Related papers: Six Hypotheses for Accelerating the Lunar Economy
A central question surrounding possible human exploration of Mars is whether crewed missions can be supported by available technologies using in situ resources. Here, we show that photovoltaics-based power systems would be adequate and…
Kick-starting the space economy requires identification of critical resources that can lower the cost of space transport, sustain logistic bases and communication relay networks between major nodes in the network. One important challenge…
The risk of a catastrophic or existential disaster for our civilization is increasing this century. A significant motivation for a near-term space settlement is the opportunity to safeguard civilization in the event of a planetary-scale…
The renewed interest in lunar exploration and the development of future lunar communication and navigation services highlight the need for a precise, stable, and interoperable geodetic and timing infrastructure on the Moon. NovaMoon,…
As NASA prepares to carry out its Artemis lunar missions, the design and planning of robust power systems tailored to the lunar environment become necessary and urgent. Solar photovoltaic (PV) systems are among the most suitable power…
The Lunar Geophysical Network (LGN) mission is proposed to land on the Moon in 2030 and deploy packages at four locations to enable geophysical measurements for 6-10 years. Returning to the lunar surface with a long-lived geophysical…
The rapid growth of cislunar activities, including lunar landings, the Lunar Gateway, and in-space refueling stations, requires advances in cost-efficient trajectory design and reliable integration of navigation and remote sensing.…
Despite more than 50 years of human space exploration, no paper in the field of economics has been published regarding the theory of a space-based economy. The aim of this paper is to develop quantitative techniques to estimate conditions…
More precise lunar and Martian ranging will enable unprecedented tests of Einstein's theory of General Relativity and well as lunar and planetary science. NASA is currently planning several missions to return to the Moon, and it is natural…
Autonomous precision navigation to land onto the Moon relies on vision sensors. Computer vision algorithms are designed, trained and tested using synthetic simulations. High quality terrain models have been produced by Moon orbiters…
Future lunar missions will depend on an internationally agreed upon timescale that remains accurate under the Moon's unique gravitational environment and its orbital dynamics. This thesis investigates the proposed Lunar Coordinate Time…
Water ice is thought to be trapped in large permanently shadowed regions (PSRs) in the Moon's polar regions, due to their extremely low temperatures. Here, we show that many unmapped cold traps exist on small spatial scales, substantially…
Tools have been developed to model and simulate the effects of lunar landing vehicles on the lunar environment, mostly addressing the effects of regolith erosion by rocket plumes and the fate of the ejected lunar soil particles. The KSC…
To-date, all human economic activity has depended on the resources of a single planet, and it has long been recognized that developments in space exploration could in principle open our closed planetary economy to external resources of…
This document presents the study conducted during the European Moon Rover System Pre-Phase A project, in which we have developed a lunar rover system, with a modular approach, capable of carrying out different missions with different…
As humans venture deeper into space, the need for a lunar settlement, housing the first group of settlers, grows steadily. By means of new technologies such as in situ resource utilisation (ISRU) as well as computational design, this goal…
Forty years ago, Apollo astronauts placed the first of several retroreflector arrays on the lunar surface. Their continued usefulness for laser-ranging might suggest that the lunar environment does not damage optical devices. However, new…
The Moon is known to have a small liquid core, and it is thought that in the distant past the core may have produced strong magnetic fields recorded in lunar samples. Here we implement a numerical model of lunar orbital and rotational…
In an era marked by renewed interest in lunar exploration and the prospect of establishing a sustainable human presence on the Moon, innovative approaches supporting mission preparation and astronaut training are imperative. To this end,…
Synthetic image generation is one of the crucial input for planetary missions. It enables researchers and engineers to visualize planned planetary missions, test imaging systems and plan exploration activities in a virtual environment…