IIT-Roorkee research scholar contributes to NASA’s Artemis programme

A research scholar from the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee (IIT-Roorkee) has been selected to contribute to the prestigious Artemis programme of National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

Prateek Tripathi, a research scholar from the geomatics engineering group of IIT-Roorkee’s civil engineering department and working under the supervision of Prof Rahul Dev Garg, won one of the five fellowships awarded for this year. More than 300 applications were received by NASA for this year’s programme.

The fellowship is a highly selective, 10-week summer internship programme for graduate student researchers to work on activities supporting Artemis missions to the moon.

Read | Webb telescope captures 'breathtaking' images of Orion Nebula

This year, the Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI) and NASA hosted the program from May 31 to August 5, 2022. The visit was funded by the Universities Space Research Association (USRA).

During his visit, Tripathi worked with an international team of researchers from Spain, the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth of Dominica, and assessed three potential landing sites on the lunar south pole. He was supervised by the highly experienced senior lunar scientist Dr David Kring of LPI.

“It was a great experience working with senior lunar scientist Dr. David Kring of LPI. I am also thankful to IIT-Roorkee for providing me an opportunity to work in the field of the mineralogy of Earth, Moon, and Mars,” said Tripathi.

The work done by Tripathi evaluates parameters such as slope, temperature, illumination, and walking time for probable traverse plans from the landing sites to permanently shadowed regions (PSRs). These PSRs contain a fossil record of hydrogen, water ice, and other volatiles dating from the early Solar System. Their investigation is of particular interest to scientists, forming a core objective of NASA’s Artemis III mission.

As per the findings of Tripathi’s work, an astronaut can travel to and from the landing site to an accessible PSR within two hours. It is also noteworthy that accessible PSRs have all-year temperatures well above the lowest-ever temperature recorded on Earth.