Analogs for Planetary Exploration
Plan for a human expedition to Marius Hills and its implications for viable surface exploration architecture
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Published:December 01, 2011
In response to the need to develop science-conducive architectures for future human exploration of particularly interesting targets on lunar and planetary surfaces, we have developed scenarios for a geological expedition to Marius Hills within current constraints of week-long sortie missions. This area has a dense nest of volcano-tectonic features representing the range of mare volcanic structures, which is one of the reasons why it is so compelling. Two distinct episodes of flood basaltic volcanism are represented, along with volcanic shields, domes, cones, rilles, wrinkle ridges, floor fractures, and a magnetic swirl anomaly. We found two potential landing sites (constrained to 10 km radius) in the southwestern portion of Marius Hills that would allow access to examples of most of the features of interest. We describe the geological context, resulting investigations, daily traverses, and survey/sample sites along those routes, in detail, as well as the required tools, instruments, and surface activities. The resulting science requirements, for a minimum of two rovers plus a few hundred kilograms of science payload, along with implications for a science-conducive architecture, are considered.
- basalts
- cones
- domes
- expeditions
- exploration
- flood basalts
- fractures
- igneous rocks
- landing sites
- Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter
- Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter
- Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera
- magnetic anomalies
- mare basalts
- Moon
- planning
- rilles
- shield volcanoes
- tectonics
- terrestrial analogs
- volcanic features
- volcanic rocks
- volcanoes
- wrinkle ridges
- Lunar Orbiter
- Marius Hills