Science Mission Directorate (SMD) Expected Volatiles and Dust Hazards in Artemis III and IV Samples

One of NASA’s Moon to Mars Objectives is to determine the distribution, abundance, and composition of lunar volatiles. These volatiles have been detected from orbital instrumentation, but much is still unknown regarding details of how abundance and composition varies with location. The purpose of this document is to summarize what is known regarding composition of volatiles that might be encountered by crew during Artemis surface operations, to address concerns regarding development of hardware for sample collection and preservation, as well as regarding understanding the safety risks of bringing collected volatile-bearing samples back into a crewed cabin.

Initial assessments of what returning volatiles could look like used volatile abundance and composition data returned from the LCROSS mission, which characterized one of the deepest, coldest permanently shadowed regions on the Moon. However, these data are not necessarily applicable to locations where Artemis crew will explore, driving potentially unnecessary levels of hazard control, which in turn may affect volatile container design and how much sample can be returned. This document informs on the volatile composition and abundance in samples likely to be collected by crew during the Artemis III mission to the lunar south polar region.