Activity
1. Invite the children to share what they know about the LRO Mission.
- What is the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter? What will it orbit and for how long? The LRO is a NASA spacecraft that will orbit the Moon for about a year.
- What kinds of information will the LRO collect for scientists? Measurements of temperature and radiation from the Sun, maps of resources like types of rocks and water ice, maps and pictures of the lunar surface and its features..
- Why does NASA want to collect more information about the Moon? NASA plans to send humans to the Moon for extended stays at Lunar Outposts around 2018. LRO will provide important information about where certain resources — like water ice and elements in rocks — exist, where the surface is safe for landing and building, and where scientific questions about the Moon’s formation and changes can best be studied. All of these activities will prepare future astronauts — the children in your program! - to explore Mars and beyond.
- How old will the children be when the LRO launches? For the first planned base on the Moon? Do any of the children want to be part of the next team of lunar explorers? What do they want to do?
2. Share with the children the artist’s drawings of the LRO spacecraft and the instrument list. What do the instruments do?
3. Invite the children to use their imaginations to build an LRO spacecraft using the materials you provide.
- What are things they might want to consider? The instruments need to have a clear “view” of the lunar surface. The same side of the orbiter will face the Moon; instruments will be on one part of the orbiter body — making it pretty crowded! Scientists and engineers have to design instruments to be very compact and as light as possible; the amount of weight a rocket can lift into space is limited. The orbiter will need to communicate its findings back to Earth some way.
- Why were these particular instruments selected? Many instruments were proposed by different teams of scientists and engineers, but not all could be selected because the spacecraft has a limited amount of space for the instruments to be mounted, it can carry only a certain weight, and there is a limited budget for developing the instruments. There is always a balance between what scientists would like to test and what is possible. These specific instruments were selected to help scientists and engineers meet the objectives of the mission — to characterize the lunar surface and environment to prepare for future human missions. Some are new, like LAMP, and some, like LOLA, build on successful technology used on other spacecraft They provide scientists and engineers with information that is not available, or with more detailed information that has been collected in earlier missions.
The different instruments are designed, tested, and assembled by different teams. Ultimately, they will all be mounted on the LRO spacecraft. The teams have to be in communication with each other and with the team building the spacecraft to ensure that the instruments are the right weight, fit correctly together in the space available, and will collect measurements properly.
In Conclusion
When they are finished, ask the children to share their creations and point out the different instruments. Can the children recall the different instruments and their purpose?
Invite the children to eat their edible LRO spacecrafts — or to take the non-edible spacecraft home!
