The Farside Seismic Suite

The Farside Seismic Suite (FSS) will deliver two seismometers (flight-proven through the InSight mission to Mars) to Schrödinger Crater on the far side of the Moon. The vertical Very BroadBand (VBB) seismometer, contributed by the French Space Agency CNES, is the most sensitive flight-ready seismometer ever built, while the Short Period (SP) sensor provided by Kinemetrics Inc. is the most sensitive and mature compact triaxial sensor available for space applications.

Packaged as a self-sufficient payload, with independent power, communications and thermal control to enable FSS’s survival through the two week long lunar nights and days, the FSS will outlive its lunar lander, provided as part of NASA’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) program, to provide a long-lived seismic experiment capable of answering key scientific questions.

FSS will help define the interior structure of the Moon, a key priority for the planetary science Decadal Survey, where details of the interior from crust to core were identified as critical for understanding how planets’ interiors are formed, as well as in “The Scientific Context for Exploration of the Moon” which included the key science concept: “The structure and composition of the lunar interior provide fundamental information on the evolution of a differentiated planetary body”. Crustal thickness determination far from Apollo stations will re-anchor the crustal thickness estimates from GRAIL gravity measurements, while deep mantle structure will be determined through recordings of known nearside deep moonquakes at greater distances than Apollo. Schrödinger crater is an impact basin resurfaced by impact melt, and local structure determination is uniquely suited to investigate impact processes. Finally, recording the seismic background vibration below the noise floor of Apollo gives access to seismic hum generated by micrometeorite impacts.