Micro lunar landers: Technologies for affordable lunar surface access
- Paper number
IAC-09.B4.8.4
- Author
Dr. Adam M. Baker, Virgin Galactic, United Kingdom
- Coauthor
Dr. William Marshall, NASA - Ames Research Center, United States
- Year
2009
- Abstract
Numerous missions are currently orbiting or planned to orbit the Moon in the next few years, providing a swath of data to support scientific interests and characterise Earth’ satellite in advance of a return by humans sometime in the next decade. There is a pressing need to move from orbit to lunar surface access in order to characterise the in-situ environment which astronauts will face, to conduct important lunar science (e.g. age dating), and to place robotic infrastructure such as navigation beacons for future large landers. A brief overview of specific applications of interest will be given. Although a number of lander concepts have been explored by the UK, USA and other countries, the focus has been on small-medium missions, descent systems and programme budgets in excess of \$100M. Little emphasis has been given to the potential for micro missions to the Lunar surface which could piggyback alongside more substantial missions, absorb a more modest budget (in the \$10M range), while delivering a useful payload to the surface and supporting it for an extended period (more than 1 lunar diurnal cycle). This paper will discuss enabling technologies for micro lunar missions, in particular: \begin{itemize}\item Microsystems applied at system level to significantly reduce mass, power and volume while augmenting redundancy\end{itemize} \begin{itemize}\item Nuclear power supplies in the context of low cost missions\end{itemize} \begin{itemize}\item Alternative propulsion systems to enable a safe descent, e.g. hybrid rocket engines and airbags.\end{itemize} Example approaches to micro lunar missions include impactors and soft landers. An illustration of each will be given to show the current state-of-the-art, and to highlight technology shortfalls which currently limit lunar surface access to a very few planned missions. A summary of some interesting hardware developments for low cost lunar missions will be given. The challenge of finding suitable launch options, and the value of educational programmes such as ASMO and ESMO to increase access for micro missions to the Moon will be discussed. A roadmap to a future, ultra small, cost constrained lunar sample return mission will be outlined.- Abstract document
- Manuscript document
(absent)