01
Solar Visibility
Can the location receive sunlight while accounting for the relief of the lunar surface?
sun elevation > horizon mask (azimuth)
Lunar South Pole
Co-visibility engine
Beyond the Horizon, Every Mission Matters.
Explore lunar illumination and Earth communication windows with precision. Discover when the Moon’s South Pole offers the conditions your mission needs.
Solar
Terrain-masked illumination
DTE
Direct Earth line of sight
Window
Both conditions aligned
Initialising terrain
Surface view
Illustrative relief
Site 0
89.9° S
0.0° E
Earth · DTE
LINE OF SIGHT
Solar
DTE
Co-vis
Drag to orbit
DEMO GEOMETRY 20 × 20 KM
Procedural terrain · illustrative, not survey data
lightlink / Scene 01
01 / The problem
Two Critical Conditions. One Operational Window.
A lunar mission survives on two inputs at once: energy from the Sun and a clear path back to Earth. lightlink makes their intersection visible before a mission is planned.
02
Direct-to-Earth Communication
Can the location maintain an unobstructed line of sight toward the Earth?
earth elevation > local horizon
Condition model / South Pole
Conceptual When both conditions are true
Operational window Available
The operating condition
“When sunlight and communication align, mission operations become possible.”
Conceptual diagram only. It illustrates the relationship between visibility conditions and does not represent a real survey, ephemeris or mission window.
03 / Mission modes
One Engine. Two Ways to Explore.
The same co-visibility model serves rigorous engineering analysis and accessible exploration. Neither mode is a simplified afterthought; each is designed around its audience.
Shared engine
Terrain · Ephemeris · Visibility
Mission mode
Technical analysis For engineers and scientists
Compare candidate sites, read horizon geometry and quantify the exact periods when solar power and direct communication overlap.
- Two-site comparison and side-by-side analysis
- Angular elevation charts and local horizon masks
- Co-visibility window detection over a selected range
- CSV and JSON export for downstream mission analysis
Explorer mode
Educational experience For students and explorers
Follow a mission site in real time and learn why sunlight and communication windows appear, change and disappear.
- Interactive lunar surface simulation
- Solar energy and direct-to-Earth link indicators
- Time remaining before the next sunset
- Visual explanations of the underlying astronomy
04 / How it works
From Coordinates to a Mission Window.
Four measurements connect a location on the Moon to an operational decision. The pipeline stays transparent at every step.
Engine flow Conceptual
Input
Terrain +
ephemerides
Output
Visibility
windows
Static analysis Reproducible pipeline Export-ready
- 01SITE_ID · LAT · LON
Select a Lunar Site
Choose a location at the lunar South Pole and define the coordinates and time range to study.
- 02LOLA DEM · HORIZON MASK
Analyze the Terrain
The system evaluates local topography and horizon obstructions using elevation data such as LOLA DEM.
- 03SPICE · AZIMUTH · ELEVATION
Calculate Visibility
The engine reads Sun and Earth ephemerides to determine their angular positions through time.
- 04SUN ∩ EARTH · TIME INTERVALS
Discover Co-Visibility Windows
lightlink identifies the periods when both conditions are satisfied simultaneously.
Pipeline description reflects the intended analysis flow. The current landing page demonstrates the interface with simulated data only.
05 / Mission locations
A Landscape of Mission Decisions.
lightlink is built to sit beside the sites and programs shaping the next era of lunar exploration. The references below provide context, not operational claims.
Reference context · 2026
Program / reference
Artemis III Target Sites
NASA’s Artemis III candidate landing regions are evaluated for safe landing, science return and resource potential. lightlink is designed to add illumination and direct-to-Earth context to those site studies.
CANDIDATE REGIONS
Reference only
Lunar site / reference
Shackleton Rim
A high-interest feature of the lunar South Pole, adjacent to permanently shadowed terrain. The explorer preview uses the coordinates supplied in the project brief as a demonstration input.
DEMO INPUT
Reference only
Lunar site / reference
Connecting Ridge
A South Pole ridge referenced in exploration planning. It appears in this interface as a synthetic demonstration scenario, not as an assessed landing site.
SYNTHETIC SCENARIO
Reference only
CLPS provider
Intuitive Machines
A commercial lunar payload services provider under NASA’s CLPS initiative. Listed for mission context and not as a confirmed partner of this project.
MISSION CONTEXT
Reference only
CLPS provider
Astrobotic
A commercial lunar delivery provider under NASA’s CLPS initiative. Referenced to illustrate the ecosystem in which mission-site analysis is useful.
MISSION CONTEXT
Reference only
Heritage / program
Apollo
The Apollo program established the foundation for crewed lunar surface exploration. Its legacy informs the operational questions lightlink explores for future polar missions.
HISTORICAL REFERENCE
Reference only
Locations, programs and providers are shown as public references only. No coordinates, availability, partnership, endorsement or scientific result is asserted or implied.
06 / Scientific capabilities
Built for Scientific Rigour.
Every layer of the product is designed around traceable geometry: elevation, ephemerides, line of sight and time. The result is a readable answer, backed by technical depth.
Elevation Ephemerides Windows
01 LOLA · PDS
LOLA Digital Elevation Models
High-resolution elevation products establish the topographic base for terrain-aware visibility analysis.
02 SPICE · KERNELS
JPL Horizons / SPICE Ephemerides
Sun and Earth geometry resolved from validated ephemeris sources through a dedicated service adapter.
03 MASK · AZ/EL
Local Horizon Mask
Terrain silhouettes become an azimuth-by-azimuth horizon mask for every candidate site.
04 GEOMETRY · 3D
3D Terrain Reconstruction
Elevation samples rebuild the local surface as a three-dimensional terrain with real vertical relationships.
05 LIGHTING · RAY
Dynamic Solar Shadows
Low-angle solar vectors drive shadows across ridges and crater walls as time advances.
06 DTE · LOS
Direct-to-Earth Visibility
Line-of-sight tests establish when Earth remains geometrically visible from the selected location.
07 TEMPORAL · SET
Temporal Co-Visibility Analysis
Solar and Earth visibility are intersected across a timeline into discrete operational windows.
08 CSV / JSON
CSV / JSON Data Export
Analysis results leave the platform as structured data for reports, notebooks or mission studies.
Capabilities describe the intended analysis engine and its service layer. The public landing page renders procedural geometry and simulated timelines, and does not present them as LOLA, SPICE or mission results.
07 / The team
Six Specialists, One Window.
lightlink is a multidisciplinary build by Midnight Stars. Each role maps directly onto a requirement of the 2026 NASA Space Apps Challenge, from raw topographic data to the interface that makes a landing window readable in seconds.
TL 01 Yeremy Pujols
Tech Lead & Solution Architect
Overall leadership, final integration and the core 3D engine in Three.js.
- Configure the Three.js project: terrain plane, 16-bit heightmap deformation and vector lighting.
- Act as the wildcard that unblocks technical bottlenecks across backend and frontend.
- Keep every workstream aligned with the co-visibility logic.
FE 02 Rusber Batista
Frontend UI & Data Integration
Interactive user interface: control panels, sliders and charts.
- Build the interactive timeline slider and the 1x / 10x / 100x playback controls.
- Assemble the Mission Mode panel (2D elevation charts via Chart.js) and the Explorer Mode indicators (battery and signal).
- Connect the UI state to the 3D scene built by the Tech Lead.
AL 03 Aram Musset
Algorithmic Logic & Backend Support
Pure mathematical validation logic and the API / JSON structure.
- Implement the co-visibility rule: solar elevation above the horizon mask, and Earth elevation above the horizon mask (E > H(φ)).
- Structure and serve the REST / JSON endpoints that deliver processed data to the frontend.
- Validate elevation and azimuth accuracy for the preset landing sites.
DA 04 Adrian Ramirez
Data Analyst / GIS Preprocessing
Extraction, cleaning and pre-computation of spatial and astrodynamic datasets.
- Process LOLA DEM data into 16-bit grayscale PNG tiles of 20 km × 20 km, ready for Three.js.
- Generate the horizon masks H(φ) as 1D lookup tables or lightweight databases for each target site.
- Reduce gigabytes of topographic and ephemeris data into assets a web app can serve.
ME 05 Edwin Mejia
Media, Video & Visual Assets
Visual production of the delivery, where the mandatory video is decisive.
- Record high-quality screencasts of the 3D application running in both Pro and Explorer modes.
- Produce and edit the final presentation video (30 seconds to 2 minutes, per official rules).
- Create supporting graphics, the project logo, thumbnails and context animations.
PD 06 Ashley Jimenez
Pitch Deck, Storytelling & Documentation
Project narrative, pitch design and official documentation.
- Write the video script and the problem / solution narrative, emphasising the lunar South Pole and CLPS missions.
- Design the pitch deck presented to the judges.
- Draft the official hackathon submission page and the repository documentation, including the Explorer Mode pedagogical guide.
Role assignments describe the intended team structure for the challenge submission. The public landing page renders procedural geometry and simulated timelines only.
Closing scene / Horizon
Demo environment
Find the Window. Enable the Mission.
Explore the lunar South Pole and discover the conditions that make future missions possible.
Input 01
Solar illumination
Input 02
Direct-to-Earth
Output
One operational window