Greetings,

The International Lunar Network appears to be the unmanned landers NASA is planning to put on the moon. The program is working to put 2 landers on the moon in the 2012-2014 time frame.

Here are some excerpts from a Request for Information by NASA regarding instruments for its International Lunar Network (ILN). Pay special note to the mass and power limits.

Is this what we are talking about putting a transponder on?

73, Armando, N8IGJ

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Date Released: Tuesday, November 18, 2008 Source: Goddard Space Flight Center NASA Solicitation: Instruments for U.S. International Lunar Network (ILN) Lunar Missions

Description of Anticipated Requirement

NASA expects to emplace the first two nodes (the "anchor" nodes) of the ILN in the 2012-2014 timeframe with two additional nodes to be emplaced roughly two years later, depending on funds availability. All nodes will carry identical core instrument payloads. The ILN mission requires long lived instruments which can be operated as a network for six years (the anchor nodes will necessarily have to last longer). It is anticipated that a very small amount of power will be available to enable continuous operation through the lunar night.

Concept studies for the spacecraft are now under development at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center working with the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) of The Johns Hopkins University. The mission will be tightly constrained in both mass and power. It is expected that the total available mass for all payload instruments will be approximately 15 kg, although the precise mass available for the payload will depend on the launch vehicle and other trades still being considered. The total available payload power will be approximately 15 W.

The total budget for the ILN anchor nodes including development and operations is $200M. Schedule and budget constraints require that NASA mission planners focus on relatively mature instruments.

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See the following links for more info:

http://www.moontoday.net/news/viewsr.html?pid=29834 (The full Request for Information)

http://iln.arc.nasa.gov/welcome (General info on ILN)

http://lunarscience.arc.nasa.gov/file_download/26/ILN+Final+Report.pdf (Detailed info on ILN... Note: large file 13MB)

Happy reading,

Armando, N8IGJ