LunaH-Map (SIMPLEx 1)

LunaH-Map [Arizona State University]

LunaH-Map (Lunar Polar Hydrogen Mapper) is 6U-Cubesat mission to map lunar near-surface hydrogen (H).

Lunar polar Hydrogen Mapper (LunaH-Map) is a 6U cubesat that was to enter a polar orbit around the Moon with a low altitude (5 - 12 km) perilune centered on the lunar South Pole.

LunaH-Map was to:

• map H within permanently shadowed craters to determine its spatial distribution;
• map H distributions with depth (< 1 meter); and
• map the distribution of H in other permanently shadowed regions (PSRs) throughout the South Pole.

LunaH-Map carried two neutron spectrometers that were to produce maps of near-surface hydrogen (H) at unprecedented spatial scales (~7.5 km/pixel).

LunaH-Map CubeSat was developed at Arizona State University, utilizing the facilities in the Space and Terrestrial Robotic Exploration (SpaceTREx) Laboratory at Arizona State University in partnership with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and a variety of other commercial providers supplying space-qualified hardware. Onboard propulsion was to provide δV sufficient for lunar orbit insertion (LOI), all orbital maneuvers and station keeping throughout the science phase of the mission. Solar panels were to generate 30 W of power. Attitude control consists of a set of 3-axis Sinclair reaction wheels. Communications used IRIS 3 X-band of MarCO heritage combined with Doppler for spacecraft tracking. LunaH-Map also included a wide-angle engineering camera system for outreach and non-essential engineering images.

LunaH-Map is one of 10 cubesats carried with the Artemis 1 (Orion CM-002) mission into a heliocentric orbit in cis-lunar space on the maiden flight of the SLS (Block 1) iCPS launch vehicle in November 2022.

After launch the satellite communicated, but the propulsion system failed, leaving it stranded in transfer orbit.