Related papers: The Lunar Geophysical Network Landing Sites Scienc…
The prospect of mankind returning to the Moon has garnered a great amount of attention in recent years. Dozens of lunar missions are planned for the coming decade which will require the development of a sustainable communication…
We describe a new space gravitational wave observatory design called LAGRANGE that maintains all important LISA science at about half the cost and with reduced technical risk. It consists of three drag-free spacecraft in the most stable…
At the end of its discovery apparition, the $\sim$60 m near-Earth object 2024 YR4 was associated with a non-zero probability of lunar impact during its 2032 December 22 close approach. While posing no threat to Earth, a lunar impact of this…
Recently advanced low-Earth-orbit (LEO) satellite networks represented by large constellations and advanced payloads provide great promises for enabling high-quality Internet connectivity to any place on Earth. However, the traditional…
Since 1969, Lunar Laser Ranging (LLR) data have been collected by various observatories and analysed by different analysis groups. In the recent years, observations with bigger telescopes (APOLLO) and at infra-red wavelength (OCA) are…
In this note we mainly explore the possibility of measuring the action of the intrinsic gravitomagnetic field of the rotating Earth on the orbital motion of the Moon with the Lunar Laser Ranging (LLR) technique. Expected improvements in it…
We analyze the impact of the installation of a lunar laser ranging device on the NTT 3.6m ESO telescope. With such an instrument, the scientific communities of fundamental physics and solar system formation will highly benefit of the only…
Lunar retro-reflector arrays (LRAs) consisting of corner-cube reflectors (CCRs) placed on the nearside of the Moon during the Apollo era have demonstrated their longevity, cost-effectiveness, ease of deployment, and most importantly their…
Laser pulses fired at retroreflectors on the Moon provide very accurate ranges. Analysis yields information on Earth, Moon, and orbit. The highly accurate retroreflector positions have uncertainties less than a meter. Tides on the Moon show…
This paper presents a novel 3D myopic coverage path planning algorithm for lunar micro-rovers that can explore unknown environments with limited sensing and computational capabilities. The algorithm expands upon traditional non-graph path…
Based on technical work and development conducted under the LunA-10 study, I have identified six hypotheses where, if revolutionary improvements in technology can be made, I assess that a direct acceleration to the fielding of a lunar…
Land surface temperature (LST) is a critical parameter for characterizing surface energy balance and hydrothermal processes. While Landsat provides invaluable LST observations at medium spatial resolution for over 40 years, its native…
The Lunar Electromagnetic Monitor in X-rays (LEM-X) is a proposed wide-field X-ray observatory designed for deployment on the Moon's surface. Its primary scientific goal is to enhance multi-messenger astrophysics by detecting, localizing,…
Crater ellipticity determination is a complex and time consuming task that so far has evaded successful automation. We train a state of the art computer vision algorithm to identify craters in Lunar digital elevation maps and retrieve their…
The Himalayan plateau region of Ladakh, India, is a potential host for a science-class submillimeter observatory, building on existing astronomical infrastructure near Hanle and Merak. Using the fifth-generation European Centre for…
Ground-based observation at frequencies below 30 MHz is hindered by the ionosphere of the Earth and radio frequency interference. To map the sky at these low frequencies, we have proposed the Discovering the Sky at the Longest wavelength…
Many science missions require an unobstructed view of space and a stable thermal environment but lack the technical or programmatic resources to reach orbits that satisfy these needs. This paper presents a high Earth orbit in 2:1 resonance…
The CosmoQuest virtual community science platform facilitates the creation and implementation of astronomical research projects performed by citizen scientists. One such project, called Moon Mappers, aids in determining the feasibility of…
A detailed comparison is made of results from the Lunar Prospector Neutron Spectrometer (LPNS) and the Lunar Exploration Neutron Detector Collimated Sensors for EpiThermal Neutrons (LEND CSETN). Using the autocorrelation function and power…
With the complexity of lunar exploration missions, the moon needs to have a higher level of autonomy. Environmental perception and navigation algorithms are the foundation for lunar rovers to achieve autonomous exploration. The development…