’ sensors with an external sensor for temperature. Moreover, communications using radio frequency with three pairs of LunaSats were tested. HASP has helped in the current state of the GLEE project and has identified GLEE’s scientific potential, including hardware testing results, LunaSat technical specifications, and open questions in the field that HASP may help address in relation to GLEE. The HASP test results inform the GLEE mission to improve the capability of LunaSats for the lunar operational environment. For example, GLEE’s LunaSat team is having difficulties with the temperature sensor’s productivity, so the data HASP gathers helps to find the source of their sensor error. This testing fortifies our current methods of determining the best sensors for our lunar science objectives. This is just one of the many ways HASP’s integration with GLEE helps raise their TRL and become ready for flight and lunar deployment.