Scientific Seminars

LuSEE-Night: a Pathfinder Radio Telescope on the Far Side of the Moon

Anze Slosar
Brookhaven National Laboratory

2024-03-11    13:30    Dip. di Fisica, UNIMI, Via Celoria - Aula Caldirola

LuSEE-Night is a novel collaborative effort between NASA and DOE aiming to land a path-finder radio telescope on the far side of the Moon. The instrument consists of 4 monopole antennas and will observe the radio sky between 0.1Mhz and 50MHz. This observational band is largely inaccessible from the Earth due to ionosphere and radio interference, but offers potentially transformational information about the early universe. LuSEE-Night will demonstrate a novel in-orbit calibration technique. It is manifested to launch on the Firefly Blue Ghost Mission 2 in December 2025 and land in early 2026. I will describe the science, the instrument and challenges associated with such aggressive delivery schedule.