[P-PS08] Lunar science and exploration

[PPS08-17] Lunar Science for Landed Missions – High-Priority Landing Sites Visualized with NASA’s Moon Trek

*Brian Hamilton Day¹, Emily Law² (1.NASA Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute, NASA Ames Research Center, 2.NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology)

Keywords:Moon, Lunar, Landing

The Lunar Science for Landed Missions workshop was held on 10–12 January, 2018 at NASA Ames Research Center and was attended by lunar scientists, representatives from commercial companies, and representative of various international space agencies including the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and the European Space Agency. The workshop was cosponsored by the Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI) and the Lunar Exploration Analysis Group (LEAG). The primary goal of the workshop was to produce a set of high-priority landing site targets, generated by the lunar science community, for near-term lunar missions. The scope of such missions was aimed primarily, but not exclusively, at commercial exploration companies with interests in pursuing ventures on the surface of the Moon. The results of this workshop were published in a report that summarized the findings of the workshop and provided an analysis of priority landing sites and how missions to these sites would meet key science and exploration goals determined by NASA and the scientific community (Jawin, et al, 2019). This presentation for JpGU will review the landing sites advocated by the workshop, highlight characteristics that make them high-priority sites, and showcase the sites using visualizations generated using NASA’s Moon Trek data visualization and analysis portal (Day and Law, 2017).

Jawin, E. R., Valencia, S. N., Watkins, R. N., Crowell, J. M., Neal, C. R., & Schmidt, G. (2019). Lunar science for landed missions workshop findings report. Earth and Space Science, 6.

Day, B. H., Law, E. S., 2017, Moon Trek: An Interactive Web Portal for Current and Future Lunar Missions. EPSC Abstracts, Vol. 11, EPSC2017-100, European Planetary Science Congress 2017