Would it be possible to put a radio telescope into orbit? Wouldn't such a telescope eliminate much of the interference that plagues earthbound radio telescopes, making the data stronger and clearer?

For totally RFI-free radio astronomy is necessary radio telescope (or array) on the farside of the Moon.

See Lunar Farside Radio Laboratory by SETI Permanent Study Group, International Academy of Astronautics


73 & clear skies from Bruno IK2WQA - brmoret_at_libero.it
Messier 13 Astronomical Observatory, Tradate (Italy)
Founder SETI@home Berkeley's Staff Friends Club
Founder SETI ITALIA Team G. Cocconi

so if we put a station on the far side of the moon, how would we get the signal back to earth. A series of satellites? A satellite beyond the moon that would stay in a sychronized orbit to the moon. The moon has notoriously treacherous gravitational fields which would cause a probe/satellite to lose orbit quickly.

sounds like its easier said than done

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

so if we put a station on the far side of the moon, how would we get the signal back to earth. A series of satellites? A satellite beyond the moon that would stay in a sychronized orbit to the moon. The moon has notoriously treacherous gravitational fields which would cause a probe/satellite to lose orbit quickly.

sounds like its easier said than done

The Indian Chandrayaan-1 satellite is orbiting the Moon in a circular polar orbit at a 100 km height since November 12 and I am not aware of any problem with its orbit.
Tullio

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Could the telescope be shielded to at least reduce the amount of RFI it receives from earth. Wouldn't the signals received by it be stronger from not having to go through the atmosphere or is the effect from the atmosphere to small to worry about?

http://www.planetary.org/explore/topics/space_missions/chandrayaan_1/facts.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_field_of_the_Moon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_field_of_the_Moon

Looks like they are keeping the probe above the anomalies

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

The official ISRO site says that on November 12 the orbit was reduces to a height of 100 km.
Chandrayaan-1

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and I recall reading somewhere that anything closer than 100km(60 miles) would result in the magnetic fields on the Moon changing the orbir of lunar satelites

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

The Moon's magnetic field is very weak. Since the Chandrayaan-1 orbit is very close to the Moon (100 km against the 250 foreseen for GOCE around the Earth) I would expect more perturbations by the mass concentrations (mascons). I don't know if the Chandra gravimeters are sensitive enough to map the Moon's gravitational field with the accuracy GOCE should obtain for the Earth's field. From what I read I think that it is oriented more to study the Moon's mineralogy that its gravitational field.
Tullio .

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Given the facts of the previous postings could we not put a radio telescope in orbit around the moon? The problems of providing power to the telescope and communicating with it could be fixed by keeping it in a non synchronous orbit around the moon. With this type of orbit it could gather data while on the dark side of the moon and recharge and communicate while on the light side.

Given the facts of the previous postings could we not put a radio telescope in orbit around the moon? The problems of providing power to the telescope and communicating with it could be fixed by keeping it in a non synchronous orbit around the moon. With this type of orbit it could gather data while on the dark side of the moon and recharge and communicate while on the light side.

The energy requirements would be enormous, probably needing nuclear powered rockets. A radiotelescope is big and heavy. They are building a huge array on the Atacama desert in Chile, consisting of 64 12 meters antennas. I believe each one of them weighs some metric tons. Imagine putting all this mass first in a low Earth orbit, then sending it to the Moon, then decelerating it to put in a Moon orbit. All this requires a huge fuel amount or a nuclear powered rocket.
Tullio

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The dish could be made in a light weight lattice frame. I dont see why a dish couldnt be orbited at a lagrange point. Have it deploy as some satillites do with a iris type of array.

The dish could be made in a light weight lattice frame. I dont see why a dish couldnt be orbited at a lagrange point. Have it deploy as some satillites do with a iris type of array.

Since the Earth's atmosphere has a radio window, I don't see any advantage in putting a radiotelescope in orbit rather than in a zone free from interference, as the Atacama desert or other suitable locations, maybe in Antarctica.
Tullio

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The size and weight of the telescope wouldn't even have to be close to that of a ground based telescope. Most of the size and weight of a ground based unit is tied up in the support structure that simply would not be necessary in an orbital unit. It probably could be put into a lunar orbit with close to the same energy cost as getting a probe to Mars. Such a radio telescope could yield data that simply is to scatted or distorted to be useful by the time it gets through the atmosphere. Who knows what it could find.

I think the main problem is that of financing. Since the National Science Foundation is sponsoring the big ALMA array in Chile and a further project is being explored as the Square Kilometer Array, I don't think an Orbital Radio Telecope could be planned. Who would finance it? Would it be a NASA program? Already the ALMA array is an international project, like LHC at CERN or ITER in France. You should find a number of states to support it and given the economic crisis that would be hard. Better keep Arecibo working, this is my humble opinion.
Tullio

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A orbital radio telescope?

Already done by Japan.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HALCA
http://www.isas.jaxa.jp/e/enterp/missions/halca/index.shtml

And more for the future

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASTRO-G
http://www.isas.jaxa.jp/e/enterp/missions/astro-g/index.shtml