• Journal of Space Technology and Applications
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• v.1 no.3
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• pp.375-395
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• 2021

Korea plans to send a pathfinder lunar orbiter to the Moon for the first time in August 2022. And according to the 3rd Basic Plan for Space Development Promotion, the plan is to send a lunar lander to the Moon before 2030. The selection of the lunar landing area can be varied depending on the lunar lander's mission, therefore preliminary research on the lunar landing sites is essential for a successful lunar exploration mission design. This paper analyzed the characteristics of major regions among 14 proposed regions using NASA's MoonTrek based on the data on the candidate areas for the major moon landing proposed sites by the NASA workshop in 2018. And we looked into what kind of future moon landing missions are suitable for these areas. We also looked at the importance of lunar Antarctica area through the recent lunar landing areas of Moon landing countries and Artemis plan.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.41 no.5
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• pp.366-372
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• 2013

Korean lunar explorer will be launched by korean launcher KSLV-2 in the 2020s in accordance with national space development strategy. Korean lunar explorer is composed of two unmanned orbiter and lander and should be developed as small size and light weight within 550kg of launch mass due to launcher's loading capability. A structure of lunar explorer is required to have sufficient stiffness and strength under launch and operational environment as well as to accommodate mission equipment. This paper describes the result of a preliminary study on structural model design for korean lunar explorer.

• Journal of Aerospace System Engineering
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.16-22
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• 2015

Korea Aerospace Research Institute(here after KARI) has a plan to launch experimental lunar orbiter in 2018, and lunar orbiter and lander in 2020. There are several ways to go to the moon. Which one is direct transfer trajectory and another one is phasing loop transfer trajectory and the other one is WSB trajectory. Regardless of the transfer trajectories, LOI maneuver is the most important maneuver of all mission sequences because if this burn is failed, it is too difficult to get into the lunar orbit in the future. This paper describes first LOI target value of foreign lunar orbiters and analyzes orbital variations of experimental lunar orbiter according to various target values. By analyzing the variation of orbiter parameter after first LOI, proper orbital period for LOI target value are recommended to meet the inclination, apoapsis and periapsis altitude constraints.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2011.11a
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• pp.135-138
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• 2011

As a basic research for the development of Korean lunar lander, propulsion system development for ground test is in progress. Thrust for descent is 200 N class. Design target is 220 N in vacuum thrust at 100 g/s flow rate, 200 psi chamber pressure. For ground test, thrust measurement system using LM guide was developed and test was performed. The result shows 160 N thrust in atmosphere condition at 210 psi chamber pressure.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2010.11a
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• pp.581-584
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• 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 the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.45 no.9
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• pp.734-745
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• 2017

The navigation system of lunar lander are composed of various navigation sensors which have a complementary characteristics such as inertial measurement unit, star tracker, altimeter, velocimeter, and camera for terrain relative navigation to achieve the precision and autonomous navigation capability. The required performance of sensors has to be determined according to the landing scenario and mission requirement. In this paper, the specifications of navigation sensors are investigated through covariance analysis. The reference error model with 77 state vector and measurement model are derived for covariance analysis. The mission requirement is categorized as precision exploration with 90m($3{\sigma}$ ) landing accuracy and area exploration with 6km($3{\sigma}$ ), and the landing scenario is divided into PDI(Powered descent initiation) and DOI(Deorbit initiation) scenario according to the beginning of autonomous navigation. The required specifications of the navigation sensors are derived by analyzing the performance according to the sensor combination and landing scenario.

• 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.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2012.04a
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• pp.519-520
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• 2012

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2013.04a
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• pp.540-541
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• 2013

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.377-382
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• 2010

In lunar explorer development program, computer simulator is necessary to provide virtual environments that vehicle confronts in lunar transfer, orbit, and landing missions, and to analyze dynamic behavior of the spacecraft under these environments. Objective of simulation differs depending on its application in spacecraft development cycle. Scope of use cases considered in this paper includes simulation of software based, processor and/or hardware in the loop, and support of ground-based flight test of developed vehicle. These use cases represent early phase in development cycle but reusability of modeling results in the next design phase is considered in defining requirements. A simulator architecture in which simulator platform is located in the middle and modules for modeling, analyzing, and three dimensional visualizing are connected to that platform is suggested. Baseline concepts and requirements for simulator development are described. Result of trade study for selecting simulation platform and approaches of defining other simulator components are summarized. Finally, characters of lunar elevation map data which is necessary for lunar terrain generation is described.