Description
Organiser: John Zarnecki; co organiser: Julie Holt-Jones, Fionagh Thomson
Over the next decade, there seems little doubt that we will see a burgeoning lunar โeconomyโ, involving science, exploration and commerce. Estimates suggest some 150 such launches in the next 10 years. Many of these spacecraft will be placed into lunar orbit to provide communications, navigation and monitoring capabilities for lunar-based facilities. There are limited end-of-life options for spacecrafts orbiting the Moon, unlike the Earth where there are designated graveyard orbits to move up or down into, oceans to land in and an atmosphere to burn up in on re-entry. Therefore, it appears highly likely that in the short- to medium-term, lunar-orbiting spacecraft will be disposed of through impact onto the lunar surface. This type of post mission disposal offers significant technical, environmental and ethical challenges to the future of astronomy and planetary science activities on the moon. Consequently, the unintended consequences could be disastrous, if not regulated or/and mitigated in an effective way.
This session will address this impending challenge to Science and will ask:
o What might be done to mitigate any potential negative unintended consequences?
o What could we learn from current discussions and research on disposal options for Earthโs orbits, if any?
Intentionally crashing spacecraft onto the lunar surface poses a potential hazard to human life and infrastructure on the Moon, but also presents an opportunity for scientific discovery. Spacecraft impacts would eject rocks and dust across the Moon at high speed. Without deceleration by an atmosphere, these high speed particles would pose a hazard to habitation and infrastructure. The large...
The ESA SMART-1 spacecraft reached its end of life (EOL) in Sept. 2006, when it was deliberately crashed into the Moon at 2 km/s [1-5]. ESA chose this EOL strategy as a reasonable way to end the mission and remove the spacecraft from the environment. Given that cis-lunar space will be increasingly populated with spacecraft (and associated upper stages etc.), it can be assumed that more EOL...
Implementing new regulations into the existing everydayย practices of different stakeholders is often challenging.ย One pragmatic approach is to build on reliable andย rigorous evidence to help guide the process. But notย everything in space is well understood and implementingย regulations with limited underlying evidence can lead toย disputes. One imminent example is the (unknown) impact of...
