The Lunette mission concept for a network of small, inexpensive lunar landers has evolved over the last three years as the focus of space exploration activities in the US has changed. Originating in a concept for multiple landers launched as a secondary payload capable of regional science and site survey activities, Lunette has recently been developed into a Discovery-class mission concept that offers global lunar coverage enabling network science on a much broader scale. A particular mission concept has been refined by the Lunette team that would result in a low-cost global lunar geophysical network, comprised of two landers widely spaced on the near side of the moon. Each of the two identical landers would carry a suite of instruments that would make continuous measurements of seismic activity, heat flow, and the electromagnetic environment during the full lunar day/night cycle. Each lander would also deploy a next-generation laser retroreflector capable of improving on distance measurement accuracy by an order of magnitude over those emplaced by the previous Apollo and Lunokhod missions. This paper presents a comprehensive overview of the Lunette geophysical network mission concept, including mission and flight system design, as well as the key requirements and constraints that guided them.


    Access

    Access via TIB

    Check availability in my library


    Export, share and cite



    Title :

    A Discovery-Class Lunette Mission Concept for a Lunar Geophysical Network


    Contributors:

    Conference:

    International Astronautical Congress (IAC-2010) ; 2010 ; Prague, Czechoslovakia


    Publication date :

    2010-09-27


    Type of media :

    Conference paper


    Type of material :

    No indication


    Language :

    English





    The Lunar Geophysical Network Mission

    R. C. Weber / C. Neal / B. Banerdt et al. | NTRS


    The Lunar Geophysical Network Mission

    Clive Neal / Renee Weber | NTRS


    Lunette: Lunar Farside Gravity Mapping by Nanosat

    Spencer, H. / Carroll, K. / Arkani-Hamed, J. et al. | British Library Conference Proceedings | 2005