by A 20,000-foot-high (6,000-meter) mountain has been named by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) on the moon in honor of the pioneering American mathematician Melba Roy Mouton.
Among many other accomplishments during her 14 years at NASA, Mouton received the Apollo Achievement Award for her part in the Apollo 11 moon landing on July 20, 1969.
“Melba Mouton was one of our pioneering leaders at NASA,” Sandra Connelly (opens in a new tab)acting as associate administrator for science at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC, said i statement (opens in a new tab). “Not only did she help NASA become a leader in exploring the unknown in air and space, but she also paved the way for women and other people of color to pursue careers and lead cutting-edge science at NASA. “
Mouton began her career with NASA in 1959. As chief mathematician at Goddard Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, she oversaw a team that tracked the Echo 1 and 2 satellites, launched into Earth orbit in 1960 and 1964, respectively.
In 1961, Mouton joined the Mission and Trajectory Analysis Division as chief programmer. Her team, the Program Systems Branch, was responsible for coding computer programs to track NASA spacecraft in orbit. She then became assistant chief of research programs for the Trajectory and Geodynamics Division at Goddard, before resigning in 1973. Mouton died in 1990, at age 61, of brain cancer.
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To honor his amazing work, members of NASA’s Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) mission proposed naming the giant lunar mountain Mons Mouton. VIPER is the first mission scheduled to map ice-like resources outside of Earth and is due to land on the western rim of Nobile Crater, which is near Mons Mouton, for a 100-day journey in late 2024.
Mons Mouton, located near the south pole of the moon, is a high peak with a flat top about the size of Delaware (about 2,000 square miles, or 5,180 square kilometers). It is also one of the 13 candidate landing regions for NASA Artemis 3 missions, whose aim is to send astronauts to the moon, including the first woman and person to set foot on the lunar surface.
The mountain stands as high as Denali, the highest peak in North America, and its base is ringed by huge gaping craters, thought to be the remains of an ancient meteorite bombardment. Mons Mouton appears untouched by the turbulent history of the region, suggesting that it may be billions of years older than the surrounding landscape. Rocks, pebbles and occasional craters pepper the large mountain plateau.
“Mons Mouton is a great place for VIPER — our solar-powered lunar rover that we will drive and conduct science in near real time,” Sarah Noble (opens in a new tab), VIPER program scientist at NASA Headquarters, said in the statement. “It has high sunny spots, it’s relatively flat, satellite data shows signs of water ice, and it allows long stretches of direct communication with our ground station on Earth.”
Mons Mouton is the latest in a series of lunar features named after prominent women and minority scientists. On September 20, 2021, NASA Announced (opens in a new tab) that a crater in the lunar south pole region would be named after Matthew Henson, an Arctic explorer and the first recorded person to reach the Earth’s North Pole. Later that month, on September 30, the IAU approved the name Marvin crater, after planetary geologist Ursula Marvin, for a feature near the moon’s south pole.
