What is the importance of studying and utilizing lunar polar volatiles during the Artemis program, and specifically for first crewed mission, Artemis III? This is what a recent study presented at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference hopes to address as an international team of researchers investigated using lunar polar volatiles for in situ resource utilization (ISRU) purposes. In geology, volatiles are substances that vaporize at low temperatures, and examples include water, carbon dioxide, and sulfur dioxide. In the case of the Moon, key volatiles are water located in permanently shadowed regions (PSRs) at the lunar south polar region.
For the study, the researchers discussed a myriad of reasons regarding the importance of studying lunar polar volatiles, including science objectives, crew field science, and deployed instruments. Science objectives included gaining greater understanding of the processes behind the volatiles’ formation and evolution, amount, transport processes, and how human and robotic exploration alters the volatiles. Crew field science involves crew observations and sample return. And, deployed instruments involve the Lunar Dielectric Analyzer (LDA) led and supported by the University of Tokyo and JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), which is designed to locate and identify lunar volatiles by measuring the electric field within lunar regolith (aka lunar dust).
The study concludes, “The Artemis III mission will be the first crewed mission to land in the south polar region of the Moon. As such, Artemis III provides an excellent opportunity to address the high priority science and exploration goals of understanding the age, origin, and evolution of lunar polar volatiles. Artemis III will utilize crew observations, sample return, and scientific instrumentation on the lunar surface to detect and characterize volatile species, thereby providing valuable and critical information for both science and future human exploration.”
ISRU involves using available resources, commonly referred to as “living off the land”, to meet mission objectives without the need for resupply from Earth. In the case of finding water on the Moon, this could be used for drinking, bathing, and oxygen through electrolysis, and would drastically reduce the financial and logistical challenges of shipping more water from Earth to sustain lunar human settlements.
The reason the lunar south polar region is ideal for finding water is due to the aforementioned permanently shadowed regions (PSRs) that contain pockets of water ice that has accumulated over billions of years. This is due to the Moon’s axial tilt only being inclined (facing towards) 5 degrees relative to the Sun, resulting in craters at the south pole that are billions of years old never receiving sunlight. One of the PSR craters that has arguably demonstrated the most interest in Shackleton Crater, a portion of which is located directly at the lunar south pole. Shackleton was featured in the Apple TV+ show For All Mankind, where astronauts extracted water ice to supply their settlement.
Artemis III is currently scheduled to launch aboard NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) in mid-2027 and land on the lunar south polar region using SpaceX’s Starship Human Landing System (HLS) with a total mission time of approximately 30 days. However, whether this mission is crewed or uncrewed is also currently in limbo due to the recent explosion of Starship during testing, with backup options including a docking mission between the Orion capsule and Starship HLS. Most recently, the U.S. Senate announced that SLS has been funded beyond Artemis III, meaning future missions could help build on the successes of that historic mission.
How will lunar polar volatiles help advance lunar human exploration in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!
As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!
