The Importance and Strategy of Studying Lunar Polar Volatiles Through the ARTEMIS III Mission

The study of lunar polar volatiles is a motivating rationale for targeting NASA’s Artemis crewed Moon landings in the lunar south polar region. The low angle between the Moon’s rotational axis and the normal to the ecliptic plane plus the low inclination of Earth’s orbit around the Sun, coupled with lunar topography, enable environmental conditions (including thermal and lighting) that can create thermodynamically favorable regions for volatiles to collect and persist to exist at both poles of the Moon. These regions are among the coldest locations in the Solar System. Depending on the supply rates and mechanisms, volatiles (ices) delivered to such thermodynamic stability regions may be sequestered, in some cases potentially for billions of years.
The high scientific priority of understanding the age, origin, and evolution of lunar polar volatiles has been highlighted in multiple guiding community documents including the Artemis III Science Definition Team report and the U.S. National Academies Planetary Science and Astrobiology Decadal Survey 2022-2032. Detecting and characterizing lunar polar volatiles is also important to enabling long-term human exploration of the Moon through in situ resource utilization (ISRU). Therefore, a concerted strategy for studying lunar polar volatiles is being developed for the Artemis III mission, focusing on crew observations, sampling, and deployed instrumentation on the lunar surface.