Advancing Planetary Defense with ESA’s Lunar Meteoroid Impact Observer (LUMIO) Mission

The European Space Agency (ESA)’s Lunar Meteoroid Impact Observer (LUMIO), led by Politecnico di Milano and supported by the Italian Space Agency (ASI), the Norwegian Space Agency (NOSA), United Kingdom Space Agency (UKSA), and Swedish National Space Agency (SNSA), is a 12U CubeSat designed to monitor Lunar Impact Flashes (LIFs) from a quasi-halo orbit around the Earth-Moon L2 point. Scheduled for launch in 2027, LUMIO employs the LUMIO-Cam, a highly sensitive optical instrument acquiring image data in two channels, one in the visible, the other one in the near-infrared spectral range, to observe meteoroid impacts on the Moon’s far side—an area inaccessible to Earth-based observations. LUMIO’s mission will improve our understanding of meteoroid populations, focusing on impactors in the millimeter to decimeter size range. By providing temporal and spatial data on lunar impacts, LUMIO will refine meteoroid flux models critical for planetary defense and space exploration safety. The mission’s synergy with NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) will enable precise crater identification and validation of impact models. Additionally, LUMIO may observe asteroid Apophis during its 2029 flyby, providing a unique opportunity to study the interactions of potentially hazardous objects with the Earth-Moon system. This will present recent advancements in modeling the meteoroid environment and progress in LUMIO’s payload development, showcasing the mission’s potential to advance planetary defense through innovative CubeSat technology.