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NASA is drawing up plans to probe the secrets of moon dust using a small orbiter that will ride piggyback on another spacecraft's rocket.

The $80-million LADEE spacecraft is slated to launch alongside a lunar gravity-mapping probe in 2011 on a 100-day mission to study the moon's wisp-thin atmosphere and ever-present dust.

A clear understanding of the moon's atmosphere and its clingy dust will be vital for NASA as it moves forward with plans to return astronauts to the lunar surface aboard its Altair lander by 2020.

During the Apollo lunar landings between 1969 and 1972, NASA moonwalkers were coated in lunar dust during excursions and tracked it back inside their landers, where it gave off a smell similar to gunpowder. The gritty material can be abrasive, made of sharp, glassy grains, be electrostatically charged and may even be toxic to astronauts if too much is inhaled.

According to one NASA mission description, LADEE - short for Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer - is expected to carry at least two instruments, a spectrometer for atmosphere studies and a dust detector aimed at the moon's gritty regolith.