Analysis of Comprehensive Multi-Factors on Station Selection for Moon-Based Earth Observation

Abstract

With the rapid development of Moon exploration, the concept of establishing Moon-based station for Earth observation (MBSEO) has received more and more attention. Compared with the space-borne Earth observation method, the MBSEO can observe Earth with advantages of higher stability, longer period, wider range, better integrity, and consistency. The MBSEO can not only cover the entire Earth disc, but also has good observation of the target area (TA) whose radius is several times that of the Earth radius (e.g., plasma-sphere/magnetosphere). Basically, site selection is a prerequisite for MBSEO. In this paper, the time coverage of TA (TCTA), e.g., the whole Earth disc or Earth-related plasma-sphere and magnetosphere, and the time coverage of sunlight (TCS) without topography are briefly presented to show their distribution. However, the unevenly distributed craters on the near side make TCTA and TCS badly affected by complicated topography, thereby causing those sites with a high selection possibility of a single factor to not necessarily be suitable for other factors. For example, potential sites at the low-middle latitude on the near side might have better TCTA and flat topography, but its TCS might be terrible for MBSEO. In order to evaluate the above factors comprehensively, a multi-factor fuzzy evaluation (MFE) method based on a multiple-input single-output (MISO) model will be utilized in the period of 18.6 nutation years. By using the proposed evaluation method, the sites near the dividing line, e.g., Amundsen, can still have the absolute possibility of exceeding 0.6, which was selected as MBSEO in low acceptability of sunlight. A similar situation exists in other areas with weaker sunlight constraint, e.g., Malapert A, in the case that the absolute selection possibility of areas becomes closer if more sunlight is tolerable. The results indicate that the areas with low thermal environment for radiation protection and relatively flat topography will have more possibility to be selected, and those potential sites unevenly distributed in craters can still be picked out through our proposed method.