The Lunar Dust Experiment (LDEX) as a CubeSat payload on polar orbit around the Moon

The Lunar Dust Experiment (LDEX) onboard the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) mission orbited near the lunar equator for about 6 months (9/2013 - 4/2014) and discovered a permanently present dust exosphere engulfing the Moon, comprised of particles ejected from the surface by the continual micrometeoroid bombardment.  Re-flying LDEX on a polar orbit enables mapping the dust ejecta production over the entire lunar surface and improves our understanding of volatile retaining in permanently shadowed regions (PSR) and their potential for in-situ resource utilization (ISRU). The CU/LASP internally funded project is for developing a flight concept to adopt our existing LDEX Engineering Model (EM) to be accommodated onboard a CubeSat for a future flight opportunity. The LDEX EM is a fully functional instrument with a high technical readiness level (TRL 9). This CubeSat precursor will justify flying a follow-up larger mission with a more advanced dust instrument capable of in situ compositional and isotopic analysis based on impact ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry. LASP instruments, like the Surface Dust Analyzer (SUDA) onboard the Europa Clipper mission launched in 2024, and the Interstellar Dust Experiment (IDEX) onboard the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) to be launched in 2025, could be used for an on-orbit exploration of the volatile content of PSRs.  This talk will summarize the LADEE/LDEX findings and the new CubeSat project, including the anticipated results from the proposed CubeSat polar mission.