Dating an Irregular Mare Patch with a Lunar Explorer (DIMPLE)¶
CP-32 (not yet awarded) · manifested · NASA payload
A science payload suite that will land on Ina, the largest irregular mare patch, a 3 km volcanic caldera on the near side, to find out whether its surface is young (about 33 million years) or ancient (about 3.7 billion years). Its main instrument, CODEX, is a laser ablation resonance ionization mass spectrometer: it measures rock chemistry and dates rocks by the rubidium-strontium method, on the Moon. A lander-mounted arm grips rocks, cuts a flat face with a saw and presents it to CODEX; a CLPS-provided rover fetches more rocks. The baseline is to date at least three rocks within about 280 hours of operations.
PI: F. Scott Anderson (SwRI, Boulder)
Built by: Southwest Research Institute (SwRI, Boulder; lead and CODEX), with Lockheed Martin Space (sample handling system), the University of Bern (mass spectrometer; built under subaward by Spacetek Technology AG, per USAspending), The Aerospace Corporation (lasers), and science co-investigators at Brown, Colgate, Western Carolina, Manchester and Lunar Scholar Services. (other)
| Technology | science instrument suite (in situ rock dating by laser mass spectrometry), with sample handling |
| Moon Base need | none named (The study's reading: DIMPLE serves lunar science, not a Moon Base need. Ina is on the near side (Lacus Felicitatis), far from the South Pole, and no tech or data gap in the knowledge base is about lunar volcanism or rock ages. NASA's release ties it to human exploration only in general terms. Its method, in situ dating, could later help choose samples to return, which the team names, but no Moon Base gap asks for it. A 2029 landing sits on the phase boundary: NASA's web pages give Phase 1 as 'Now-2029', while Ignition deck 2 gives Phase 1 as 'Now through 2028'.) |
| Route onto CLPS | PRISM; SMD's third annual PRISM call (PRISM 2022; USAspending tags the award '22-PRISM22_2-0016'), the first that let proposers choose a landing site. NASA announced the selection on 14 July 2023, with a $50 million cost cap and delivery no earlier than the second quarter of 2027. The delivery is a separate CLPS task order, CP-32: NASA's Ignition deck (March 2026) planned a draft request for task plan in mid-June 2026, and the team's 2026 abstract says the lander and rover were to be selected in 2026 for a 2029 flight. No CP-32 award was found in the sources as of 4 October 2026.; 2023-07-14 |
| Timeline | first funding 2008 (NASA grants for a laser Rb-Sr geochronology instrument at SwRI); DIMPLE funding from January 2024; first flight test not in public sources; selected 2023-07-14; launch early 2028 in the team's 2024 plan; 2029 in its 2026 abstract; landing 2029 (team, 2026; CP-32 not yet awarded) |
| On the Moon | not yet flown |
| FO | none |
Flights before the Moon¶
None found in the public sources.
Heritage hardware¶
- design heritage (Bern mass spectrometer): The mass spectrometer comes from the University of Bern. For the 2017 MatISSE work Bern contributed a 'TRL 6-9 flight spare mass spectrometer'; the team says the flight design 'uses the same mass spectrometer as employed by Luna-Resurs'. Which mission the flight spare was built for, and whether that design has flown, is not stated in these sources.
"along with a contributed TRL 6-9 flight spare mass spectrometer from the University of Bern"
— TechPort project 92789, description (MatISSE, 2017)"The flight design uses the same mass spectrometer as employed by Luna-Resurs"
— Anderson et al. 2024, Implementing Lunar In Situ Dating with the DIMPLE Payload, 55th LPSC abstra…
- laboratory and ground test heritage: About two decades of laboratory development at SwRI. The laboratory breadboard dated a lunar meteorite (LaPaz Icefield 02205) to ±300 million years. Lasers were matured under MatISSE and DALI; the gripper and grinder in the 2017 design adapted MDA and Honeybee Robotics technology, and the DIMPLE sample handling is Lockheed Martin's. In 2026 the CODEX engineering unit was being tested in a thermal vacuum chamber, ahead of tests on terrestrial analogs and Apollo basalts. No flight of CODEX or its predecessors is in public sources.
"Using our laboratory breadboard version of CODEX we measured lunar meteorite LaPaz Icefield 02205 with ±300 Myr statistical precision"
— Anderson et al. 2024, Implementing Lunar In Situ Dating with the DIMPLE Payload, 55th LPSC abstra…"The gripper and grinder development adapts existing high TRL technologies from MDA and HoneyBee Robotics to the CDEX instrument."
— TechPort project 92789, description"CODEX engineering development unit (EDU) undergoing testing in our TVAC chamber"
— Anderson et al. 2026, Progress on the DIMPLE Payload to Date the Irregular Mare Patch Ina, 57th L…"prototype DIMPLE lasers developed under MatISSE and DALI"
— Anderson et al. 2026, Progress on the DIMPLE Payload to Date the Irregular Mare Patch Ina, 57th L…, page 2
Funding before the lunar flight¶
- NASA PRISM cooperative agreement to SwRI, 'DIMPLE: Dating an Irregular Mare Patch with a Lunar Explorer' (80NSSC24M0001, signed 1 December 2023, period September 2023 to February 2028): obligated to date. It includes 13 subawards ($9.7 million), among them Lockheed Martin's sample handling system ($4.0 million), Spacetek Technology AG's time-of-flight analyzer ($3.1 million) and Aerospace Corporation's laser subsystem ($1.3 million). NASA's cost cap is $50 million. The CLPS delivery is not in this amount. (NASA SMD PRISM; 2023-2028): $44,608,676
"DIMPLE: DATING AN IRREGULAR MARE PATCH WITH A LUNAR EXPLORER"
— USAspending.gov, award 80NSSC24M0001, cooperative agreement; SOUTHWEST RESEARCH INSTITUTE; obligated 44608676.0; subawards 9673116.76; signed 2023-12-01"LM TO PROVIDE SAMPLE HANDLING SUBSYSTEM AND SUPPORT FOR ARM MANIPULATION FOR SAMPLE COLLECTION AS OUTLINED IN THE SOW."
— USAspending.gov, award 80NSSC24M0001, subaward R99085AH, LOCKHEED MARTIN CORP, 3999284.0"AEROSPACE TO PROVIDE FOR THE DEVELOPMENT, QUALIFICATION, TESTING, DELIVERY AND OPERATIONAL SUPPORT FOR A LASER SUBSYSTEM."
— USAspending.gov, award 80NSSC24M0001, subaward R99084AH, THE AEROSPACE CORPORATION, 1320000.0"This work is supported through the NASA PRISM grant 80NSSC24M0001."
— Anderson et al. 2024, Implementing Lunar In Situ Dating with the DIMPLE Payload, 55th LPSC abstra…, Acknowledgments
- Earlier NASA grants to SwRI for the dating instrument, 2008-2021 (five awards): two 2008 grants for a laser resonance ionization Rb-Sr geochronology instrument (NNX08AT61G, NNX08AZ14G), a grant to extend LARIMS to other radiogenic systems (80NSSC17K0099), a CODEX grant for Mars (80NSSC17K0585) and the 2017 CDEX MatISSE grant (80NSSC18K0131). Total of whole awards from USAspending. Linked by description (Rb-Sr geochronology, LARIMS, CODEX, CDEX) and recipient; the records do not name the PI. (NASA SMD instrument development (PIDDP, MatISSE and others); 2008-2021): $4,817,273
"IMPROVEMENTS TO AN IN-SITU RB-SR GEOCHRONOLOGY INSTRUMENT"
— USAspending.gov, NNX08AT61G; amount 1226027.0; 2008-2015""A LASER RIM INSTRUMENT FOR IN-SITU RB-SR GEOCHRONOLOGY""
— USAspending.gov, NNX08AZ14G; amount 756088.0; 2008-2010"WE HAVE DEVELOPED AN INSTRUMENT CALLED CODEX (THE CHEMISTRY ORGANICS AND DATING EXPERIMENT)"
— USAspending.gov, 80NSSC17K0585; amount 1005452.96"THE CHEMISTRY AND DATING EXPERIMENT" (CDEX) INSTRUMENT"
— USAspending.gov, 80NSSC18K0131; amount 800000.0; 2017-2021"National Aeronautics and Space Administration"
— USAspending.gov, awards NNX08AT61G, NNX08AZ14G, 80NSSC17K0099, 80NSSC17K0585, 80NSSC18K0131, 5 awards, obligated 4817273.47
- SMD MatISSE (TechPort 92789, February 2017 to January 2020) and DALI (TechPort 96939, December 2020 to March 2025), PI Fletcher S. Anderson: both aimed to take CDEX from TRL 4 to 5-6; DALI added work on placing it on commercial landers. TechPort gives no amounts; the DALI award was not found in USAspending under these words. (NASA SMD MatISSE; DALI; 2017-2025): amount not in public sources
"Preparing CDEX for flight to provide lunar elemental analysis and Rb-Sr dating"
— TechPort project 96939, title (DALI, SwRI, 2020-12-01 to 2025-03-14)"will improve the TRL of the integrated instrument from 4 to 6"
— TechPort project 96939, description
- Partner funding: the Swiss Space Office (and the Swiss National Science Foundation) for the Bern team; UK STFC for the Manchester co-investigators. No amounts public. (Swiss Space Office; SNSF; UKRI STFC; not in public sources): amount not in public sources
"RF and PW are supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation and Swiss Space Office."
— Anderson et al. 2024, Implementing Lunar In Situ Dating with the DIMPLE Payload, 55th LPSC abstra…, Acknowledgments"acknowledge support from the UK Science and Technologies Facilities Council"
— Anderson et al. 2026, Progress on the DIMPLE Payload to Date the Irregular Mare Patch Ina, 57th L…, Acknowledgments
How it got onto CLPS¶
"DIMPLE is the result of the third annual proposal call for PRISM"
— New NASA Artemis Instruments to Study Volcanic Terrain on the Moon - NASA"The cost cap for the payload suite is $50 million, and the delivery date is set for no earlier than the second quarter of 2027."
— New NASA Artemis Instruments to Study Volcanic Terrain on the Moon - NASA"CLPS 1.0 Draft Request for Task Plan to vendors in mid-June"
— nasa.gov: 2-building-the-moon-base.pdf, Ignition deck 2, p. 48"scheduled for flight on the 2029 CLPS CP-32 mission"
— Anderson et al. 2026, Progress on the DIMPLE Payload to Date the Irregular Mare Patch Ina, 57th L…, LPSC 2026"22-PRISM22_2-0016 DIMPLE: DATING AN IRREGULAR MARE PATCH WITH A LUNAR EXPLORER"
— USAspending.gov, award 80NSSC24M0001, transaction P00009, 2025-08-20
On the Moon¶
Selected for a CLPS delivery that has no lander yet (CP-32). The payload passed its System Requirements and Preliminary Design Reviews; its Critical Design Review was pending in April 2026. Two changes came from NASA: the rover rake moved to the CLPS provider, because the rover arrives well after DIMPLE's delivery, and the vision system moved from CLPS to DIMPLE.
"a Preliminary Design Review, with Critical Design Review pending in April of 2026"
— Anderson et al. 2026, Progress on the DIMPLE Payload to Date the Irregular Mare Patch Ina, 57th L…, page 3"The transfer of the rake was requested by NASA to simplify the assembly, integration, and test with the CLPS rover, which will be delivered significantly after the delivery of DIMPLE."
— Anderson et al. 2025, Dating the Irregular Mare Patch Ina: A DIMPLE Update, 56th LPSC abstract 2838, page 2
FO's role¶
Grade: none. No FO project, report or page names DIMPLE, CODEX, CDEX or any member of the DIMPLE author team. SwRI, the lead organization, leads or supports 12 FO projects, and Aerospace Corporation (the laser builder) 4, but with other people and technologies; earlier records grade organization-only links 'none'. Kris Zacny (Honeybee Robotics), PI of FO's PlanetVac flights, was a co-investigator on the 2017 CDEX MatISSE work for the gripper and grinder, but he is not on the DIMPLE team, whose sample handling is Lockheed Martin's. Grade: none, as in the study's earlier traceback. The study's remark: gripping, sawing and presenting rocks in one-sixth g is the kind of sample handling a lunar-gravity parabolic flight can test; the sources show ground tests only.
"This future task order will deliver the Dating an Irregular Mare Patch with a Lunar Explorer (DIMPLE) suite to Ina"
— earlier finding of this study (not a public source)"Nothing found on instrument heritage. FO: none found."
— earlier finding of this study (not a public source)
Who built it¶
"The principal investigator for the DIMPLE mission is F. Scott Anderson of Southwest Research Institute's Solar System Science and Exploration Division"
— New NASA Artemis Instruments to Study Volcanic Terrain on the Moon - NASA, 14 Jul 2023"The sample-handling system and rake are designed by Lockheed Martin."
— Anderson et al. 2024, Implementing Lunar In Situ Dating with the DIMPLE Payload, 55th LPSC abstra…, LPSC 2024"Miniaturized mass spectrometer developed at Univ. Bern"
— Anderson et al., DIMPLE, LEAG Fall Meeting, 28 Oct 2024 (slides), LEAG, 28 Oct 2024"Miniaturized lasers from the Aerospace Corp."
— Anderson et al., DIMPLE, LEAG Fall Meeting, 28 Oct 2024 (slides)"TIME-OF-FLIGHT RESIDUAL GAS ANALYZER"
— USAspending.gov, award 80NSSC24M0001, subaward S11237T, SPACETEK TECHNOLOGY AG, 3148320.0, 2024-06-07
Moon Base need¶
"a lunar shield volcano in Lacus Felicitatus"
— Anderson et al. 2025, Dating the Irregular Mare Patch Ina: A DIMPLE Update, 56th LPSC abstract 2838"the more we understand about our closest neighbor, the more we can support long-term human exploration at the Moon"
— New NASA Artemis Instruments to Study Volcanic Terrain on the Moon - NASA, Nicola Fox"driving the scientific need for new sample returns by identifying exciting samples in advance"
— Anderson et al. 2025, Dating the Irregular Mare Patch Ina: A DIMPLE Update, 56th LPSC abstract 2838, page 2"Phase 1 "Now through 2028", Phase 2 "2029–2033""
— Moon to Mars knowledge base: Moon Base phases, Ignition deck 2"| Dates (web) | Now–2029 | 2029–2032 | 2032–Beyond |"
— Moon to Mars knowledge base: Moon Base phases
Open questions¶
- When will CP-32 be awarded, to which lander company, and with which rover? The team expected selection in 2026; no award was found as of 4 October 2026.
- Which mission was Bern's 'flight spare' mass spectrometer built for, and has that design flown? Not in public sources.
- Was the sample handling system (arm, gripper, saw) tested in reduced gravity in flight? The sources show ground tests only.
- What the DALI award (2020-2025) cost: not found in USAspending.
- How the 2029 flight fits Moon Base priorities, given that Ina is on the near side: not in public sources.