The lunar heat-flow probe is the brainchild of Texas Tech geophysicist Seiichi Nagihara.
In the wee hours of Jan. 15, 2025, Texas Tech University geophysicist Seiichi Nagihara watched as the rocket carrying his life’s work launched to the Moon, beginning its journey to further our understanding of the environment below the lunar surface. One year and five days later, he learned he’ll get to repeat the experience at least two more times.
On Jan. 20, NASA announced that Nagihara’s instrument – the Lunar Instrumentation for Subsurface Thermal Exploration with Rapidity (LISTER) – has been selected to go to the Moon for a third time aboard an upcoming mission to strengthen humanity’s understanding and exploration of the Moon. The selection brings with it a $5.4 million grant over the next four years to build and test the instrument.
LISTER measures the heat flow of the Moon’s interior by drilling beneath the lunar surface, pausing at intervals to measure temperature changes and the ability of the subsurface material to conduct heat. As part of Blue Ghost Mission 1, LISTER 1 took eight temperature and thermal conductivity measurements and drilled down to about three feet beneath the lunar surface.
“We expect that the heat released from the surface of the Moon varies from one place to another; in other words, some parts of the Moon are hotter than others,” Nagihara said. “To get the big picture for the whole Moon, we need to measure heat flow at a number of different places on the Moon. LISTER 1 went to Mare Crisium. LISTER 2 is headed for the Schrödinger crater in late 2027. We do not know where on the Moon LISTER 3 is going yet. I plan to have a discussion with NASA on the matter in the near future.”
As part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative and Artemis campaign, a yet-to-be-determined American spaceflight company will deliver LISTER 3 to the lunar surface no earlier than 2028.
“With CLPS, NASA has been taking a new approach to lunar science, relying on U.S. industry innovation to travel to the surface of the Moon and enable scientific discovery,” said Joel Kearns, deputy associate administrator for exploration, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters in Washington. “These selections continue this pipeline of lunar exploration, through research that will not only expand our knowledge about the Moon’s history and environment but also inform future human safety and navigation on the Moon and beyond.”
LISTER is the product of a 15-plus-year collaboration between Nagihara and Honeybee Robotics, a California-based aerospace company. The full story of LISTER’s history and successful first mission aboard the Blue Ghost 1 lander was published in the most recent issue of Texas Tech’s Evermore magazine.
“The one thing different about LISTER 3 is that it was selected after LISTER 1 successfully operated on the Moon on the Blue Ghost mission,” Nagihara said. “LISTER 2 was funded well before the Blue Ghost mission. Back then, there was no guarantee that LISTER would work as intended, because it had not flown before. But now, having seen how LISTER 1 did on the Moon, there is increased confidence that LISTER will successfully operate again.
“When the NASA people called me to inform me of their selection of LISTER 3, they told me they were pleased with how LISTER 1 worked. So the selection of LISTER 3 makes my team very proud. Our LISTER research and development effort for the last 15 years is paying off.”