Introduction: One of many unknowns prior to the Apollo landings concerned the possibility of life, its remains, or its organic precursors on the surface of the Moon. While the existence of lunar organisms was considered highly unlikely, a program of biological quarantine and testing for the astronauts, the Apollo Command Modules, and the lunar rock and soil samples , was instituted in the Lunar...

This paper describes an architectural concept for a Small Lunar Exploration and Delivery System to operate as a platform for emplacing payloads into lunar orbit and onto the lunar surface, while providing mobility for surface exploration, science, and infrastructure. The concept leverages emerging services that are capable of delivering payloads to Low Earth Orbit (LEO), while utilizing new and...

This contribution reviews some of the recent advancements in the field of lunar science based upon remote sensing results from a number of spacecraft missions to the Moon and laboratorybased analysis of lunar samples. Perhaps, one of the most exciting recent discoveries in lunar science has been the detection of water on the lunar surface and in the lunar samples. These new findings have signif...

Introduction: Previous investigations have shown that, with few exceptions, the lunar surface consists of a regolith layer that completely covers the underlying bedrock. The average thickness of this regolith layer has been estimated to be about 4-5 m for the mare and about 10-15 m for the highlands [1]. Knowledge of the structure, composition and distribution of the lunar regolith provides imp...

[1] Time-series of Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) reconstructed from tree-rings in Western North America is found to have a statistically significant periodicity of 18.6year period lunar nodal tidal cycle; negative (positive) PDO tends to occur in the period of strong (weak) diurnal tide. In the 3rd and 5th (10th, 11th and 13rd) year after the maximum diurnal tide, mean-PDO takes significant...

A paradigm shift has recently occurred in our knowledge and understanding of water in the lunar interior. This has transpired principally through continued analysis of returned lunar samples using modern analytical instrumentation. While these recent studies have undoubtedly measured indigenous water in lunar samples they have also highlighted our current limitations and some future challenges ...

In lunar exploration, spaceborne high frequency (HF) radar sounder is an effective tool for investigation of lunar subsurface structure in lunar exploration [1] [2]. The primary strategy for radar sounder detection of subsurface structure is through the time delay and intensity difference of the lunar surface and subsurface nadir echoes (Figure 1). It is important to fully understand electromag...

The unusual morphology and internal structure of bubbles within lunar regolith impact glasses have been studied using traditional scanning electron microscopy and the novel technique transmission X-ray microscopy (TXM), with 3D tomography reconstruction. Here, we show the previously unknown phenomenon of building a highly porous cellular structure within bubbles in glassy particles of the dust ...