Development Of Lunar Soil Simulants And Characteristics Of Microwave Radiation Of Lunar Regolith

The Chinese first lunar explore mission, Chang'E Lunar Orbiter, is proceeding smoothly. A four channels microwave radiometer (3.0 GHz, 7.8 GHz, 19.35 GHz, 37 GHz) will be carried in the orbiter. As one of the specific scientific objectives of the lunar orbiter project (three-dimension imaging of lunar surface; the contents and distribution of some elements on the lunar surface; the thickness of lunar regolith; space environments of the earth-moon system.), the thickness of lunar regolith was expected to be derived from the brightness temperature measurements of the Moon. The development of lunar simulant series and the characteristics of microwave radiation of lunar regolith were studied and discussed in the paper. This work is a part of advance research in the measurement of microwave radiation intensity of the lunar surface and the inversion of the thickness of lunar regolith.(1). The formation and evolution, the chemical and mineral composition, the physical mechanical properties of lunar regolith were outlined in detail.(2). The development of lunar simulant series is one of the basic infrastructure items of Chang'E Project of China. The progress of the development of lunar simulant series was reviewed. The tentative ideas for the development of lunar simulant series corresponding to the average composition at the Apollo and Luna landing sites was proposed in the paper.(3). CAS-1 Lunar Soil Simulant was developed successfully. The comparison in petrological, mineralogical, and geochemical composition of CAS-1 and lunar sample shows that CAS-1 is simular with the lunar materials sampled at Apollo 14 landing site. The basic chemical and mechanical parameters were also measured.(4). A new method was proposed to measure the complex permittivity of dry rocks and minerals with the resonant cavity perturbation method which incorporated in the application of polythene dilution method and Lichtenecker's mixture formulae. Theresults of the experiment show that this new method is of high accuracy, costs small mass of rocks and minerals, and can be put into application conveniently.(5). The complex permittivity of lunar simulants, soils and rocks, was measured at 1-20 GHz frequencies with the method of coaxial terminal short circuit. The dependence of particle size and the content of %TiO2+%FeO+%Fe2O3 in lunar simulant was discussed.(6). The characteristics of the microwave radiation of the lunar regolith was discussed on the base of the detail research into the complex permittivity of lunar materials. The penetration depths of microwave radiation of the four channels of the radiometer at Apollo and Luna landing sites were estimated.