Instruments
LADEE carries three science instruments and a technology demonstration.
The science payload consists of:
- Neutral Mass Spectrometer (NMS), which will perform in situ measurements of exospheric species. The instrument has heritage from the SAM instrument on MSL.
- UV-Vis Spectrometer (UVS), which will measure both the dust and atmosphere. The instrument has heritage from the UV-Vis spectrometer on the LCROSS mission.
- Lunar Dust EXperiment (LDEX), which will directly measure dust. The instrument has heritage from instruments on Galileo, Ulysses and Cassini.
The technology demonstration is for optical communication. The Lunar Laser Com Demo (LLCD) will test a new method of communicating with spacecraft that will dramatically increase the rate of data return.
Read more about this topic: Lunar Atmosphere And Dust Environment Explorer
Famous quotes containing the word instruments:
“Water, earth, air, fire, and the other parts of this structure of mine are no more instruments of your life than instruments of your death. Why do you fear your last day? It contributes no more to your death than each of the others. The last step does not cause the fatigue, but reveals it. All days travel toward death, the last one reaches it.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
“But when to mischiefmortals bend their will,
How soon they find fit instruments of ill!”
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744)
“Whilst Marx turned the Hegelian dialectic outwards, making it an instrument with which he could interpret the facts of history and so arrive at an objective science which insists on the translation of theory into action, Kierkegaard, on the other hand, turned the same instruments inwards, for the examination of his own soul or psychology, arriving at a subjective philosophy which involved him in the deepest pessimism and despair of action.”
—Sir Herbert Read (1893–1968)