David P. Osterman, Ball Aerospace; Jeffrey E.Van Cleve, Ball Aerospace; Anna Lawitzke, Ball Aerospace; Jacob D. Griesbach, Ball Aerospace; Christopher J. Grant, Ball Aerospace; Colleen Olson, Ball Aerospace
Keywords: Cislunar, Astrodynamics, Imaging, Sensors, Optical Systems, Space Domain Awareness, Lunar Exploration, Lunar Mapping
Abstract:
We live in a moment of history when we would like to be aware of events on and near the lunar surface, though whether such awareness falls within the scope of Space Domain Awareness (SDA) because the Moon is a body in space, as considered by Earthlings or whether it is more akin to GEOINT, since the Moon is a geographical area from the perspective of those who operate on its surface, is a matter of some controversy. Reworking the definition of GEOINT for the Moon, we consider lunar surface intelligence (LUNINT): timely information about human activity on the Moon derived from the exploitation and analysis of imagery and other sensors, fused with spatial information that describes, assesses, and visually depicts physical features and selenographically referenced activities on the Moon. LUNINT includes objects landing on or operating on the surface, their disturbances of the natural surface (tracks, excavation or burial, impact craters) and their emissions of dust, gas, and RF, as well as vehicles transiting from one surface location to another by means of surface traction or suborbital propulsive means. LUNINT is more difficult than GEOINT in the sense that non-polar locations are subject to 14-day night gaps in optical visibility, but easier than GEOINT in the sense that the Moon is easy to model compared to the Earth (hence changes are easier to detect against clutter) and does not suffer weather outages. For a LUNINT lunar orbiter, we
Introduce NASAs Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) (2009-2025), a science and exploration mission which demonstrates some LUNINT capabilities, with global 0.5 m pixel imagery served by the Arizona State University Quickmap system with an overlay for anthropogenic features such as the Apollo and Change landers and rovers (Wagner+, 2017), and LRO DIVINER thermal imagery of permanently shadowed regions (PSRs) (Williams+, 2017)
Present an observation calendar for observing surface objects in direct sunlight on flat surfaces from inertially fixed circular lunar polar orbit as the simplest example
Present a radiometric model of indirectly illuminated lunar surface observations, including Earthshine and light scattered from sunlit crater rims into PSRs. The semilanalytic crater illumination and thermal model is based on Ingersolls (1992) bowl-shaped crater approximation.
Use this model and LRO images of landers, rover tracks, and spacecraft/rocket body impact craters to derive SNR, ground sampling distance (GSD), and contrast requirements for VIS/NIR sensors in orbit around the Moon, such as the hybrid SDA/LUNINT system described by Silva+ (AMOS 2021) and Lawitzke+ (AMOS 2022), with particular attention to lighting conditions near the poles and in PSRs
Examine thermal and Earthshine approaches to awareness of events during the lunar night, which otherwise presents a 14 day gap in LUNINT each month in non-polar regions of the Moon
Discuss detection of vehicle landing and takeoff by detection of H2O from lander plumes (Farrell+, 2022; Shipley+, 2014; Watkins 2020), plume dust ejecta flung into orbit-crossing paths (Metzger, 2020), and blast zone alterations
Discuss bonus science applications such as topographic mapping, mineralogy, detecting flashes from meteor impacts (Needham+, 2018; Liakos+, 2020) and fresh craters (Cahill & Speyerer, 2020; Speyerer+, 2016)
Date of Conference: September 27-20, 2022
Track: Cislunar SSA