scholarly journals Geological context of recent Lunar landing sites using Multispectral analysis. 

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jourdain Mcilquham ◽  
Anouk M Borst ◽  
Elyse J Allender ◽  
Bernard Foing
Keyword(s):  
Spectral Data ◽  
Landing Site ◽  
Crustal Material ◽  
Ground Truth Data ◽  
Lunar Landing ◽  
Von Karman ◽  
Landing Sites ◽  
Multispectral Analysis ◽  
Von Kármán ◽  
Geological Context

<p>Geological context of recent lunar landing sites using multispectral analysis. (Mcilquham J, Borst A, Allender E and Foing B)</p><p>The Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) was a guest instrument aboard the Chandrayaan-1 mission. The instrument collected spectral data, ranging from 430 nm to 3000 nm at an average resolution of 140 m/pixel. This research utilises M3 spectral data to visualise and understand the geology of lunar landing sites visited by Chang’e 4 and 5. The aims of this study are aligned to lunar exploration goals produced by the National Research Council. We use Python scripts to undertake data analysis, creating site maps using continuum removal methods and assigning RGB image channels to highlight absorption features of interest. The Chang’e 4 landing site is located on the lunar far side within the Von Karman crater, located in the large South Pole Aitken impact basin. At Von Karman lunar mantle or lower crustal material may be exposed in the central peak. This could provide valuable insights into lunar geological history. We create maps to visualise the location of pyroxene end-members and olivine-rich rocks of the Von Karman crater, adding data to understand the composition of the deeper lunar lithologies. Orbital data presented in this study can be compared with ground-truth data gathered from the Yutu 2 rover to confirm the minerals present. More recently the Chang’e 5 mission provided a further landing site for study. Using the same methods as presented above we will compare its spectral composition to the Chang’e 4 landing site. Our maps can help to understand the key factors used to determine a suitable landing site and potentially a suitable location for a lunar base. By comparing Chang’e landing sites this study provides a unique insight into the craters in which they landed, allowing direct comparisons to be drawn. Preliminary findings identify non-mare units within the Von Karman crater as well as various Ca-rich and Ca-poor pyroxene-bearing lithologies.</p>

Composition, mineralogy and chronology of mare basalts and non-mare materials in Von Kármán crater: Landing site of the Chang’E−4 mission

2019 ◽  
Vol 179 ◽  
pp. 104741 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zongcheng Ling ◽  
Le Qiao ◽  
Changqing Liu ◽  
Haijun Cao ◽  
Xiangyu Bi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Landing Site ◽  
Von Karman ◽  
Von Kármán ◽  
Mare Basalts

scholarly journals Geological Characteristics of Von Kármán Crater, Northwestern South Pole-Aitken Basin: Chang'E-4 Landing Site Region

2018 ◽  
Vol 123 (7) ◽  
pp. 1684-1700 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jun Huang ◽  
Zhiyong Xiao ◽  
Jessica Flahaut ◽  
Mélissa Martinot ◽  
James Head ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Landing Site ◽  
South Pole ◽  
Geological Characteristics ◽  
Von Karman ◽  
Von Kármán

Topographic and Geomorphological Mapping and Analysis of the Chang'E-4 Landing Site on the Far Side of the Moon

2020 ◽  
Vol 86 (4) ◽  
pp. 247-258 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bo Wu ◽  
Fei Li ◽  
Han Hu ◽  
Yang Zhao ◽  
Yiran Wang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Landing Site ◽  
Joint Analysis ◽  
The Sun ◽  
The Moon ◽  
Soft Landing ◽  
Geomorphological Mapping ◽  
Von Karman ◽  
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter ◽  
Integrated Processing ◽  
Von Kármán

The Chinese lunar probe Chang'E-4 successfully landed in the Von Kármán crater on the far side of the Moon. This paper presents the topographic and geomorphological mapping and their joint analysis for selecting the Chang'E-4 landing site in the Von Kármán crater. A digital topographic model (<small>DTM</small>) of the Von Kármán crater, with a spatial resolution of 30 m, was generated through the integrated processing of Chang'E-2 images (7 m/pixel) and Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (<small>LRO</small>) Laser Altimeter (<small>LOLA</small>) data. Slope maps were derived from the <small>DTM</small>. Terrain occlusions to both the Sun and the relay satellite were studied. Craters with diameters ≥ 70 m were detected to generate a crater density map. Rocks with diameters ≥ 2 m were also extracted to generate a rock abundance map using an <small>LRO</small> narrow angle camera (<small>NAC</small>) image mosaic. The joint topographic and geomorphological analysis identified three subregions for landing. One of them, recommended as the highest-priority landing site, was the one in which Chang'E-4 eventually landed. After the successful landing of Chang'E-4, we immediately determined the precise location of the lander by the integrated processing of orbiter, descent and ground images. We also conducted a detailed analysis around the landing location. The results revealed that the Chang'E-4 lander has excellent visibility to the Sun and relay satellite; the lander is on a slope of about 4.5° towards the southwest, and the rock abundance around the landing location is almost 0. The developed methods and results can benefit future soft-landing missions to the Moon and other celestial bodies.

scholarly journals Density Structure of the Von Kármán Crater in the Northwestern South Pole-Aitken Basin: Initial Subsurface Interpretation of the Chang’E-4 Landing Site Region

Sensors ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (20) ◽  
pp. 4445
Author(s):  
Chikondi Chisenga ◽  
Jianguo Yan ◽  
Jiannan Zhao ◽  
Qingyun Deng ◽  
Jean-Pierre Barriot
Keyword(s):  
Gravity Data ◽  
Landing Site ◽  
Gravity Inversion ◽  
Inversion Method ◽  
South Pole ◽  
Impact Cratering ◽  
Near Surface ◽  
Von Karman ◽  
Multiple Impact ◽  
Von Kármán

The Von Kármán Crater, within the South Pole-Aitken (SPA) Basin, is the landing site of China’s Chang’E-4 mission. To complement the in situ exploration mission and provide initial subsurface interpretation, we applied a 3D density inversion using the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) gravity data. We constrain our inversion method using known geological and geophysical lunar parameters to reduce the non-uniqueness associated with gravity inversion. The 3D density models reveal vertical and lateral density variations, 2600–3200 kg/m3, assigned to the changing porosity beneath the Von Kármán Crater. We also identify two mass excess anomalies in the crust with a steep density contrast of 150 kg/m3, which were suggested to have been caused by multiple impact cratering. The anomalies from recovered near surface density models, together with the gravity derivative maps extending to the lower crust, are consistent with surface geological manifestation of excavated mantle materials from remote sensing studies. Therefore, we suggest that the density distribution of the Von Kármán Crater indicates multiple episodes of impact cratering that resulted in formation and destruction of ancient craters, with crustal reworking and excavation of mantle materials.

scholarly journals POTENTIAL GEOLOGIC ISSUES OF VON KÁRMÁN CRATER REVEALED BY MULTISOURCE REMOTE SENSING DATA

2019 ◽  
Vol XLII-2/W13 ◽  
pp. 1425-1430 ◽  
Author(s):  
Z. G. Meng ◽  
H. H. Wang ◽  
S. B. Chen ◽  
J. S. Ping ◽  
Q. Huang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Remote Sensing Data ◽  
Landing Site ◽  
Original Material ◽  
Crater Floor ◽  
Depth Layer ◽  
Von Karman ◽  
Warm Anomaly ◽  
Cold Anomaly ◽  
Rich Material ◽  
Von Kármán

<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> Von Kármán crater is the landing area for CE-4 mission, which provides a chance to further study the evolution of South-Pole Aitken basin. In this paper, the topography, composition, temperature and deep structures of Von Kármán crater are systematically studied with LRO LOLA data, Clementine UV-VIS data, CE-2 CELMS data, and GRAIL data. Several potential geologic issues are postulated as follows: (1) There exists a difference for the southern and northern parts of the crater floor in topography. The surface topography is influenced by Leibnitz and Finsen events. (2) There exists an FTA-rich material in depth layer of the crater floor, and the later bombardments exposed the original material in the crater floor. And the material in depth is homogeneous. (3) The composition apparently changes with depth, and there exist a warm anomaly in the northern part of the crater floor and a cold anomaly in the southern part. (4) A large amount of magma has been uplifted after Von Kármán M impact event, and the crust has been melted several times and condensed into dense basalt layer. Generally, this is a good place to measure the material from the original SPA basin and the material from the depth layer of the Moon for the CE-4 landing site.</p>

scholarly journals Landing Site Selection and Overview of China’s Lunar Landing Missions

2020 ◽  
Vol 217 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jianjun Liu ◽  
Xingguo Zeng ◽  
Chunlai Li ◽  
Xin Ren ◽  
Wei Yan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Site Selection ◽  
Landing Site ◽  
Development Trend ◽  
Structure Evolution ◽  
South Pole ◽  
The Moon ◽  
Lunar Landing ◽  
Landing Sites ◽  
Selection Of ◽  
Landing Site Selection

AbstractLanding site selection is of fundamental importance for lunar landing mission and it is closely related to the scientific goals of the mission. According to the widely concerned lunar science goals and the landing site selection of the ongoing lunar missions; China has carried out the selection of landing site for a series of Chang’ E (CE) missions. Under this background, this paper firstly introduced the principles, process, method and result of landing site selection of China’s Lunar Exploration Program (CLEP), and then analyzed the support of the selected landing sites to the corresponding lunar research. This study also pointed out the outcomes that could possibly contribute to the key lunar questions on the basis of the selected landing sites of CE-4 and CE-5 such as deep material in South Pole-Aitken (SPA) basin, lunar chronology, volcanic thermodynamics and geological structure evolution history of the Moon. Finally, this approach analyzed the development trend of China’s follow-up lunar landing missions, and suggested that the South Pole Region of the Moon could be the landing site of high priority for the future CE missions.

scholarly journals Intelligent Lunar Landing Site Recommender

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 184-188
Author(s):  
Anthony Thomas ◽  
Digina Derose ◽  
Sahaya Cyril ◽  
Smita Dange
Keyword(s):  
Space Exploration ◽  
Landing Site ◽  
Soft Landing ◽  
The Core ◽  
Lunar Landing ◽  
Landing Sites ◽  
Core Feature ◽  
Celestial Bodies ◽  
One Step ◽  
Exploration Mission

Space exploration is brewing to be one of the most sought after fields in today’s world with each country pooling in resources and skilled minds to be one step ahead of the other. The core aspect of space exploration is exoplanet exploration, i.e., by sending unmanned rovers or manned spaceships to planets and celestial bodies within and beyond our solar system to determine habitable planets. Landscape inspection and traversal is the core feature of any planetary exploration mission. It is often a strenuous task to carry out a machine learning experiment on an extraterrestrial surface like the Moon. Consequent lunar explorations undertaken by various space agencies in the last four decades have helped to analyze the nature of the Lunar Terrain through satellite images. The motion of the rovers has traditionally been governed by the use of sensors that achieve obstacle avoidance. In this project we aim to detect craters on the lunar landscape which in turn will be used to determine soft landing sites on the lunar landscape for exploring the terrain, based on the classified lunar landscape images.

scholarly journals HIGH PRECISION DTM AND DOM GENERATING USING MULTI-SOURCE ORBITAL DATA ON CHANG’E-4 LANDING SITE

2019 ◽  
Vol XLII-2/W13 ◽  
pp. 1413-1417 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Liu ◽  
S. Niu ◽  
X. Xin ◽  
M. Jia ◽  
K. Di ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
High Precision ◽  
Digital Terrain Model ◽  
Landing Site ◽  
Ground Sample ◽  
Terrain Model ◽  
Von Karman ◽  
Site Mapping ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Digital Orthophoto ◽  
Von Kármán

<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> Chang’e-4 (CE-4) has successfully soft landed in Von Kármán crater inside the South Pole-Aitken (SPA) basin at 10:26 am on January 3, 2019. High precision landing site mapping plays an essential role in mission operations and science applications before and after landing. In this paper, we propose a novel method for generating the highest resolution and the best precision Digital Terrain Model (DTM) and Digital Orthophoto Map (DOM) of the CE-4 landing area using available multi-source data. First, the CE-2 DTM is co-registered to SLDEM2015. Then the vertical inconsistencies of the co-registered DTMs are analysed and the biases of CE-2 DTM with respect to SLDEM2015 are erased. Finally, a new DTM with more information and better precision is generated by fusion of the co-registered DTMs. Using the new DTM as a reference, a seamless DOM is generated based on block adjustment of projected imagery, which can reduce the inconsistencies among the corrected images to sub-pixel level. As a result, a DTM of the Von Kármán crater area ( 42º&amp;thinsp;S&amp;ndash;48°&amp;thinsp;S/172º&amp;thinsp;E&amp;ndash;180°&amp;thinsp;E) and a seamless DOM covering an area of 2.3° in longitude and 1° in latitude with a ground sample distance of 0.9&amp;thinsp;m are generated using the developed method.</p>

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