I found an interesting article from one of USMF member : Philip Stooke.

He points that one of the best place for man landing on the moon is on the South Pole - Aitken Basin .

Much of the area around the Moon's south pole is within the South Pole-Aitken Basin (shown at left in blue on a lunar topography image), a giant impact crater 1,550 miles (2,500 kilometers) in diameter and 7.5 miles (12 kilometers) deep at its lowest point. Many smaller craters exist on the floor of this basin. Many of those craters never see sunlight and are thought to contain water ice. Credit: NASA/National Space Science Data Center.

The ubication of South Pole-Aitken Basin ranges from around 6.49 degree South up to 27.65 degree south.

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/lunar_or...lst_nam.shtml?S
South Pole-Aitken / I-028-M 10.23°S/153.78°W
I-030-M 10.27°S/162.7°W
I-035-M 8.72°S/162.6°W
I-036-M 8.65°S/162.1°W
I-037-M 7.98°S/157.76°W
I-038-M 7.9°S/157.26°W
I-039-M 6.49°S/149.05°W
I-040-M 6.44°S/148.73°W
II-033-M 10.39°S/174.07°E
II-075-M 21.21°S/157.99°E
V-026-H1 27.65°S/125.06°W
V-026-H2 27.65°S/125.06°W
V-030-H2 25.79°S/139.3°W

The above indexed colorful map looks it is located lower than 60 degree south.

Rodolfo

I should point out that my suggestion was to land right at the south pole, which is just inside the SPA basin. And I'm far from the only person to suggest that.

The item Rodolpho is referring to was an LPSC abstract from a few years ago. In it I identified seven points on a Clementine HIRES mosaic of the south polar ridge (between Shackleton and De Gerlache craters) which would make good landing points for a robotic mission. Each of the seven points had these characteristics:

in view of Earth for direct communication.

illuminated for a substantial part of the lunar day for power/thermal control.

on the ejecta blanket of a small fresh crater - so it is likely to expose SPA ejecta dug up from under the modern regolith.

at a location from which a rover could have access to areas of permanent darkness.

Phil

Phil,

I have found your document relating to the EXPLORATION STRATEGIES AND LANDING SITES AT THE LUNAR SOUTH POLE from Lunar and Planetary Science database. That zone, around the South Pole has 5 interesting craters:
1) Scott (103 km radius),
2) Amundesen (101 km radius),
3) Malapart (69 km radius)
4) Idel'son (69 km radius)
5) Cabeus (98 km radius)

All of them are about 250-300 km from South Pole where is located two-three small craters:

1) Shackleton (13 km radius),
2) De Gerlache (7 km radius).

It is interesting that the closest craters from the South Pole: Cabeus, Idel'son and Malapart have rims with permanent light. Around the South Pole, the pictures from Clementine probe does not see all places. As you told that it is needed to take infrared pictures to see better the permanent shaded zones around De Gerlache, Shakleton and the other.

Do you know what is the altitude between the bottom and the rim of these South Pole craters? The Malapert is a tall mountain: 8,000 meters and it is very tall and it would be rather difficult to an astronaut to fly over that and post the antenna and polar solar.

Let see more high and infrarred pictures to study better that zone.

Now I am going to investigate around the North Pole, in the Peary Crater.

Rodolfo

I would also point out Don Wilhelms' list of his favorite targets for future
lunar landers. It is in chapter 14 of his tome, "The Geologic History of the
Moon," which is available online at Northwestern's Center for Planetary Sciences
website. He lists about 20 sites that he ranks in order of their geological
importance.


Another Phil

Here is the Web site that links to the document:

http://cps.earth.northwestern.edu/moon.html

Here is the web link to Chapter 14 of Don Wilhelms' book, including lunar
landing site suggestions.

http://cps.earth.northwestern.edu/GHM/ghm_14txt.pdf



I think that Wilhelms' list would be useful to the Chinese and Japanese, as
they are planning unmanned lunar sample reurn missions. Their sample-return
missions could be sent to sites that will not be visited by the American manned
lunar landers of the VSE.


Another Phil

Phil Stooke pointed out some time ago that the Soviet Luna sample return missions made use of some creative trajectories to ensure that minimal targetting was required to ensure that the sample return capsules would return to Earth. The result of their cleverness was that the landing areas were severely constrained, however.

I wonder if anyone is aware of whether the Japanese proposals make use of similar tricks in terms of landings or even sample return? Certainly, Japan's past activities have involved some out-of-the-box thinking with regard to orbital dynamics, so there may well be deep-seated presumptions within JAXA that such shenanigans might be employed (rather than conservative dependence on rocketry alone).

I'd expect that the combination of latitudes of the Terrestrial launch site and landing area would have some knock-on effect on the (as I understand it) banana-shaped areas of the Moon which could be visited with best economy, so that JAXA might be able to examine spots which were closed to the Soviets.

Bob Shaw

Yes, as I understand it, the Luna sample return landers had to land in places where the ascent stage could simply thrust directly to zenith for a given amount of time, and it would not only return safely to Earth, it would land within the Soviet Union.

Obviously, this was done for a number of reasons, including maximizing the chances of a successful return and reducing the weight of the Earth return vehicle. But with a steerable vehicle, you expand your landing site selections enormously -- and many of the sites in the expanded area require little more total energy to return to Earth. They just require inertial guidance, three-axis stabilization and an ability to steer a rocket burn.

I guess it all comes down to your mass budget -- how much you can land on the lunar surface in the first place, and how much you can blast back towards the Earth. If you can afford the mass, you increase your exploration options *enormously* if you can fly a steered ascent.

-the other Doug

Interesting comments Doug. We are still have to travel ballistically in the space. In the advent of new propulsion system technology, will permit the spacecraft have the full steering capability in the space.

Rodolfo

The Soviets were seriously planning -- and repeatedly talked about their plans for -- a souped-up Luna sample-return mission to return a sample from the farside (although this was long before the significance of the Aitken Basin was realized). I don't know whether this would have required a steering system on the ascent rocket, nor do I know why they cancelled it -- although it may have been due to their expensive late 1970s attempt to plan a Mars sample return, which apparently also led to other problems in their lunar and planetary programs (as I've mentioned elsewhere on Doug's site).

Researchers find no evidence of ice reserves on the moon

The data analysis collected from radars around the lunar south pole showed that the Moon has no water due to the high value of circular polarization ratio (CPR) -- a possible signature of low -temperature water ice. That zone has not so cold enough to keep frozen water (117 degrees Celsius) and the ice would evaporate rapidly. However, there is hope that some permantly shaded craters at the poles, where the temperature does not rise above about -280 F (-173 C). There are many shadowed craters that are out of reach of Earth radars.

Rodolfo