• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.97-106
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• 2010

To prepare for a Korean lunar orbiter mission, a precise lunar orbit propagator; Yonsei precise lunar orbit propagator (YSPLOP) is developed. In the propagator, accelerations due to the Moon's non-spherical gravity, the point masses of the Earth, Moon, Sun, Mars, Jupiter and also, solar radiation pressures can be included. The developed propagator's performance is validated and propagation errors between YSPOLP and STK/Astrogator are found to have about maximum 4-m, in along-track direction during 30 days (Earth's time) of propagation. Also, it is found that the lifetime of a lunar polar orbiter is strongly affected by the different degrees and orders of the lunar gravity model, by a third body's gravitational attractions (especially the Earth), and by the different orbital inclinations. The reliable lifetime of circular lunar polar orbiter at about 100 km altitude is estimated to have about 160 days (Earth's time). However, to estimate the reasonable lifetime of circular lunar polar orbiter at about 100 km altitude, it is strongly recommended to consider at least $50\;{\times}\;50$ degrees and orders of the lunar gravity field. The results provided in this paper are expected to make further progress in the design fields of Korea's lunar orbiter missions.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.255-267
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• 2013

In this research, the ground contact opportunity for the fictitious low lunar orbiter is analyzed to prepare for a future Korean lunar orbiter mission. The ground contact opportunity is basically derived from geometrical relations between the typical ground stations at the Earth, the relative positions of the Earth and Moon, and finally, the lunar orbiter itself. Both the cut-off angle and the orbiter's Line of Sight (LOS) conditions (weather orbiter is located at near or far side of the Moon seen from the Earth) are considered to determine the ground contact opportunities. Four KOMPSAT Ground Stations (KGSs) are assumed to be Korea's future Near Earth Networks (NENs) to support lunar missions, and world-wide separated Deep Space Networks (DSNs) are also included during the contact availability analysis. As a result, it is concluded that about 138 times of contact will be made between the orbiter and the Daejeon station during 27.3 days of prediction time span. If these contact times are converted into contact duration, the duration is found to be about 8.55 days, about 31.31% of 27.3 days. It is discovered that selected four KGSs cannot provide continuous tracking of the lunar orbiter, meaning that international collaboration is necessary to track Korea's future lunar orbiter effectively. Possible combinations of world-wide separated DSNs are also suggested to compensate for the lack of contact availability with only four KGSs, as with primary and backup station concepts. The provided algorithm can be easily modified to support any type of orbit around the Moon, and therefore, the presented results could aid further progress in the design field of Korea's lunar orbiter missions.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.46 no.12
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• pp.1028-1036
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• 2018

KARI plans to launch Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO) to the Moon by December 2020 for the first step of the Korea Lunar Exploration Project. This orbiter will be launched to obtain lunar exploration technologies and science data in advance before launching a main orbiter and a lunar probe. This paper describes the verification of thermal design for the orbiter. It is exposed to more extreme thermal environment than that of low Earth orbit satellite due to the heavy infrared emission of the Moon. Accordingly, a thermal design considering this environment is needed to maintain the temperature of payloads and components equipped in the orbiter within operating temperature range in all orbits. We performed the thermal analysis for Earth-Moon transfer orbit, lunar mission orbit and lunar eclipse required for thermal design verification of the lunar orbiter. As a result, this thermal design met the design requirements.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.281-288
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• 2017

The first Korea lunar orbiter, Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO), has been in development since 2016. After launch, the KPLO will execute several maneuvers to enter into the lunar mission orbit, and will then perform lunar science missions for one year. Among these maneuvers, the lunar orbit insertion (LOI) is the most critical maneuver because the KPLO will experience an extreme velocity change in the presence of the Moon's gravitational pull. However, the lunar orbiter may have a delayed LOI burn during operation due to hardware limitations and telemetry delays. This delayed burn could occur in different captured lunar orbits; in the worst case, the KPLO could fly away from the Moon. Therefore, in this study, the burn delay for the first LOI maneuver is analyzed to successfully enter the desired lunar orbit. Numerical simulations are performed to evaluate the difference between the desired and delayed lunar orbits due to a burn delay in the LOI maneuver. Based on this analysis, critical factors in the LOI maneuver, the periselene altitude and orbit period, are significantly changed and an additional delta-V in the second LOI maneuver is required as the delay burn interval increases to 10 min from the planned maneuver epoch.

• Aerospace Engineering and Technology
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.96-107
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• 2014

Korea Aerospace Research Institute has a plan to launch experimental lunar orbiter in 2017, and lunar orbiter and lander in 2020. In the mission planning phase, LOI(Lunar Orbit Insertion) maneuver strategy should be designed using finite burn model because on-board propulsion system of lunar orbiter in finite burn type. LOI maneuver plan and amount of required ${\Delta}V$ using finite burn model depend on the spacecraft attitude at burn, a type of propellant, thrust level and burn timing. This paper describes the LOI maneuver of lunar orbiter of foreign space agency and then comes up with the LOI maneuver plan of Korean lunar orbiter. Adequate thrust level and burn duration of Korean lunar orbiter also present by performing simulation.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.211-219
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• 2016

Korea's lunar exploration project includes the launching of an orbiter, a lander (including a rover), and an experimental orbiter (referred to as a lunar pathfinder). Laser altimeters have played an important scientific role in lunar, planetary, and asteroid exploration missions since their first use in 1971 onboard the Apollo 15 mission to the Moon. In this study, a laser altimeter was proposed as a scientific instrument for the Korean lunar orbiter, which will be launched by 2020, to study the global topography of the surface of the Moon and its gravitational field and to support other payloads such as a terrain mapping camera or spectral imager. This study presents the baseline design and performance model for the proposed laser altimeter. Additionally, the study discusses the expected performance based on numerical simulation results. The simulation results indicate that the design of system parameters satisfies performance requirements with respect to detection probability and range error even under unfavorable conditions.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.44 no.3
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• pp.218-227
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• 2016

Korean government plans to launch a lunar orbiter and a lander to the Moon by 2020. Before launch these two proves, an experimental lunar orbiter will be launched by 2018 to obtain key space technologies for the lunar exploration. Several payloads equipped in experimental lunar orbiter will monitor the surface of the Moon and will gather science data. Lunar orbiter sends telemetry and receives tele-command from ground using S-band while science data is sent to ground stations using X-band when the visibility is available. Korean deep space network will be mainly used for S and X-band communication with lunar orbiter. Deep Space Network or Universal Space Network can also be used for the S-band during trans-lunar phase when korean deep space network is not available and will be used for the S-band in normal mission orbit as a backup. This paper analyzes a visibility condition based on the combination of various ground antennas and its mask angles according to mission scenario to predict the number of contacts per day and to build an operational scenario for the lunar orbiter.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.90-101
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• 2011

From 1990s, the lunar exploration programs, suspended over 20 years after the project Apollo's first successful human landing on the Moon in 1969, have been restarted according to a revived interest in Moon. In recent, several nations progress their own lunar exploration program successfully. In this report, to investigate the technical trends of the onboard propulsion system for the lunar orbiter, technical features related to the performance of the propulsion system of the lunar orbiters developed since 1990 are surveyed. In the future, it is expected that this technical report can provide a fundamental guideline for selecting a proper type of the onboard propulsion system for the domestic lunar orbiter.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.285-294
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• 2014

The uneven mass distribution of the Moon highly perturbs the lunar spacecrafts. This uneven mass distribution leads to peculiar dynamical features of the lunar orbiters. The critical inclination is the value of inclination which keeps the deviation of the argument of pericentre from the initial values to be zero. Considerable investigations have been performed for critical inclination when the gravity field is assumed to be symmetric around the equator, namely for oblate gravity field to which Earth's satellites are most likely to be subjected. But in the case of a lunar orbiter, the gravity field of mass distribution is rather asymmetric, that is, sectorial, and tesseral, harmonic coefficients are big enough so they can't be neglected. In the present work, the effects of the first sectorial and tesseral harmonic coefficients in addition to the first zonal harmonic coefficients on the critical inclination of a lunar artificial satellite are investigated. The study is carried out using the Hamiltonian framework. The Hamiltonian of the problem is cconstructed and the short periodic terms are eliminated using Delaunay canonical variables. Considering the above perturbations, numerical simulations for a hypothetical lunar orbiter are presented. Finally, this study reveals that the critical inclination is quite different from the critical inclination of traditional sense and/or even has multiple solutions. Consequently, different families of critical inclination are obtained and analyzed.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.47 no.4
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• pp.309-318
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• 2019

The thermal design of the Lunar Terrain Imager (LUTI) on the Korean Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO) was performed and the soundness of the thermal design was verified by thermal analysis. The thermal environment of the lunar mission orbit should be reflected in the thermal design because the IR radiation of the lunar surface is important, unlike the earth orbit. The components or modules exposed to the outside of the satellite are insulated with MLI as much as possible, but the camera tube and the radiator are functionally exposed, so the thermal shield using the concept of radiation shape factor is mounted on the front to mitigate IR radiation. The IR emissivity is important in the front side of the radiator that receives little solar radiation, and components that are susceptible to thermal deformation such as the tube use a radiation heater to minimize the temperature gradient. Through the investigation of computational results, it was confirmed that the thermal design of LUTI is stable in various situations.