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Aerospace
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Advances in Lunar Exploration
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Advances in Lunar Exploration

A special issue of Aerospace (ISSN 2226-4310). This special issue belongs to the section "Astronautics & Space Science".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (28 February 2025) | Viewed by 3227

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Marco Sabatini

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Aerospace Engineering, Sapienza University of Rome, 00138 Rome, Italy
Interests: formation flying; space robotics; complex space systems; visual navigation; vibration control
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Leonard Felicetti

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Centre for Autonomous and Cyber-Physical Systems, School of Aerospace, Transport and Manufacturing, Building 83, Cranfield University, Cranfield MK43 0AL, UK
Interests: spacecraft orbital and attitude control systems (AOCS); guidance, navigation and control (GNC); spacecraft systems and subsystems; spacecraft design; space robotics; distributed space systems

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

At the outset of the space age, the Moon stood as the ultimate objective. Today, over fifty years later, the Moon's significance as a foundational element for future space exploration has been significantly reassessed. In the 2020s, twenty-five missions have already embarked towards the Moon with diverse objectives: flybys, orbit insertion, or landings. This number is poised to escalate exponentially, driven by the determination of major space agencies worldwide to vie for a permanent foothold on the Moon in a revitalized space race.

Attention is gradually shifting from the traditional query of "how do we get there" to the even more formidable inquiry of "how do we stay there." This Special Issue of Aerospace delves into recent advancements and investigations concerning the technologies, applications, and services essential for enabling future Moon missions.

The focal points will span from the imperative to furnish navigation services for landers and orbiter spacecraft, to the utilization of in situ resources, surface exploration via rovers (which also entails employing artificial intelligence techniques for enhanced autonomy), communication with Earth and other lunar bases, outpost design, encompassing all the associated challenges (such as radiation shielding, impact protection, and power optimization), tailored life support systems addressing the unique challenges of the Moon, and the issues and opportunities surrounding lunar gateways.

Dr. Marco Sabatini
Dr. Leonard Felicetti
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Aerospace is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • lunar exploration
  • in situ resources utilization
  • lunar satellite navigation
  • communication
  • rovers design and GNC
  • new services for future missions
  • landing
  • outpost design and life support systems

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Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

21 pages, 6588 KiB  
Article
Simplified Particle Models and Properties Analysis Designed for DEM Lunar Soil Simulants
by Junhao Liu, Qian Li, Xiuli Xiong and Lanlan Xie
Aerospace 2025, 12(4), 330; https://doi.org/10.3390/aerospace12040330 - 11 Apr 2025
Viewed by 285
Abstract
The discrete element method (DEM) is one of the most popular methods for simulating lunar soil simulants due to the lack of real lunar soil. To reduce the computational consumption and difficulty because of complex particle models, simplified particle models, in which a [...] Read more.
The discrete element method (DEM) is one of the most popular methods for simulating lunar soil simulants due to the lack of real lunar soil. To reduce the computational consumption and difficulty because of complex particle models, simplified particle models, in which a single particle consists of two, four, or six elements, are discussed in this paper. Three steps, including random generation, particle replacement, and sedimentation, can generate the proposed simulant. The relationship between the mechanical properties of the simulant and microscopic parameters defined in DEM was analyzed by the orthogonal array testing (OATS) technique. Then, the prediction functions, which can calculate mechanical properties from inputting the microscopic parameters without carrying out the DEM, are also established by a back-propagation artificial neural network (BP-ANN). The widely used physical simulants JSC-1 from the USA and FJS-1 from Japan are simulated in DEM from the prediction function with high accuracy. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Lunar Exploration)
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20 pages, 12586 KiB  
Article
Design of an Orbital Infrastructure to Guarantee Continuous Communication to the Lunar South Pole Region
by Nicolò Trabacchin and Giacomo Colombatti
Aerospace 2025, 12(4), 289; https://doi.org/10.3390/aerospace12040289 - 30 Mar 2025
Viewed by 356
Abstract
The lunar south pole has gained significant attention due to its unique scientific value and potential for supporting future human exploration. Its potential water ice reservoirs and favourable conditions for long-term habitation make it a strategic target for upcoming space missions. This has [...] Read more.
The lunar south pole has gained significant attention due to its unique scientific value and potential for supporting future human exploration. Its potential water ice reservoirs and favourable conditions for long-term habitation make it a strategic target for upcoming space missions. This has led to a continuous increase in missions towards the Moon thanks mainly to the boost provided by NASA’s Artemis programme. This study focuses on designing a satellite constellation to provide communication coverage for the lunar south pole. Among the various cislunar orbits analysed, the halo orbit families near Earth–Moon Lagrangian points L1 and L2 emerged as the most suitable ones for ensuring continuous communication while minimising the number of satellites required. These orbits, first described by Farquhar in 1966, allow spacecraft to maintain constant communication with Earth due to their unique geometric properties. The candidate orbits were initially implemented in MATLAB using the Circular Restricted Three-Body Problem (CR3BP) to analyse their main features such as stability, periodicity, and coverage time percentage. In order to develop a more detailed and realistic scenario, the obtained initial conditions were refined using a full ephemeris model, incorporating a ground station located near the Connecting Ridge Extension to evaluate communication performance depending on the minimum elevation angle of the antenna. Different multi-body constellations were propagated; however, the constellation consisting of three satellites around L2 and a single satellite around L1 turned out to be the one that best matches the coverage requirements. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Lunar Exploration)
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24 pages, 30044 KiB  
Article
Minimum-Fuel Trajectories and Near-Optimal Explicit Guidance for Pinpoint Landing from Low Lunar Orbit
by Matteo Caruso, Giulio De Angelis, Edoardo Maria Leonardi and Mauro Pontani
Aerospace 2025, 12(3), 183; https://doi.org/10.3390/aerospace12030183 - 25 Feb 2025
Viewed by 545
Abstract
This research addresses minimum-fuel pinpoint lunar landing at the South Pole, focusing on trajectory design and near-optimal guidance aimed at driving a spacecraft from a circular low lunar orbit (LLO) to an instantaneous hovering state above the lunar surface. Orbit dynamics is propagated [...] Read more.
This research addresses minimum-fuel pinpoint lunar landing at the South Pole, focusing on trajectory design and near-optimal guidance aimed at driving a spacecraft from a circular low lunar orbit (LLO) to an instantaneous hovering state above the lunar surface. Orbit dynamics is propagated in a high-fidelity ephemeris-based framework, which employs spherical coordinates as the state variables and includes several harmonics of the selenopotential, as well as third-body gravitational perturbations due to the Earth and Sun. Minimum-fuel two-impulse descent transfers are identified using Lambert problem solutions as initial guesses, followed by refinement in the high-fidelity model, for a range of initial LLO inclinations. Then, a feedback Lambert-based impulsive guidance algorithm is designed and tested through a Monte Carlo campaign to assess the effectiveness under non-nominal conditions related to injection and actuation errors. Because the last braking maneuver is relatively large, a finite-thrust, locally flat, near-optimal guidance is introduced and applied. Simplified dynamics is assumed for the purpose of defining a minimum-time optimal control problem along the last thrust arc. This admits a closed-form solution, which is iteratively used until the desired instantaneous hovering condition is reached. The numerical results in non-nominal flight conditions testify to the effectiveness of the guidance approach at hand in terms of propellant consumption and precision at landing. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Lunar Exploration)
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30 pages, 10861 KiB  
Article
Lunar Power Sources: An Opportunity to Experiment
by Michele Marrone, Luca Pasqualin and Carlo Giovanni Ferro
Aerospace 2025, 12(1), 58; https://doi.org/10.3390/aerospace12010058 - 16 Jan 2025
Viewed by 1175
Abstract
This paper presents a systematic analysis of power generation technologies for a lunar outpost supporting six astronauts. Based on a detailed power budget analysis requiring 65 kWe for life support, scientific equipment, and in situ resource utilization (ISRU), a comparative analysis of solar [...] Read more.
This paper presents a systematic analysis of power generation technologies for a lunar outpost supporting six astronauts. Based on a detailed power budget analysis requiring 65 kWe for life support, scientific equipment, and in situ resource utilization (ISRU), a comparative analysis of solar and nuclear power solutions is conducted. Nuclear fission is identified as the most promising technology based on key criteria, including mass efficiency, reliability, and power density. A parametric study is then conducted to optimize the nuclear reactor design, with particular focus on radiation shielding using lunar regolith and its impact on safety distances. The analysis demonstrates that proper shielding can reduce the required safety distance from over 2.5 km to approximately 90 m while maintaining radiation exposure within acceptable limits. Finally, leveraging insights from existing reactor designs, an optimized configuration is proposed that combines multiple small reactors to meet the unique challenges of lunar power generation while ensuring crew safety and operational redundancy. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Lunar Exploration)
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