NASA’s Resource Prospector (RP) mission was supposed to be the first mining expedition on another world, using a suite of instruments to locate elements from a lunar polar region. The RP mission was to build on the findings of the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) and Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) missions that proved the existence of water on the moon.
And one could say the RP mission was also in line with President Donald Trump’s Space Policy Directive 1, signed in December 2017. The president directed NASA to send Americans to the Moon for the first time since 1972, in order to prepare for future trips to Mars.
However, for some reason as yet unknown, acting NASA director Robert Lightfoot, who said the agency “looks forward to supporting the president’s directive” and “strategically aligning our work to return humans to the Moon, travel to Mars and opening the deeper solar system beyond,” cancelled the Resource Prospector mission before the new director took over, according to The Verge.
The scientific community is up-in-arms
On Thursday, April 26, a group of lunar scientists, engineers and mission planners with the Lunar Exploration Analysis Group (LEAG) sent Bridenstine a letter, complaining about the cancellation of the Resource Prospector program.
In the letter, LEAG scientists wrote: “We now understand RP was canceled on 23 April 2018 and the project has been asked to close down by the end of May. This cancellation apparently stemmed from the transfer of RP from HEOMD to Science Mission Directorate (SMD) due to lack of FY18 funding within the Advanced Exploration System (AES) program and a misalignment between RP’s goals and schedule and the new lunar program within SMD.”
The science group said this action is “viewed with both incredulity and dismay by our community,” especially as it appears at odds with “the President’s Space Policy Directive 1.” The letter urges Bridenstine to reverse the decision on canceling the RP program.
The RP mission was not designed as a scientific mission, so the question remains — why was it moved from the Human Exploration budget to the science budget? It is also notable, writes ArsTechnica, that NASA’s lunar science program is designed for small robotic landers, not the 300 kilograms (661 pounds) prospector rover.
“We wanted to make him aware so he could do his own investigation as to why Space Policy Directive 1 is being ignored,” Clive Neal, an engineering professor at the University of Notre Dame and LEAG Emeritus Chair, tells The Verge.
