Research On Site Selection Of Landing Area For Lunar South Pole Exploration Mission

In recent years,lunar exploration has entered a new era.Many countries or organizations have proposed new lunar exploration plans.With the completion of the three-step mission of the Chang’e project,the goal of lunar exploration in China has changed to the direction of deepening lunar scientific research,comprehensive development,utilization of resources,building lunar surface infrastructure,carrying out long-term exploration,and more international cooperation and development.Under this trend,China has proposed to build an International Lunar Research Station(ILRS)in the lunar South Pole,to build long-term lunar surface infrastructure and carry out long-term lunar scientific researches.The location of the landing area is an important prerequisite for the establishment of ILRS and for the exploration of the lunar South Pole.As the focus of future exploration,the terrain,temperature,illumination and other environmental characteristics of the lunar South Pole will greatly affect the planning of the landing mission.Therefore,it is of great significance to carry out the research on the landing area selection of the lunar South Pole.In this paper,by determining and setting scientific and engineering constraints,we analyzed the area above 80 ° s in lunar South Pole,and got two potential landing areas,Amundsen Crater and Malapert Area.Then we analyzed the two landing areas in details with potential mission planning.The main tasks completed in this paper are as follows:1)Constraint determinationThe key scientific issues of the current lunar South Pole are focus on water ice,volatiles,deep matter,etc.,so the scientific constraints in this this paper are determined,including water ice,permanent shadow area,maximum temperature,mission diversity.Combined with the engineering requirements,the engineering constraints in this paper are determined,including slope,mobility and illumination conditions.2)Landing area selection for ILRSAccording to the scientific constraints,the regions above 80 ° s of the lunar South Pole are analyzed by using the limiting conditions as follows: hydrogen abundance greater than 110 ppm,water ice spectrum results,permanent shadow area distribution,maximum temperature lower than 110 k,and mission diversity.It is found that the regions that meet these conditions are mainly distributed in the impact craters of the lunar South Pole.Then,the slope,mobility and illumination of these craters are analyzed,and the degree of satisfaction with engineering constraints is obtained.Finally,two potential landing areas are determined by comprehensive analysis results: Amundsen Crater and Malapert Crater.3)Landing area analysis and potential explorationThe two determined potential landing areas were analyzed in terms of topography,including elevation,slope,impact crater distribution,geological dating,illumination,temperature,permanent shadow area distribution,etc.,and summarized the locations of the two areas that suitable for landing.Through analysis,it is determined that the scientific targets in the landing zone include water ice,deep matter,morphology and geologic structure,and impact history.Then,according to the scientific targets and engineering feasibility,the landing sites and landing ellipses are determined for the two landing zones.Finally,the exploration tasks are planned for two landing areas,and the specific detection route and sampling point are designed from the landing sites,and the scientific goals that can be achieved by the sampling points are explained.