Boffins propose fiber-optic network for the Moon
- Reference: 1709722808
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2024/03/06/fiberoptic_network_moon/
- Source link:
In the research journal [1]Seismological Research Letters , the boffins note that understanding the composition of the Moon and its internal structures could be key to unlocking the origins and evolution of the Earth-Moon system, as well as other planets.
As seismologists are already using fiber-optic cables to detect seismic waves here on Earth, the authors of " [2]Fiber Seismic Network on the Moon " reckon the technology could be deployed to Earth's satellite for the same purpose.
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Seismometers placed on the Moon by Apollo astronauts between 1969 and 1976 are said to have detected thousands of seismic events on the side of the Moon facing Earth. These included shallow and deep moonquakes, as well as meteorite impacts.
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Yet many critical questions such as the state and composition of the Moon's interior remain unsolved, owing to the fact that few Apollo seismic monitors were deployed as well as the strong scattering of seismic waves in the top layer, or regolith, of the Moon. Hence, while the Apollo data provides some hints about the Moon's core, details on its size and properties are still hazy.
The authors argue that an emerging technique called distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) can provide a more cost‐efficient solution to getting the necessary data. It enables continuous, real-time measurements along the entire length of a fiber-optic cable thanks to Rayleigh scattering from small variations in the refractive index of the fiber.
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This works best over distances of 100km or more, meaning that the proposal would require the deployment of a considerable amount of optical fiber across the surface of the Moon – which is a challenging environment at the best of times.
[7]The batteries on Odysseus, the hero private Moon lander, have run out
[8]Nvidia lures senior autonomous car developer from China's Baidu
[9]Odysseus probe moonwalking on the edge of battery life after landing on its side
[10]'How do I reset my router' isn't in LLM corpuses. An alliance of telcos wants to change that
The authors propose that a fiber seismic network using "tens of kilometers" of cable could dramatically increase the chances of observing clear seismic waves, providing opportunities for future lunar seismic surveys. The boffins think "more efforts and further evaluations are required to develop a space‐proof DAS."
However, the scientists speculate on the possibility of combining DAS with other cable-based lunar programs to maximize scientific returns – not to mention getting it deployed in the first place.
One proposal is to place a [11]radio telescope on the far side of the Moon , so that it will be able to avoid radio interference from Earth-based sources and detect signals that might otherwise be absorbed by the Earth's atmosphere.
According to the authors, current concepts involve a cable-linked antenna in a natural crater on the far side of the Moon. The fiber optic cables laid down for this could enable deployment of both DAS and the telescope with minimum additional cost.
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It gets a little unclear when it comes to how this would be accomplished, with the researchers suggesting that astronauts might deploy the cables using rovers as part of NASA Artemis missions or that autonomous rovers could do the job.
If a smaller lander is employed – such as with a Commercial Lunar Payload Services ( [13]CLPS ) mission – cables may be distributed across the surface using small rockets or mortars. It all sounds a bit speculative – especially as the recent [14]Odysseus and [15]SLIM lunar probes couldn't even manage to land upright.
Given that NASA's Artemis missions have [16]recently been delayed , this is all for the distant future. There is no guarantee that anything like this fiber network will ever actually be implemented. But it's a cool thought. ®
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[1] https://www.seismosoc.org/publications/srl/
[2] https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/ssa/srl/article-abstract/doi/10.1785/0220230067/635638/Fiber-Seismic-Network-on-the-Moon
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZeihOqkj@KBlRikOhxLZNAAAAQs&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZeihOqkj@KBlRikOhxLZNAAAAQs&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZeihOqkj@KBlRikOhxLZNAAAAQs&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZeihOqkj@KBlRikOhxLZNAAAAQs&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/02/batteries_odysseus/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2024/02/28/nvidia_hires_baidu_robocar_expert/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2024/02/27/odysseus_battery_life/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2024/02/27/global_telco_ai_alliance_llms/
[11] https://www.nasa.gov/solar-system/lunar-crater-radio-telescope-illuminating-the-cosmic-dark-ages/
[12] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZeihOqkj@KBlRikOhxLZNAAAAQs&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[13] https://www.nasa.gov/commercial-lunar-payload-services/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2024/02/26/intuitive_machines_lunar_lander_sideways/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/29/japan_lander_wakes_up_takes/
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/10/nasa_artemis_delays/
[17] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
OpenReach in Spaaace!
Don't you really mean...
Pornhub in Spaaace!
FIFY
(That's what's going to eat up the bandwidth.)
There is already a theoretical solution ....
.... using spherical fibre! It is already in a vacuum after all!
-----------> Mine's the one made by [1]Playtex in the '60s!
[1] https://www.fastcompany.com/90375440/the-improbable-story-of-the-bra-maker-who-won-the-right-to-make-astronaut-spacesuits
FTTC - new meaning for FTTC - Fibre To The Crater.
Doesnt sound very realistic
Sorry, but it just doesnt sound very realistic as a solution. Anything that requires multiple landings and cables laid for a 100km on the Moon, is not going to happen in any time frame we care about. I wonder if someone just bought shares in a Fibre Optic Cable Manufacture... :P
Why wouldnt you just deploy something along the lines of the Seismometer deployed with the InSight mission to Mars. It basically mapped the internals of Mars to a degree that everyone seems happy with and also detected marsquakes, meteorite impacts, and if I remember correctly was even able to pick up the effect of the Moons passing by!
Since one already exists, getting CNES to build another one using the same tech, should be (relatively speaking) cheap. It does mean dealing with the French though.... ;)
(Disclaimer: I worked on a different instrument on the InSight mission...)
Re: Doesnt sound very realistic
100km of fibre doesn't just give you data from 100km away; you can get data from any point along the fibre -- so it's more like 100km of seismometers, which is a lot of instrument.
Not that makes it easier to deploy, mind, ...
(Recently I saw something similar pulled off comms fibre on the west coast of NZ ... you could see/detect cars driving along a nearby road)
Re: Doesnt sound very realistic
> you could see/detect cars driving along a nearby road
CERN kept wondering why they got weird readings on some of their instruments, it turned out to be the TGVs going to Paris...
They're going to need one hell of a big cable drum
to fit a couple of thousand kilometers of fibre, so they can get round to the far side...
Re: They're going to need one hell of a big cable drum
No you leave the cable drum on earth and just attach the fibre to the rocket so as it takes off it unspools the fibre and drags it along behind as it transits to the moon, then when it orbit a the appropriate time it releases the cable to float down the lunar surface... simples
Re: They're going to need one hell of a big cable drum
Just don't forget to use fibre with a flame proof sheath. Can't risk toxic fumes or the health and safety bods will complain.
This is an interesting idea, perhaps predominantly because it would involve validating a lot of multi-purpose technologies.
* We know we can get >15tonnes to the surface of the moon, because Apollo did it (launch is the issue currently).
* We have modern tech that can more or less get stuff there upright as well - Odysseus had an insane hardware fault where they didn't install wiring to the altimeters. The fact that landed just using the optical cameras with nothing more than a bent leg is top-flight boffinry (but sack the head of production FFS). Meanwhile, SLIM was playing in hard-mode, deliberately aiming for a sloped landing site.
* The Apollo Lunar Rovers each did 30km, though the (non-rechargeable) battery was notionally good for 90km, and had a top speed of 10kph (though Eugene Cernan managed 18kph on Apollo 17). So the idea of a ground vehicle covering 100km is totally feasible, particularly if you're happy for it to trundle at a couple of km per day slowly paying out fibre.
None of this is easy, but it's eminently achievable.
There's two obvious mission architectures here.
1. Land a rover with a cable spool, which drops a termination/reflector box (with one end of the cable attached) and then trundles off, spooling out fibre behind it. It can then run DAS to the reflector when it gets to where it's going (or when the drivetrain fails).
2. The more sophisticated version is to drop a fixed lander (with a Mars Insights-style seismometer). You also land a rover with cable spool capable of the above mission.
If either landing fails, you still have something. But ideally, the rover backs up to the lander and plugs the cable terminator into a power/data receptacle on the lander. It then trundles off. Using a multi-strand cable, you now have a redundant DAS rig - either the rover can shine light down one strand, or the lander can bounce down to the rover. They could even use it to communicate (in the event, say, of a radio failure on either end).
Those are both arguably the same mission - e.g. you could have an Apollo LM size craft that deploys a rover after landing, or a really big rover-lander which leaves quite a chunky fixed station behind. Or in the first instance, the reflector box has a small solar panel, radio and DAS unit in case the rover dies. Hypothetically, you could also drop off other instruments en route - mass allowing.
In either case, it's a valuable exercise in deploying infrastructure on another planet with high levels of automation and robotics, which could serve future manned bases, a far-side radio telescope, etc.
All this requires a comms relay network of course, because we can't keep [1]soaking up time on the Deep Space Network talking to research cube sats around the moon at the expense of missions like Webb and Voyager...
[1] https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/08/nasas-artemis-i-mission-nearly-broke-the-deep-space-network/
... then trundles off, spooling out fibre behind it.
I suppose there might be an issue hiding here -- is it really sufficient to just leave the unspooled fibre lying on the surface? Or would it be better (or even necessary) to bury it, or (perhaps) to at least fix it securely to the ground at intervals?
Hmm.
detecting seismic waves!
Monitoring the amount of impacts attracted to the moon as it revolves around us would be very interesting ... we can't detect normal meteoric impacts on 71% of our planet because they just splash in the sea and the moon may be attracting many well away from us as they approach us both. Looking at the moon it seems to have been hit more then we have - is it just revolving us and cleaning our orbit space for us?
Imagine being stuck with crappy broadband while they are deploying a fiber network on the actual moon