MoonLIGHT-M: Moon Laser Instrumentation for General Relativity High-Accuracy Tests

New manned lunar landings may take place during next decade. In view of this possibility, space agencies around the word have requested to the international scientific community proposals for interesting and compelling physics experiments to be performed with the severe weight, size, power and deployment restrictions inherent to the first lunar sorties. Answering the recent NASA call "Suitcase Science to the Moon", a group formed by INFN-LNF, Astronaut Roberto Vittori of the Italian Air Force and several US research institutions has presented a proposal for improving by a factor 1000 or more the accuracy of the current Lunar Laser Ranging (LLR) experiment (performed in the last 37 years using the retro-reflector arrays deployed on the Moon by the Apollo 11, 14 and 15 missions). Achieving such an improvement requires a modified thermal, optical and mechanical design of the retro-reflector array and detailed experimental tests. The new experiment will allow a rich program of accurate tests of General Relativity already with current laser ranging systems. This accuracy will get better and better as the performance of laser technologies improve over the next few decades, like they did relentlessly since the '60s. The LNF group has committed itself to perform the full climatic simulation and experimental characterization of the new retro-reflector prototypes using the new INFN-LNF "Space Climatic Facility"(SCF). Preliminary simulations are reported in this document. The space-climatic, laser-optical studies and tests will be done by members of this ITALY-US collaboration, because they are deeply linked to the proposed physics measurements. For the mechanics support structures and the "suitcase" there is window of work opportunity for industries. This internal LNF report (pages 2-21) is an excerpt from the Proposal presented to NASA on October 27 2006 by the authors listed at page 2. MoonLIGHT-M is the internal LNF name given to this Proposal (where "-M" indicates that this is intended for a Manned mission)