NASA Reveals Project For “HF” Radio Telescope on Far Side of Moon

NASA Reveals Wild Project For Turning a Moon Crater Into a Radio Telescope

NASA just gave out a new round of grants ($$) for its favorite up and coming innovative space projects – one of which is a plan to fit a 1 kilometer (3,281 foot) radio telescope inside a crater on the far side of the Moon.


The Lunar Crater Radio Telescope (LCRT) would be able to measure wavelengths and frequencies that can't be detected from Earth, working unobstructed by the ionosphere or the various other bits of radio noise surrounding our planet (atmosphere & magnetosphere).

"LCRT could enable tremendous scientific discoveries in the field of cosmology by observing the early universe in the 50 to 10 meter wavelength band (6 to 30MHz frequency band), which has not been explored by humans to date," writes robotics technologist Saptarshi Bandyopadhyay of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in his project outline.

Working at low frequencies in the 6 to 30MHz frequency band (amateur radio HF allocations), the lunar crater telescope could perhaps tell us more about the earliest days of the Universe.
Science Alert story:
https://www.sciencealert.com/check-...e-far-side-of-the-moon-into-a-radio-telescope

 

That is so cool.

 

Sign me up to help.

 

And during the Dark Phases, it would be facing Earth. Can we get a new DXCC entity, and regular work it when not performing NASA assignments?

Actually, nearly ten years ago, we had discussions here about the severe limitations of attempting HF between solar bodies. Perhaps the huge gain would overcome that.

 

"And during the Dark Phases, it would be facing Earth.".....you sure about that?

 

We need to go back to the moon and stay. Why has it taken 50 years? Forget about Mars, we'll never go there..waste of money!
The moon is perfect for deep-space telescopes
Jan N8CBX

 

YUP! Big suicide mission!

We have to crawl before we can walk! I think we can get there but not in my life time!

WW5RM

 

Will this lead to a new pink floyd song? A revision to "Dark Side of the Moon"? Maybe they'll let me put a repeater up there... Who would i coordinate that through?

 

I wonder if the Death Start had a Radio Telescope on it.

 

W0MOON!!!!

 

Synchronous rotation. One side of the moon always faces earth. The far side is always the far side. We'd hear nothing.

https://www.space.com/24871-does-the-moon-rotate.html

 

Wires reinforced with graphene will make this project happen but on a much bigger scale.

 

i want to be the official broadcaster for this!

 

That's not how phases work.
The moon's far side (mistakenly called the Dark Side) never faces Earth.

 

I told you there are severe limitation on interplanetary HF!