In order to capitalise on the US’s planned lunar outpost,  NASA has asked for proposals for autonomous instruments that astronauts can deploy when they return to the moon by 2020. In June and July, the agency selected 14 out of over 70 proposals that were submitted.

One of the approved proposals came from Christian Grund and a team at Ball Aerospace in Colorado. This is for the development of a dust-measuring device that uses laser beams to measure dust levels up to 2 kilometres from a landing site.  Dust was a big problem for the Apollo astronauts, clogging their spacesuits and causing mechanical problems in lunar modules. 

Three more of the proposals which were approved involve using reflectors and transmitters on the moon to bounce signals from Earth back to receivers on Earth.  This would allow accurate measurements of the moon’s distance, and of  the evolution of its orbit over time.