Accessing, Drilling and Operating at the Lunar South Pole: Status of European Plans and Activities

Exploration of the Moon is considered a high priority in the overall strategy of the European Space Agency (ESA), together with activities in Low Earth Orbit and missions to Mars. The Lunar South Polar region presents key opportunities for scientific discovery and advancement of exploration capabilities, but is also a uniquely challenging operational environment for robotic missions and for human explorers. ESA has placed accessing this environment, and the surface and subsurface material found there, as a high priority. In this context ESA is discussing with international partners, in particular with ROSCOSMOS, how these ambitions might be realised in cooperation. To support this work ESA is engaged in a range of mission level activities with ROSCOSMOS on the Luna-27/Luna-Resurs Lander mission as well as Lunar Polar Sample Return (LPSR). In addition to this ESA is undertaking, with European institutes and industries, a set of specific development activities which seek to address the challenges of operating in the environment of the Lunar South Pole. This paper will specifically discuss the ongoing work on sampling and handling icy materials, both for in-situ analysis (as planned for the Luna-27 mission) and for sample return (as a cooperation with the Luna-28 mission), considering aspects such as regolith penetration, sample extraction and preservation. The next steps shall also be presented, including the approach to requirements verification via early testing activities, component level breadboarding and full scale development model tests in laboratory environments and in the field.     «

Exploration of the Moon is considered a high priority in the overall strategy of the European Space Agency (ESA), together with activities in Low Earth Orbit and missions to Mars. The Lunar South Polar region presents key opportunities for scientific discovery and advancement of exploration capabilities, but is also a uniquely challenging operational environment for robotic missions and for human explorers. ESA has placed accessing this environment, and the surface and subsurface material found...     »