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NASA's Robotic Lunar Exploration Program (RLEP) 2 MissionBefore returning humans to the Moon for mankind's seventh lunar landing, NASA will embark upon a series of robotic missions to prepare the way for further exploration. These missions, part of the Robotic Lunar Exploration Program (RLEP), are designed to acquire decisive knowledge about the moon as well as to develop infrastructure needed to sustain human exploration in the lunar environment. Here we focus on the second mission in the RLEP program, RLEP-2, the first dedicated to landing in the south polar region of the moon. Managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, along with the Applied Physics Laboratory and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, RLEP-2 will build upon knowledge gained from the Chandraayan-1 and Lunar Robotic Orbiter orbital missions, to help further the prospects for sustainable human exploration on the moon. This mission will characterize the lighting environment in the polar region, critically important to understanding the amount of power available and to the thermal design of hardware, as well as explore the nature and distribution of volatiles that may be present in permanently shadowed regions of polar craters. We shall review the current status of the mission, articulate the results of onoging trade studies in power, surface mobility, launch vehicles, measurements and instrumentation, and navigation/communication, as well as discuss the primary mission objectives in detail.
Document ID
20070002077
Acquisition Source
Marshall Space Flight Center
Document Type
Conference Paper
Authors
Horack, John M.
(NASA Marshall Space Flight Center Huntsville, AL, United States)
Lavoie, Anthony
(NASA Marshall Space Flight Center Huntsville, AL, United States)
Spudis, Paul
(Johns Hopkins Univ. MD, United States)
Date Acquired
August 24, 2013
Publication Date
January 1, 2006
Subject Category
Lunar And Planetary Science And Exploration
Meeting Information
Meeting: 57th International Astronautical Congress
Location: Valencia
Country: Spain
Start Date: October 2, 2006
End Date: October 6, 2006
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Other

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