Equipment to map the lunar surface developed by a subsidiary of Teledyne Technologies Inc. is aboard the first-ever Indian mission to the moon. The Moon Mineralogy Mapper differs from earlier equipment in that it can detect both visible and infrared light. “This new type of visible-infrared sensor will be used in many future NASA missions, including the Hubble Space Telescope, the James Webb Space Telescope, and next generation Earth observation satellites,” said James Beletic, Director of Astronomy & Civil Space at Teledyne Imaging Sensors. The mapping mission of the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft is expected to take about two years and enable scientists to determine the composition and mineralogy of the entire lunar surface.
