LSU will be 1st University to go to the moon

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BATON ROUGE, May 4, 2021—Next year, Louisiana State University (LSU) will be the first university in the world to put technology on the Moon. The Tiger Eye 1 research mission is part of a multi-disciplinary university-industry collaboration to make future space travel safer for people and equipment by providing insight into the complex radiation environment in space. LSU’s radiation detection device is now officially on the manifest for the broader IM-1 mission, the first in a series of commercial flights (and the first-ever to land on the Moon) that will bring science and technology to the lunar surface through NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative. This will also be the first time the U.S. lands on the Moon since 1972 and the Apollo program.

Students in five different LSU colleges and schools are leading the charge under the direction of Assistant Professor Jeffery Chancellor in the LSU Department of Physics & Astronomy, head of its Space Radiation Transport & Applied Nuclear (SpaRTAN) lab. All are undergraduate seniors from Louisiana:



The vehicle. The phone-sized LSU radiation detection device will be mounted on the outside of Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C lunar lander with no mass between itself and the surrounding environment after the lander disconnects from the SpaceX Falcon 9 launch rocket.

Students lead the charge. Haley Pellegrin (LSU College of Science), Katie Hostetler (LSU School of Art + Design, LSU College of Humanities & Social Sciences), and Jacob Miller (LSU College of Engineering, LSU Honors College) are helping to lay the foundation for humans to return to the Moon as early as 2024.