Sample return from the lunar South Pole-Aitken Basin

Abstract

Automated sample return missions to the South Pole — Aitken Basin on the lunar far side are proposed as the best means of addressing major problems concerning the early impact history of the inner solar system, the nature of very large impact events, and the early differentiation of rocky planets. The opportunity to propose such missions has been opened by the recommendations of the U. S. National Research Council's Decadal Study of Solar System Exploration and the creation by NASA of the New Frontiers Program, which will support missions of intermediate cost, between the Discovery Program and large missions. A proposal for a South Pole — Aitken Basin Sample Return Mission was submitted to the Discovery Program in 2000, but not fimded. The New Frontiers Program, with a somewhat less stringent budget constraint, should allow several of the potential risks associated with the Discovery proposal to be addressed, including scientific and programmatic risks. A principal goal of current mission studies is to determine whether, within the New Frontiers Program's cost constraints, two separate samples could be collected from areas of different post-Basin geological history. If accepted by the New Frontiers Program, a South Pole — Aitken Basin sample return mission could be flown as early as 2008–2009.