In a remarkable fusion of space recycling and cutting-edge science, a refurbished NASA X-ray instrument is heading to the Moon this month to capture unprecedented images of Earth’s magnetic shield – a mission that could help protect satellites and power grids from solar storms.
The Lunar Environment Heliospheric X-ray Imager (LEXI) will provide scientists their first complete view of how Earth’s magnetic field responds to solar activity, offering insights that could help safeguard critical infrastructure from space weather disruptions. The instrument is scheduled to launch from Kennedy Space Center aboard Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Lander no earlier than mid-January.
“We’re trying to get this big picture of Earth’s space environment,” explains Brian Walsh, a space physicist at Boston University and LEXI’s principal investigator. “A lot of physics can be esoteric or difficult to follow without years of specific training, but this will be science that you can see.”
From its lunar vantage point, LEXI will observe X-rays generated when solar wind particles collide with Earth’s magnetosphere – the vast magnetic bubble that shields our planet from harmful solar radiation. These observations could reveal how our planetary shield flexes and changes in response to solar activity.
“We expect to see the magnetosphere breathing out and breathing in, for the first time,” says Hyunju Connor, an astrophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and the NASA lead for LEXI. “When the solar wind is very strong, the magnetosphere will shrink and push backward toward Earth, and then expand when the solar wind weakens.”
The mission’s journey from concept to launch includes an unlikely twist: LEXI’s core technology previously flew a brief suborbital mission in 2012 under the name STORM, after which it spent a decade in a Goddard display case. When NASA sought proposals for rapid, budget-conscious lunar missions, Walsh saw an opportunity to revive and repurpose the instrument.
“We’d break the glass — not literally — but remove it, restore it, and refurbish it, and that would allow us to look back and get this global picture that we’ve never had before,” Walsh recounts. While some components needed replacement, the instrument’s core systems remained viable for spaceflight.
The stakes for understanding space weather have grown significantly in recent years as society becomes increasingly dependent on satellite technology. Solar particles streaming past Earth’s magnetic defenses can create spectacular auroral displays, but they also pose risks to orbiting satellites and ground-based electrical systems.
“We want to understand how nature behaves,” Connor notes, “and by understanding this we can help protect our infrastructure in space.”
LEXI represents one of 10 payloads aboard this Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) mission, reflecting NASA’s strategy of partnering with private industry to expand lunar exploration capabilities. After touchdown, the instrument will spend six days collecting images once lunar dust from the landing settles.
The mission could help resolve several outstanding questions about magnetic reconnection events – moments when Earth’s magnetic field lines merge with solar wind field lines, releasing energetic particles toward our planet’s poles. Scientists hope to determine whether these events occur simultaneously at multiple sites and if they happen in steady streams or sporadic bursts.
For Walsh and his team, this lunar deployment offers a chance to transform a museum piece into a pathfinding scientific instrument – one that could help protect our increasingly space-dependent civilization from the Sun’s mercurial moods.