2020-07-272020-07-272020-07-31ICES_2020_204https://hdl.handle.net/2346/86353Roman Kruzelecky, MPB Communications Inc., CAPiotr Murzionak, MPB Communications Inc., CAIan Sinclair, MPB Communications Inc., CAYang Gao, University of Surrey, GBChris Bridges, University of Surrey, GBAndrea Luccafabris, University of Surrey, GBEdward Cloutis, University of Winnipeg, CAAmelie St-Amour, NGC Aerospace Ltd., CAICES308: Advanced Technologies for In-Situ Resource UtilizationThe proceedings for the 2020 International Conference on Environmental Systems were published from July 31, 2020. The technical papers were not presented in person due to the inability to hold the event as scheduled in Lisbon, Portugal because of the COVID-19 global pandemic.The distribution and quantity of surficial in-situ lunar resources, such as water ice and ilmenite (FeTiO3), is currently highly uncertain. Moreover, planned near-future lunar orbiter missions are limited to a volatile-mapping spatial resolution of several km. VMMO, for Volatile and Mineralogy Mapping Orbiter, is a low-cost 12U Cubesat that comprises the Lunar Volatile and Mineralogy Mapper (LVMM) science payload, the Compact LunAr Ionizing Radiation Environment (CLAIRE) monitoring payload, a COTS electronics test bed, and the supporting 12U Cubesat bus with dual ion and cold-gas propulsion, direct-to-Earth S-band and 1560nm optical communications, on-board data processing and a suite of altitude and pointing sensors for semiautonomous, vision-assisted navigation. VMMO will most likely be deployed from a commercial lunar transportation provider, such as Astrobotics, and injected into a suitable near-polar orbit. On-board propulsion will be used to achieve a stable near-frozen polar orbit for the subsequent science operations. The compact LVMM is a multi-wavelength Chemical Lidar (<6.1 kg) using fiber lasers emitting simultaneously at 532nm, 1064nm and 1560nm, for stand-off mapping of lunar water/ice distribution using active laser illumination. The active measurements will focus on selected craters in the lunar South pole, such as Shackleton and Faustini, that contain permanently-shadowed regions that could shelter water ice deposits. This combination of spectral channels can provide very sensitive discrimination of water/ice to below 0.5% in various Mare and Highland regolith, based on pre-flight bread-board validations. The use of single-mode fiber lasers enables a spatial resolution of about 10m at the lunar surface. LVMM can also be used in a passive multispectral mode at 300nm, 532nm, 1064nm and 1560nm to map the lunar ilmenite in-situ resource distribution during the lunar day using known characteristics of surface-reflected solar illumination. This paper discusses the VMMO augmented science configuration and the resultant mission architecture and data products.application/pdfeng12U CubesatChemical lidarLunar volatilesLunar water ice cycleIn-situ resource utilization (ISRU)IlmenitePresentation