Lunar and Planetary Institute






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Image of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter


Activity at a Glance
Building an LRO

Purpose
To introduce the children to NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Mission and provide them with an overview of the types of science instruments that will be aboard and the information these instruments will collect.


Overview
The activity is presented in an edible and a non-edible form. Children use their imaginations to create a Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and its instruments from food or craft items.

Concepts

  • NASA will send a reconnaissance orbiter, the LRO, to the Moon in 2008
  • The LRO is a science mission that will collect data using a suite of high-tech instruments to determine the location of resources and the best site for landing subsequent missions and bases

Age Level
This activity is primarily intended for children ages 6–11

Time
30 minutes

Materials
For the group:

  • Poster paper
  • Markers
  • LRO images
  • Overhead projector
  • Butcher paper

For each child:

Edible Version

  • Toothpicks
  • Small containers of marshmallow crème
  • Spoons
  • Candy, cookies, and crackers of varying shapes and sizes, including:

    For the LRO Spacecraft: Pinwheel cookies or cupcakes for the module, and graham crackers or sugar wafers for the solar panels

    For the LRO Instruments: Gumdrops, red hots, candy corn, peppermints, after dinner mints, licorice sticks, tootsie rolls,  graham crackers, sugar wafers, Pirouette cookies, pretzels, oyster crackers, marshmallows, Chex mix or cereal, etc. (use your imagination!)

Non-Edible Version

  • Craft items including:

    For the LRO Spacecraft: Pint size milk container, coffee can, soup cans, or other object

    For the LRO Instruments: Craft items such as straws, pencil top erasers, beads of various sizes, wooden spools, foil cupcake holders, screen, wooden miniatures, buttons, bottle caps, etc.

  • Tape
  • Glue
  • Velcro dots
  • Aluminum foil

Correlations to National Standards

Unifying Concepts and Processes (Grades K–12)

Evidence, Models, and Explanation

  • Models are tentative schemes or structures that correspond to real objects, events, or classes of events, and that have explanatory power. Models help scientists and engineers understand how things work. Models take many forms, including physical objects, plans, mental constructs, mathematical equations, and computer simulations.

Earth and Space Science – Content Standard D (Grades K–4)

Objects in the Sky

  • The Moon has properties, movements, and a location that can be observed and describe

Science and Technology — Content Standard E (Grades K–4)

Understandings About Science and Technology

  • Scientists and engineers often work in teams with different individuals doing different things that contribute to the results. This understanding focuses primarily on teams working together and secondarily, on the combination of scientist and engineer teams.
  • Tools help scientists make better observations, measurements, and equipment for investigations. They help scientists see, measure, and do things that they could not otherwise see, measure, and do.
  • Scientists and engineers often work in teams with different individuals doing different things that contribute to the results. This understanding focuses primarily on teams working together, and secondarily on the combination of scientist and engineer teams.

Grades 5–8

  • Science and technology are reciprocal. Science helps drive technology as it addresses questions that demand more sophisticated instruments and provides principles for better instrumentation and techniques
  • Perfectly designed solutions do not exist. All solutions have trade-offs such as safety, cost, efficiency, and appearance.
  • Technological solutions have intended benefits.

Activity
Building an LRO

Before You Start

  • Cover work tables with butcher paper
  • Print overhead transparencies of the LRO spacecraft images
  • Review with the children what they have learned about the LRO in the puppet show or song:
    • What is the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter? What will it orbit and for how long? (The LRO is a craft that will be sent by NASA to orbit the Moon for about a year and collect information)
    • What kinds of information will the LRO collect for scientists? (Measurements of temperature and radiation from the Sun, maps of rock types, maps and pictures of features, where water may exist)
    • Why does NASA want to collect more information about the Moon? (NASA plans to send humans to the Moon around 2018 to build bases. LRO will provide important information about where certain resources — like water 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 to explore Mars and other planets.)
    • 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?

Building an LRO
Share with the children NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter — LRO — Mission, highlighting the instruments that will be on board and the science information the instruments will collect.

List the orbiter components and instruments and their main purpose on poster paper as you discuss them with the children.

The LRO will launch in 2008, thrust into orbit aboard a Delta rocket. The LRO will spend a year — maybe more! — orbiting the Moon. It will collect scientific data to help scientists and engineers better understand the Moon’s features and environment, and will ultimately help them determine the best locations for future human missions and bases.  

The information returned by LRO adds to information collected during earlier missions. Some of these missions returned data that caused scientists to come up with more questions — questions they hope to solve with new instruments. Some of the instruments — like LAMP - use new technology, not available during the earlier missions. Other LRO instruments — like LOLA — use components of technology that have been used on other spacecraft. 

The different instruments are designed, tested, and assembled by different teams of engineers and scientists. Ultimately, they will all be mounted on the LRO spacecraft.  The different teams have to be in communication with each other and with the spacecraft team to ensure that the instruments are the right weight, fit correctly together in the space available, and will collect measurements properly.

Invite the children to build an LRO from either the edible or non-edible parts — and to let their imaginations go wild!  Their LROs should have an orbiter body and components and as many of the different instruments as they can create. 

    • 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 instruments could be selected because the spacecraft has a limited amount of space where instruments can be mounted, it can carry only a limited amount of weight, and there is a limited budget for developing the instrument packages. There is always a balance between what scientists would like to test and what is realistic. 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. They provide scientists and engineers with information that is not available, or with more detailed information that has been collected in earlier missions.)

When they are finished, ask them to share their creations and point out the different instruments.

    • Can the children recall the instrument names? The parts of the orbiter? Their purpose?

Share the images of the LRO spacecraft with the children. Each of these images is an artist’s drawing of what the LRO could look like — the design has changed through time. The final design will be determined soon. Do the LRO pictures look like what the children designed?  Maybe the final LRO spacecraft will!

Invite the children to eat their edible LRO spacecrafts —
or to take the non-edible spacecraft home!



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Last updated
June 16, 2006