Lunar Vertex (LVx)

IM-3 · manifested · NASA payload

A lander-and-rover science suite for the Reiner Gamma lunar swirl. On the lander: a fluxgate magnetometer array (VML), an ion and electron plasma spectrometer (MAPS) and three clusters of colour cameras (VCA). On a small rover: a second magnetometer array (VMR) and a multispectral microscope (RMM). It asks where the magnetic anomaly and the swirl come from, and how the anomaly shields the surface from the solar wind.

PI: David T. Blewett (APL); deputy PI Jasper Halekas (University of Iowa)
Built by: Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), which leads, manages and built both magnetometers; Southwest Research Institute (MAPS), Redwire (cameras), Canadensys Aerospace (microscope) and Lunar Outpost (rover) (university)

Technology	science instrument suite with a small rover (magnetic field, surface plasma, regolith)
Moon Base need	DN-011 L, DN-010 L (The study's reading. NASA names no gap for Lunar Vertex. MAPS measures the ions and electrons that reach the surface (about 8 eV to 17.5 keV), the subject of DN-011 L (surface plasma, 0-30 keV); the microscope's colour spectra of the soil touch DN-010 L (regolith composition) in part. The fit is weak: both gaps ask for the South Pole and DN-011 L for long-term data, while Lunar Vertex works one lunar day at Reiner Gamma, near the equator. APL lists data on 'strategic knowledge gaps for human exploration' among its goals. NASA's Moon Base page puts IM-3 in Phase One.)
Route onto CLPS	PRISM; NASA chose Reiner Gamma as the site first, then asked for proposals in the first PRISM call (PRISM-1a, ROSES-2020 Appendix E.11), which capped each payload at $30 million and 50 kg. Proposals were judged on the science they could do at Reiner Gamma. Lunar Vertex was selected in June 2021, among NASA's first three PRISM selections. The CLPS office then asked its vendors for task-order bids to carry Lunar Vertex, CADRE, LUSEM and MPAc, and chose Intuitive Machines on 17 November 2021 ($77.5 million for the delivery).; 2021-06-10
Timeline	first funding 2021 (PRISM selection, June 2021); no earlier funding for the suite in public sources; first flight test not in public sources; selected 2021-06-10 (PRISM); lander task order to Intuitive Machines 2021-11-17; launch no earlier than the first part of 2027 (NASA, September 2026, per Wikipedia); NASA's CP-11 page still says 2026. The lander instruments were delivered to Intuitive Machines in June 2023 and the rover in January 2024.; landing not in public sources
On the Moon	not yet flown
FO	none

Flights before the Moon

• earlier lunar mission: Lunar Outpost's MAPP rover on Intuitive Machines' IM-2 (Athena); the rover product line only, not Lunar Vertex's instruments, 2025-03-06. The same company's rover product reached the Moon, but Athena landed on its side and the rover could not deploy or drive. Lunar Outpost says it returned data in transit and on the surface. The Lunar Vertex rover was built and delivered before this flight (2023), so nothing learned on IM-2 can have changed it, as far as the sources say.

"Intuitive Machines landing on its side prevented MAPP's deployment"
— Private mini rover aboard sideways Athena moon lander was ready to roll — but it couldn't get out, Lunar Outpost statement

"IM-2 touched down at approximately 11:30 a.m. March 6"
— NASA Receives Some Data Before Intuitive Machines Ends Lunar Mission - NASA

"The rover, a version of Lunar Outpost's Mobile Autonomous Prospecting Platform (MAPP) product"
— Tiny but Mighty Lunar Rover Moves One Step Closer to Launch, the Lunar Vertex rover

Heritage hardware

• flown design (plasma spectrometer): MAPS, built by SwRI, is a direct derivative of the Ion and Electron Sensor (IES) design that flew on ESA's Rosetta comet mission, in a similar plasma environment near Earth. Who built IES is not stated in these sources.

"rect derivative of the Rosetta/IES plasma spectrometer"
— hou.usra.edu: 2675.pdf, 'the MAPS design is a di-rect derivative'

"MAPS has heritage from the Rosetta Ion-Elec-"
— hou.usra.edu: 1131.pdf

• commercial instrument (magnetometer sensors): Both magnetometers use four commercial Bartington Mag566 miniature fluxgate sensors in a tetrahedron, so gradients can separate the Moon's field from the vehicle's. The lander unit adds an APL-built science-grade dual ring-core fluxgate at the top of a 0.5 m mast. The rover unit is a copy of the lander's commercial array.

"VML also has four commercial Bartington Mag566"
— hou.usra.edu: 1131.pdf

"of four commercial fluxgate magnetometers mounted at"
— hou.usra.edu: 1233.pdf, VML

"is a copy of a portion of VML: the array of four mini-"
— hou.usra.edu: 5004.pdf, VMR

• commercial instrument (cameras) and design heritage (microscope): The lander cameras (VCA) are commercial, flight-qualified colour camera clusters from Redwire. The rover microscope's camera has heritage from Canadensys' NISA space camera.

"mercial, flight-qualified color camera clusters mounted"
— hou.usra.edu: 1131.pdf

"Canadensys’ Nano Immersive Situational Awareness"
— hou.usra.edu: 2718.pdf

Funding before the lunar flight

• SMD PRISM award to APL for Lunar Vertex (PRISM-1, managed by NASA Marshall). The award amount is not public; the call capped the payload at $30 million. No USAspending award names Lunar Vertex (searched 'Lunar Vertex', 'Reiner Gamma', 'swirl', and APL's NASA lunar awards). (SMD PRISM; FY2021 on): amount not in public sources

"Lunar Vertex is funded through NASA’s PRISM1"
— hou.usra.edu: 1820.pdf, acknowledgments: 'program, managed by MSFC'

"Lunar Vertex is funded through the agency’s Science Mission Directorate"
— NASA Selects Intuitive Machines for New Lunar Science Delivery - NASA

"While these selections are final, negotiations are continuing for each award amount."
— NASA Selects New Science Investigations for Future Moon Deliveries

• NASA SBIR Phase I to Lunar Outpost on thermal control for a cold-surviving version of its MAPP rover (agency tracking number 193809, contract 80NSSC19C0598). Linked by name only: the award names the MAPP rover, and the Lunar Vertex rover is a MAPP variant. It paid for the rover line's lunar-night design, which this one-day rover does not need, so it is not this rover's money. (NASA SBIR Phase I (topic Z5); 2019-2020): $120,964

"Cryogenic Thermal Management Systems for Lunar Outpost Mobile Autonomous Prospecting Platform (MAPP) Rover"
— SBIR.gov award data, award 193809 / 80NSSC19C0598, award_title; award_amount 120964.0, 2019-08-19 to 2020-02-18

"The rover, a version of Lunar Outpost's Mobile Autonomous Prospecting Platform (MAPP) product"
— Tiny but Mighty Lunar Rover Moves One Step Closer to Launch

How it got onto CLPS

"The payloads mark the agency’s first selections from its Payloads and Research Investigations on the Surface of the Moon (PRISM) call for proposals."
— NASA Selects New Science Investigations for Future Moon Deliveries, 10 Jun 2021

"APL's Lunar Vertex proposal was selected for the"
— hou.usra.edu: 1131.pdf, continues: PRISM 1-a mission in June of 2021

"each mission’s total payload to $30M and 50 kg."
— hou.usra.edu: 1131.pdf, ROSES-2020 Appendix E.11

"Proposals to the competitive PRISM1 solicitation were evaluated on how well they addressed specific science goals that could be carried out at RG."
— NTRS 20230000531, Blewett et al., LPSC 2023

"After selection of Lunar Vertex, the CLPS office issued a Request for Task-Order Proposals (RFTOP) to the CLPS vendor pool."
— NTRS 20230000531

"Intuitive Machines will receive $77.5 million for the contract"
— NASA Selects Intuitive Machines for New Lunar Science Delivery - NASA, 17 Nov 2021

On the Moon

Manifested on IM-3 (Nova-C 'Trinity'), NASA's Moon Base III, to land at Reiner Gamma for one lunar day. The hardware has waited since 2023-2024 for the lander.

"Its anchor investigation, Lunar Vertex, will fly on Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C Trinity lunar lander"
— NASA Provides Update on Moon Base Rovers, Landers, Missions - NASA

FO's role

Grade: none. No FO flight of Lunar Vertex, its instruments, its rover or its builders' Lunar Vertex team. None of the team names searched (Blewett, Halekas, Kollmann, Greenhagen, Vines, Waller, Jahn) appears in FO's 430 TechPort records. FO did fund APL magnetometer and plasma payloads under another PI, H. Todd Smith: COTS field-mill and magnetometer suites on suborbital vehicles (TechPort 91355, 91597), and a project adapting Europa Clipper hardware, with a fluxgate magnetometer and a plasma instrument, to lunar surface hazard monitoring (106720; no flight in FO's reports). Same organization and topic, another team: the study does not count that, as for NSS. Redwire, which supplied the lander cameras, has FO projects on other technologies (155247, 91634); a supplier link is not counted either. The study's earlier traceback grade (none found) stands.

"No FO flight of Lunar Vertex or its team."
— earlier finding of this study (not a public source)

"Application Of Europa-Clipper Technology For Lunar Radiation Hazard Identification And Characterization"
— TechPort project 106720, title (FO, APL, 2019-2026)

"3D magnetic field measurement fluxgate magnetometer"
— TechPort project 106720, description

Data: name: H. Todd Smith
— TechPort project 106720, contacts

Who built it

"Lead Development Organization: Johns Hopkins University/Applied Physics Laboratory"
— CP-11 Science Payloads - NASA Science

"Payload PI: Dr. David Blewett"
— CP-11 Science Payloads - NASA Science

"The plasma spectrometer will be provided by Southwest Research Institute, the cameras by Redwire and the microscope by Canadensys Aerospace. Lunar Outpost is building the rover."
— Lunar Vertex: Solving Mysteries Swirling Around the Moon’s Magnetic Regions

"The Applied Physics Laboratory, a not-for-profit division of The Johns Hopkins University"
— Lunar Vertex: Solving Mysteries Swirling Around the Moon’s Magnetic Regions

"Jasper Halekas, University of Iowa"
— Lunar Vertex, Deputy Principal Investigator

Moon Base need

"Long-term measurements are needed to"
— Moon to Mars knowledge base: DN-011 L: In situ lunar surface plasma environment characterization, description

"will measure the ion and electron velocity"
— hou.usra.edu: 1233.pdf, MAPS

"Provide data on strategic knowledge gaps for human exploration"
— Lunar Vertex: Solving Mysteries Swirling Around the Moon’s Magnetic Regions, science goals

"Observing lunar swirls can give us information about the Moon’s radiation environment and perhaps how to mitigate its effects."
— NASA Selects Intuitive Machines for New Lunar Science Delivery - NASA, SMD associate administrator, 2021

"planned for Phase One of Moon Base development"
— Moon Base Phases - NASA, IM-3 listed below

Open questions

• How much NASA paid APL for Lunar Vertex: not in public sources (only the $30 million cap of the call).
• Lunar Outpost's rover contract came from APL, not NASA, so it is not in USAspending's prime awards; its value is not in public sources.
• Cox and Ames's SmallSat 2024 paper (SSC24-III-10) gives more than 100 lessons learned from the project; the PDF could not be fetched here (blocked), so it was not read.
• Did any Lunar Vertex instrument or its predecessor fly on a balloon, rocket or aircraft before the Moon? None found in NTRS or the team's abstracts.
• How long can the hardware, delivered in 2023-2024, wait before it needs retesting? Not in public sources.