Characterizing Lunar Polar Volatiles at the Working Scale: Going from Exploration Goals to Mission Requirements

The economic evaluation of natural resources depends on the accuracy of resource distribution estimates. On Earth such estimates are necessary in making decisions about opening new mines or in planning future investment for operating mines or industrial deposits. A frequently discussed lunar resource is water ice, however, we are only at the first stages of understanding its potential as a resource. In particular, we currently do not have a sufficient understanding of the distribution of water or its form at the scales it would be extracted and processed, that is, the “working scale”. Here the “working scale” is defined to be the scales at which sufficient material can be processed to meet some basic demand (for example, 100s of square meters), and the anticipated heterogeneity in the water distribution across those scales (scales <5 - 10s of meters). Several mission concepts have been developed to better understand lunar water, motivated by both scientific and exploration goals. This paper provides an analysis of the number and distribution of observations needed to provide the necessary next steps in lunar water ISRU. We use a combination of Monte Carlo studies and classic geostatistical approaches to go from the exploration goal of “understand the distribution of water” to quantification of specific mission sampling requirements.