• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
• /
• v.48 no.3
• /
• pp.233-242
• /
• 2020

The history of mankind's lunar exploration began in 1958 with the United States of America "Pioneer 0" mission. In 1950s~1970s, the United States of America and Union of Soviet Socialist Republics carried out missions and experienced numerous failures to explore the moon. Since the 1990s, Japan, Europe, China and other Advanced country in Space technology have started to explore the moon and in 2016, Korea began to develop the lunar orbiter for lunar exploration. This paper analyzed the failure cases and causes of the lunar exploration in the USA and the USSR in the 1950s~1970s according to the mission purpose. Examples of mission delays, cancel, and failures that occurred during lunar exploration in post-1990s were presented. Through the investigation and analysis, this paper is intended to serve as a reference of the lunar exploration mission that Korea is working on or will be performing in the future.

• Journal of Space Technology and Applications
• /
• v.4 no.2
• /
• pp.121-136
• /
• 2024

Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO), launched in August 2022, is successfully carrying out its mission. Korea's lunar lander and rover programs are expected to proceed in the future. To successfully carry out the mission after the lunar lander has landed on the surface, the performance of the equipment to be mounted should be checked in a laboratory environment similar to the Moon. Scientists and engineers of several countries, including the United States and China, use lunar soil simulant which is developed to resemble lunar soil for simulating the surface of the lunar landing site. Several lunar probe landing sites are being discussed in Korea, and lunar soil simulants such as Korea Hanyang Lunar Simulant-1 (KOHLS-1), Korea Aerospace University Mechanical Lunar Simulants (KAUMLS), and Korea Lunar Simulant-1 (KLS-1), which are similar to the characteristics of lunar mare soil, have been developed. However, those simulants are not useful if the landing site is chosen as a highland area. In this study, we introduce the process of developing KIGAM-L1, a lunar highland soil simulant similar to the chemical composition of the Apollo 16 lunar soil sample and the particle size distribution of lunar soil sample 60500-1, in case the lunar lander lands at highland area.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
• /
• v.34 no.2
• /
• pp.127-138
• /
• 2017

The current study designs the mission orbit of the lunar CubeSat spacecraft to measure the lunar local magnetic anomaly. To perform this mission, the CubeSat will impact the lunar surface over the Reiner Gamma swirl on the Moon. Orbit analyses are conducted comprising ${\Delta}V$ and error propagation analysis for the CubeSat mission orbit. First, three possible orbit scenarios are presented in terms of the CubeSat's impacting trajectories. For each scenario, it is important to achieve mission objectives with a minimum ${\Delta}V$ since the CubeSat is limited in size and cost. Therefore, the ${\Delta}V$ needed for the CubeSat to maneuver from the initial orbit toward the impacting trajectory is analyzed for each orbit scenario. In addition, error propagation analysis is performed for each scenario to evaluate how initial errors, such as position error, velocity error, and maneuver error, that occur when the CubeSat is separated from the lunar orbiter, eventually affect the final impact position. As a result, the current study adopts a CubeSat release from the circular orbit at 100 km altitude and an impact slope of $15^{\circ}$, among the possible impacting scenarios. For this scenario, the required ${\Delta}V$ is calculated as the result of the ${\Delta}V$ analysis. It can be used to practically make an estimate of this specific mission's fuel budget. In addition, the current study suggests error constraints for ${\Delta}V$ for the mission.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
• /
• v.37 no.1
• /
• pp.1-9
• /
• 2020

Frozen orbit is an attractive option for orbital design owing to its characteristics (its argument of pericenter and eccentricity are kept constant on an average). Solar sails are attractive solutions for massive and expensive missions. However, the solar radiation pressure effect represents an additional force on the solar sail that may greatly affect its orbital behavior in the long run. Thus, this force must be included as a perturbation force in the dynamical model for more accuracy. This study shows the calculations of initial conditions for a lunar solar sail frozen orbit. The disturbing function of the problem was developed to include the lunar gravitational field that is characterized by uneven mass distribution, third body perturbation, and the effect of solar radiation. An averaging technique was used to reduce the dynamical problem to a long period system. Lagrange planetary equations were utilized to formulate the rate of change of the argument of pericenter and eccentricity. Using the reduced system, frozen orbits for the Moon sail orbiter were constructed. The resulting frozen orbits are shown by two 3Dsurface (semi-major, eccentricity, inclination) figures. To simplify the analysis, we showed inclination-eccentricity contours for different values of semi-major axis, argument of pericenter, and values of sail lightness number.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
• /
• v.38 no.5
• /
• pp.499-506
• /
• 2010

Many countries of the world have been launched the competition of space development and Korea also has a plan for the launch of Lunar orbiter in 2020 and Lunar lander in 2025 for Lunar explorations. For the success of the planned Lunar exploration, we need to enhance the required deep space communication technologies. To achieve our goals, we should develop space communications system and Korean DSN (deep space network) based on experiences and technologies through cooperation with the advanced countries in the field of deep space exploration. In this paper, we investigate overseas DSNs and deep space communication systems, and present the link margin and other technical requirements for successful DSN deployment. In addition, we propose a best strategy to secure domestic ground stations for the Korean Lunar exploration missions.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
• /
• v.37 no.2
• /
• pp.120.1-120.1
• /
• 2012

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) launched on June 16, 2009 has six experiments including of the Cosmic Ray Telescope for the Effects of Radiation (CRaTER) onboard. The CRaTER instrument characterizes the radiation environment to be experienced by humans during future lunar missions. The CRaTER instrument measures the effects of ionizing energy loss in matter specifically in silicon solid-state detectors due to penetrating solar energetic protons (SEP) and galactic cosmic rays (GCRs) after interactions with tissue-equivalent plastic (TEP), a synthetic analog of human tissue. The CRaTER instrument houses a compact and highly precise microdosimeter. It measures dose rates below one micro-Rad/sec in silicon in lunar radiation environment. Forbush decrease (FD) event is the sudden decrease of GCR flux. We use the data of cosmic ray and dose rates observed by the CRaTER instrument. We also use the CME list of STEREO SECCHI inner, outer coronagraph and the interplanetary CME data of the ACE/MAG instrument.We examine the origins and the characteristics of the FD-like events in lunar radiation environment. We also compare these events with the FD events on the Earth. We find that whenever the FD events are recorded at ground Neutron Monitor stations, the FD-like events also occur on the lunar environments. The flux variation amplitude of FD-like events on the Moon is approximately two times larger than that of FD events on the Earth. We compare time profiles of GCR flux with of the dose rate of FD-like events in the lunar environment. We figure out that the distinct FD-like events correspond to dose rate events in the CRaTER on lunar environment during the event period.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
• /
• v.45 no.9
• /
• pp.746-756
• /
• 2017

An algorithm is developed to generate measurement data of deep space network for Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO) mission. The algorithm can provide corrected measurement data for the Orbit Determination (OD) module in deep space. This study describes how to generate the computed data such as range, Doppler, azimuth angle and elevation angle. The geometric data were obtained by General Mission Analysis Tool (GMAT) simulation and the corrected data were calculated with measurement models. Therefore, the result of total delay includes effects of tropospheric delay, ionospheric delay, charged particle delay, antenna offset delay, and tropospheric refraction delay. The computed measurement data were validated by comparison with the results from Orbit Determination ToolBoX (ODTBX).

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
• /
• 2010.11a
• /
• pp.581-584
• /
• 2010

Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) started preliminary research about the propulsion system for lunar orbiter and moon lander this year in order to prepare korean moon exploration plan of 2020s. The final goal of this study is to develop a prototype propulsion system for lunar exploration and to perform ground landing test using this propulsion system. In this year, preliminary design of propulsion system and 200N class monopropellant thruster have been conducted. In this paper, the trade-off study result and the design concept of the propulsion system for Korean moon exploration will be introduced and preliminary design of propulsion system will be presented.

• Journal of Satellite, Information and Communications
• /
• v.11 no.3
• /
• pp.86-91
• /
• 2016

KARI(Korea Aerospace Research Institute) has been developing the KPLO(Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter) for Korean first lunar exploration, and analysing various subjects for the mission success. Especially the performance of the communication is one of important factors, because massive scientific and technical data acquired by multiple payloads might be transferred to ground stations on the Earth. In this paper, we explained the study on the 1-day average downlink capacity based on the visibility analysis between ground stations and KPLO, and described its results.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
• /
• v.56 no.2
• /
• pp.293-299
• /
• 2023

The Wide-Angle Polarimetric Camera (PolCam) is installed on the Korea's lunar orbiter, Danuri, which launched on August 5, 2022. The mission objectives of PolCam are to construct photometric maps at a wavelength of 336 nm and polarization maps at 461 and 748 nm, with a phase angle range of 0°-135° and a spatial resolution of less than 100 m. PolCam is an imager using the push-broom method and has two cameras, Cam 1 and Cam 2, with a viewing angle of 45° to the right and left of the spacecraft's direction of orbit. We conducted performance tests in a laboratory setting before installing PolCam's flight model on the spacecraft. We analyzed the CCD's dark current, flat-field frame, spot size, and light flux. The dark current was obtained during thermal / vacuum test with various temperatures and the flat-field frame data was also obtained with an integrating sphere and tungsten light bulb. We describe the calibration method and results in this study.