A twofold mission to the moon: Objectives and payloads

Ukraine has scientific and technical potential to construct a spacecraft and payloads for exploration of the Moon in collaboration with other interested countries. In this paper we propose a double mission that consists of two parts: (1) orbiter exploration from an elongated orbit with a pericenter...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Acta astronautica Vol. 154; pp. 214 - 226
Main Authors:	Shkuratov, Y.G., Konovalenko, A.A., Zakharenko, V.V., Stanislavsky, A.A., Bannikova, E.Y., Kaydash, V.G., Stankevich, D.G., Korokhin, V.V., Vavriv, D.M., Galushko, V.G., Yerin, S.N., Bubnov, I.N., Tokarsky, P.L., Ulyanov, O.M., Stepkin, S.V., Lytvynenko, L.N., Yatskiv, Y.S., Videen, G., Zarka, P., Rucker, H.O.
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	Elmsford Elsevier Ltd 01-01-2019 Elsevier BV Elsevier
Subjects:	Antennas Astronomy Astrophysics Banded structure Coronal mass ejection Earth ionosphere Hydrogen Ionosphere Jupiter Levitation Lightning Lunar dust Lunar soil Lunar surface Mapping Moon Northern Hemisphere Panoramic cameras Payloads Physics Prototypes Radar Radiation Radio antennas Radio astronomy Radio emission Radio telescopes Remote sensing Satellites Saturn Solar corona Solar flares Space exploration Spacecraft Spacecraft shielding Spatial resolution Spectral bands Telescopes Terrestrial environments Ukraine
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Summary:	Ukraine has scientific and technical potential to construct a spacecraft and payloads for exploration of the Moon in collaboration with other interested countries. In this paper we propose a double mission that consists of two parts: (1) orbiter exploration from an elongated orbit with a pericenter over the north pole (100 km above the surface) and the apocenter over the south pole (altitude about 3000 km), and (2) exploration with a lander located on the lunar farside near the south pole in the surroundings of the crater Braude. The lander carries five antennas for radio astronomy observations from hundreds of KHz to 40 MHz. The farside landing is necessary to provide effective shielding electromagnetic noises from the Earth, including aurora and lighting radiation. The lander communicates with the relay satellite in a high portion of the orbit; the orbiter is equipped with scientific payloads for investigation of the lunar surface. In the mode of a radio spectrometer, the radio antennas may study solar flares of various types, coronal mass ejections, Jupiter radio emission (L and S bursts), and Saturn (lightning and kilometer radio emission). Overlapping frequencies in the range of 10–40 MHz will allow coordination with terrestrial radio telescopes of IRA NAS, Ukraine (UTR-2, GURT), whose operation is limited by the Earth ionosphere. The absence of terrestrial noise allows us to approach the solution of the problem of searching for cosmological effects associated with the line of neutral hydrogen at Z = 50 … 100. The lander panoramic camera equipped with color and polarization filters provides important observations of horizon glow caused by the effect of electrostatic levitation of the lunar dust. For the orbital module we suggest remote-sensing instruments, which had not previously been used in space exploration of the Moon. The expected spatial resolution of the data will be about 100 m for the northern hemisphere. The equipment should include instruments, prototypes of which are already available in science organizations of Ukraine. These include an infrared spectrometer to map the abundance of OH/H2O compounds in the lunar soil. A HiRes camera operating in two spectral bands is suggested for mapping structural and mineralogical characteristics of young surface formations. The 3-mm radar, working in a squint mode, will not only map the radio brightness of the surface, which characterizes its roughness, but also improve the lunar topographic model with a spatial resolution of 100 m. •The mission includes a lander with radio astronomy antennas located on the lunar farside.•Low-frequency antennas shielded by Moon from Earth radio interference allow unique observations.•A relay orbiter uses a 5-h polar orbit with pericenter near the north pole at a height of 100 km.•The orbiter is equipped with a 3-mm radar for surface mapping with 100-m resolution.•The orbiter payload also includes an IR spectrometer to study OH/H2O compounds in regolith.
ISSN:	0094-5765 1879-2030
DOI:	10.1016/j.actaastro.2018.03.038