• 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 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.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.40.1-40.1
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• 2020

The Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute is participating as a South Korean partner in the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS)of NASA. In response, the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute is currently conducting basic research for the development of four candidate instrument payloads. The magnetic field instrument is one of them and it's scientific mission objective is the moon's surface magnetic field investigation. Therefore, the development requirement of the lunar surface magnetic field instrument were derived and the initial conceptual design was started. The magnetic field instrument has a 1.2 meter boom which has two three-axis fluxgate magnetometer sensors and one gyro sensor to get a attitude information of the boom. The concept of measuring the lunar surface magnetic field will carry out using multiple sensors by placing semiconductor type magnetic field sensors inside the electric box including boom mounted fluxgate sensors. In order to overcome the very short development period, we will use the KPLO (Korean Lunar Pathfinder Orbiter) magnetometer design and parts to improve reliabilities for this instrument. In this presentation, we introduce the instrument requirements and conceptual design for the Lunar surface magnetic field instruments.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.96-103
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• 2019

In this study, a comparison was conducted to verify the propellant isolation assembly of the Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO). An engineering validation model (EVM) is being developed to simulate the flow of the flight model. Three factors were selected for comparison: the total pressure drop during propellant isolation assembly, the waterhammer by driving thruster valve, and the orifice set up for flow control and damping the waterhammer. The analysis results are compared with EVM test results. In the future, backup data to confirm the design will be established.

• Aerospace Engineering and Technology
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.213-220
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• 2013

Korean Lunar Explorer is planned to be launched in the 2020s according to national space development strategy. The Lunar Explorer will be developed as two unmanned light weight models: a lunar orbiter and a lunar lander. The Lunar Explorer's structure should be designed to have light weight due to constraints from launcher as well as to provide structural safety against launch load, in-orbit condition and landing condition and to serve accommodation space for mission equipment. Core technology related to structural development of lunar explorer should be developed in advance. Especially, for lunar lander, technology for developing landing gear which enables lander to land safely on lunar surface is required essentially. This paper deals with structural development of lunar lander ground test model including design, manufacturing and test.

• 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 Astronomical Society
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• v.55 no.4
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• pp.87-97
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• 2022

Polarimetric measurements of the lunar surface from lunar orbit soon will be available via Wide-Field Polarimetric Camera (PolCam) onboard the Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO), which is planned to be launched in mid 2022. To provide calibration data for the PolCam, we are conducting speckle polarimetric measurements of the nearside of the Moon from the Earth's ground. It appears that speckle imaging of the Moon for scientific purposes has not been attempted before, and there is need for a procedure to create a "lucky image" from a number of observed speckle images. As a first step of obtaining calibration data for the PolCam from the ground, we search for the best sharpness measure for lunar surfaces. We then calculate the minimum number of speckle images and the number of images to be shift-and-added for higher resolution (sharpness) and signal-to-noise ratio.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.127-138
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• 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 the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.48 no.3
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• pp.233-242
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• 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 Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.1-9
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• 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.