Lunar Ice Discovery Mission
                    Discovery `96
               Carnegie Mellon University


Scientists have speculated for over 20( 30) years that water and other
volatiles could be present on the surface of the Moon(in permanently
shadowed craters at the lunar poles). (The Clementine mission
confirmed the presence of permanently shadowed areas and presented
evidence suggested that some contain ice).  The verification of these
theories (and data) (offers a possibility of deciphering the comet
impact history of the Moon and the Earth and)) will (may) transform
the role of the Moon (for future human activities).  The volatiles
will (could) provide a basis for permanent human habitation,
agriculture, and the manufacture of building materials. Transformed
into rocket propellant, each kilogram of water could transport a
kilogram of payload to low-Earth orbit, or fuel spacecraft destined
for Mars and beyond.  [Information on the history of the Moon, the
Earth and comets is also contained in these deposits. ](delete)
[Bistatic radar results from Clementine, indicate that water ice may
be present in permanently dark regions at the poles. These regions are
called cold traps since the Sun never shines there, causing the
temperature to remain at approximately 24K all the time.  The water is
speculated to have been deposited in these regions, at depths of up to
two (several) meters, from solar wind, cosmic dust and comet impacts
over the past 2 billion years.](How about instead: "The Clementine
data suggest that up to 15,000 square kilometers of cold trap exist,
in which the ice may be up to several meters thick, with up to 10
billion tons of ice in all") An upcoming NASA (orbital remote sensing)
mission, Lunar Prospector, will look at the polar regions and
determine the presence of hydrogen atoms on the surface. While [the
hydro gen may be a part of water] (water is most likely the dominant
ice, hydrogen could also be present in methanol, ammonia, or other
compounds [it might also be from methane, ammonia, or one of many
other com pounds.] The absolute determination of the composition of
volatiles requires a return to the surface of the Moon.  (The
demonstration that distinct layers of ice exist from separate comet
impacts, can only be done on the surface of the Moon and would be of
major scientific importance.)

The Lunar Ice Discovery Mission proposes to land a robotic Explorer in
the lunar south pole region on December 24, 2000. This Explorer will
visit multiple cold traps during its three month long mission,
confirming the presence of water[, ammonia, carbon dioxide] and other
volatile[s] (ices) inside the cold traps.  Using a cryogenic drill it
will extract samples from depths of up to a meter (and determine
physical properties of the regolith(the fragmental debris that covers
the lunar surface)).  A Regolith Evolved Gas Analyzer (REGA) will
unambiguously determine the chemical and iso topic compositions of
volatiles . A Mossbauer spectrometer will provide information on the
miner alogical content of regolith both inside and outside the cold
traps. Finally onboard cameras will return high resolution, full color
and infrared images of the Lunar surface.

The data returned from the Explorer will provide valuable information
for the science community.  The composition of volatiles at different
places and at different depths will allow scientists to refine their
model for volatile deposition and removal mechanisms. Mineralogical
data from the regolith inside the cold traps and in the surrounding
area will help us understand the effect of the volatile deposits on
the polar region regolith.

The [volatile] deposits are believed to have a (complex) stratigraphy,
[alternating] (in which ice) layers (deposited at the time of comet
impacts are interspersed with) [of] [volatiles]( ice) and non-
volatile debris (emplaced by meteoroid impacts). Like the rings of a
tree, the stratigraphy will provide a timeline of the history of each
cold trap and the Moon. It may even allow the age of a cold trap to be
determined. This would tell scientists when the Moon's rotational axis
stabilized at its current angle. Stratigraphy is predicted to exist
because a comet impact will deposit a large layer of volatiles very
quickly as well as a layer of non-volatile debris. Thus each layer in
the volatile deposits will consist largely of material from one comet,
allowing the Explorer to determine individual comet compositions
throughout history. The Explorer will be able to determine if
stratigraphy exists in the volatile deposits by measuring the
resistance to drilling and by analyzing samples from various depths.

The mission will launch on a Delta II 7925H rocket and land on the
Moon in a direct descent trajectory. Unique to the Lunar Ice Discovery
Mission is the Lander-Explorer, an innovative space craft which grafts
final descent components onto an exploratory robot. The spacecraft
will alight on the surface of the Moon and, without ramps or
cumbersome hardware, transition from Lander to robotic Explorer and
embark on its scientific mission. Through dual use of structure,
communi cations, power, sensing and computing, the Lander-Explorer
reduces mission costs, development time and launch mass, enabling a
28kg payload for science instruments.

Based on NASA's Nomad robot developed at Carnegie Mellon University
(CMU), which will explore the barren Atacama desert during the summer
of 1997, the Explorer is a product of today's robotic technology. It
will use a cylinder of solar panels, much like a commercial satellite,
to generate electricity. Batteries will store enough energy for 20
hour sorties into the dark cold traps. Wheeled locomotion and an
innovative transforming chassis will provide the traction, mobility
and propulsion needed to cross the lunar landscape and cold
traps. Safeguarded teleoper ation combined with autonomous driving
will allow the Explorer to deal with numerous situations during its
three month long mission. Data from the science instruments and
cameras will be trans mitted back to Earth using NASA's Deep Space
Network (DSN).  The mission's scientific investigation will be
(conducted by a science team led by Dr. Michael Duke, Lunar and
Planetary Institute, Houston, and including Dr. James Arnold,
University of California, San Diego; Dr. William Boynton, University
of Arizona, Tucson; Dr. John Hoffman, University of Texas, Dallas;
Drs. David McKay and Richard Morris, Johnson Space Center, Houston;
and Dr. Eugene Shoemaker, U. S. Geological Survey, Flagstaff.  [the
purview of the Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI) under the
leadership of Michael Duke, Chief Scientist, with Principle
Investigators Gene Shoemaker, William Boynton, David McKay and Richard
Morris. ]  The Johnson Space Center (JSC) will provide the operations
capabilities of the JSC Mission Control Center as well as trajec tory
analysis and the Mossbauer and REGA instrument development and data
interpretation. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory will provide mission
design services, DSN services, cryogenic drill, infrared imager and
related data interpretation. Lockheed-Martin is the preferred source
for land ing descent subsystems, since the(ir) Mars `98 Lander is
integral to the design of the Lander- Explorer. Isolated technologies
and components will be procured and in some cases competed as bid
packages.

The Lunar Ice Discovery Mission will be primed by CMU in partnership
with LPI and JSC under the leadership of William Whittaker. A major
aerospace partner will be sought to help control costs and provide
flight experience. For fifteen years, the CMU team has led national
research programs for robotic technologies and has produced fieldable
robots for missions and commercial enterprise.  The team offers a
decade of contributions to NASA telerobotics, with a lineage that
includes Ambler, Tesselator, Deadalus, Dante, Ratler, Demeter and
Nomad research robots. Sea soned by fifteen years of robotic design,
development, and deployment, the Lunar Ice Discovery team will
aggressively pursue management, programmatic, and technical activities
during the fea sibility study, refine first results in early phases of
the project, and deliver a high-performance, high-return scientific
mission at a cost of $133 million.  Evaluated and supported by Freeman
Dyson, Harrison Schmitt, Gerald Kulcinski, Alan Binder, Boeing, NASA
Lewis, George Friedman and Rick Tumlinson, the credentialed,
qualified, and committed team, of the proposed Lunar Ice Discovery
Mission will provide information about the history of the Moon, the
Earth and comets. The volatiles discovered by the Lunar Ice Discovery
Mission will truly make the Moon a key that will open a gateway to
Mars and the rest of the solar system.