• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.43 no.11
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• pp.984-997
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• 2015

Chang'e-3 consisting of a lunar lander and exploration rover was launched on December 1, 2013 aboard a Long March 3B rocket flying from Xichang space launch center. Chang'e-3 was inserted into the lunar orbit after about a 5-day transit to the Moon and landed on the targeted landing site after orbiting around the Moon for 8 days. The successful landing of the Chang'e-3 gives a lot of help to analyze the future needs of the subsystem technologies and to figure out the trajectory from launch to lunar landing as well as operation sequences in the development of Korean lunar exploration is scheduled. Therefore, the configuration and analysis of overall mission of Chang'e-3 is performed based on the public information from the press and website. As a result, overall mission trajectory is reconstructed by solving boundary condition and then estimating control variable. Visibility status and eclipse status also analyzes so communication and power charge condition is as good as to operate lunar lander. Mass budget of the lander is derived using ${\Delta}V$ according to specific impulse.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.11-20
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• 2010

This paper designs a data link between a Lunar Orbiter (LO) and an Earth Station (ES), and analyzes the downlink performance of a space communications system for lunar exploration, conforming to the recommendations by the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS). The results provided in the paper can be useful references for the design of reliable communication link for the Korean lunar exploration in the near future.

• Journal of Aerospace System Engineering
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.73-80
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• 2015

For Korean first lunar exploration program, KARI(Korea Aerospace Research Institute) has been researching in various fields and investigating cases of abroad lunar exploration spacecrafts. In the field of the flight software, KARI has been analysing some cases such as NASA LRO, and this paper describes the result of the case study on LRO flight software.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.39 no.4
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• pp.181-194
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• 2022

Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO), also known as Danuri, was successfully launched on 4 Aug. from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station using a Space-X Falcon-9 rocket. Flight dynamics (FD) operational readiness was one of the critical parts to be checked before the flight. To demonstrate FD software's readiness and enhance the operator's contingency response capabilities, KPLO FD specialists planned, organized, and conducted four simulations and two rehearsals before the KPLO launch. For the efficiency and integrity of FD simulation and rehearsal, different sets of blind test data were prepared, including the simulated tracking measurements that incorporated dynamical model errors, maneuver execution errors, and other errors associated with a tracking system. This paper presents the simulation and rehearsal results with lessons learned for the KPLO FD operational readiness checkout. As a result, every functionality of FD operation systems is firmly secured based on the operation procedure with an enhancement of contingency operational response capability. After conducting several simulations and rehearsals, KPLO FD specialists were much more confident in the flight teams' ability to overcome the challenges in a realistic flight and FD software's reliability in flying the KPLO. Moreover, the results of this work will provide numerous insights to the FD experts willing to prepare deep space flight operations.

• Journal of Satellite, Information and Communications
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.1-5
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• 2011

In recent space industry, It has become a major trend to launch lunar exploration satellites to extend activities in the deep space environment. In this paper, a link budget analysis is carried out for the lunar exploration satellite. One of the major difference between the lunar satellite and LEO spacecraft lies in the orbit parameters. The vast distance between spacecraft and the Earth station imposes a challenging task for the spacecraft designers in terms of achieving stable communication link budget. The satellite tool kit software has been adopted to simulate the lunar exploring satellite. The relative distance between the spacecraft and the ground stations are tracked and the communication link budget is calculated accordingly.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.693-704
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• 2012

Space-born remote sensing camera systems tend to be developed to have very high performances. They are developed to provide extremely small ground sample distance, wide swath width, and good MTF (Modulation Transfer Function) at the expense of big volume, massive weight, and big power consumption. Therefore, the camera system occupies relatively big portion of the satellite bus from the point of mass and volume. However, the camera systems for lunar exploration don't need to have such high performances. Instead, it should be versatile for various usages under various operating environments. It should be light and small and should consume small power. In order to be used for national program of lunar exploration, electro-optical versatile camera system, called MAEPLE (Multi-Application Electro-Optical Payload for Lunar Exploration), has been designed after the derivation of camera system requirements. A ground model of the camera system has been manufactured to identify and secure relevant key technologies. The ground model was mounted on an aircraft and checked if the basic design concept would be valid and versatile functions implemented on the camera system would worked properly. In this paper, results of design and functional test performed with the field campaigns and air-born imaging are introduced.

• The Journal of the Petrological Society of Korea
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.373-384
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• 2017

A new era with the $4^{th}$ Industrial Revolution certainly brings new opportunities for human to explore human's activities outside of the Earth. After the Apollo program, exploration for lunar resources and establishment of lunar base seem to be in reality. This could be due to new findings by the LCROSS and LRO proving the advanced scientific development and new scientific results about the moon from Asian countries including China with Chang'E missions. It is expected that fossil fuels will be in shortage in the near future and at this time, Helium-3 could be an energy resource as a replacement of the fossil fuels. At present it is well known that countries like Russia, USA, and Europe will continue to investigate on lunar exploration especially with landers toward future human activities on the moon to establish a lunar base. With this point of view, it is important for human to understand lunar resources and prepare for prospective utilization of lunar resources. This review paper considers on a point of view in both lunar resource exploration and establishment of lunar base.

• Journal of Aerospace System Engineering
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.35-40
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• 2016

Mid-course correction maneuvers (MCCMs) are necessary to correct the launch-vehicle dispersion to go to the Moon. There were 3 or 4 MCCMs needed for a direct transfer trajectory. But the strategy for MCCMs of the phasing-loop trajectory is different, because it has a longer trans-lunar trajectory than direct transfer does. An orbiter using a phasing-loop trajectory has several rotations of the Earth, so the orbiter has several good places, such as perigee and apogee, to correct the launch-vehicle dispersion. Although launch dispersion is relatively high, the launch vehicle is not as accurate as we expected. A good MCCM strategy can overcome the high dispersion by using small-magnitude correction maneuvers. This paper describes the phasing-loops sequence and strategy to correct high launch-vehicle dispersions.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.213-223
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• 2019

This paper analyzes delta-Vs to maintain an extremely low altitude on the Moon and investigates the possibilities of performing a CubeSat mission. To formulate the station-keeping (SK) problem at an extremely low altitude, current work has utilized real-flight performance proven software, the Systems Tool Kit Astrogator by Analytical Graphics Inc. With a high-fidelity force model, properties of SK maneuver delta-Vs to maintain an extremely low altitude are successfully derived with respect to different sets of reference orbits; of different altitudes as well as deadband limits. The effect of the degree and order selection of lunar gravitational harmonics on the overall SK maneuver strategy is also analyzed. Based on the derived SK maneuver delta-V costs, the possibilities of performing a CubeSat mission are analyzed with the expected mission lifetime by applying the current flight-proven miniaturized propulsion system performances. Moreover, the lunar surface coverage as well as the orbital characteristics of a candidate reference orbit are discussed. As a result, it is concluded that an approximately 15-kg class CubeSat could maintain an orbit (30-50 km reference altitude having ${\pm}10km$ deadband limits) around the Moon for 1-6 months and provide almost full coverage of the lunar surface.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.40 no.4
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• pp.173-197
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• 2023

ShadowCam is a high-sensitivity, high-resolution imager provided by NASA for the Danuri (KPLO) lunar mission. ShadowCam calibration shows that it is well suited for its purpose, to image permanently shadowed regions (PSRs) that occur near the lunar poles. It is 205 times as sensitive as the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) Narrow Angle Camera (NAC). The signal to noise ratio (SNR) is greater than 100 over a large part of the dynamic range, and the top of the dynamic range is high enough to accommodate most brighter PSR pixels. The optical performance is good enough to take full advantage of the 1.7 meter/pixel image scale, and calibrated images have uniform response. We describe some instrument artifacts that are amenable to future corrections, making it possible to improve performance further. Stray light control is very challenging for this mission. In many cases, ShadowCam can image shadowed areas with directly illuminated terrain in or near the field of view (FOV). We include thorough qualitative descriptions of circumstances under which lunar brightness levels far higher than the top of the dynamic range cause detector or stray light artifacts and the size and extent of the artifact signal under those circumstances.