Overview of the Latest Scientific Results of China's Lunar Exploration Program

China's Chang'E-4 probe successfully landed on 3 January 2019 in Von Kármán crater within the South Pole-Aitken (SPA) basin on the lunar far side. Based on the data acquired by the scientific payloads onboard the lander and the rover, the researchers obtained the related information such as the geologic and tectonic setting of the landing area, compositional characteristics of the landing surface materials, dielectric permittivity and density of the lunar soil. The experiments confirmed the existence of materials dominated by olivine and low-calcium pyroxene in the SPA basin on the lunar far side, which preliminary revealed the geological evolution history of the SPA basin and even that of the early time lunar crust, as well as the tectonic setting and formation mechanism of the materials in the lunar interior. The researchers also inves-tigated the particle radiation, Linear Energy Transaction (LET) spectrum, and so forth on the lunar surface. The low-frequency radio observations were carried out on the lunar far side for the first time as well. This article summarizes the latest scientific results in the past years, focusing on the Chang'E-4 mission. Key words CLEP, Chang'E-4, Scientific objectives, Scientific payloads, Scientific results      

基于影像数据的冯·卡门撞击坑形貌分析

月球背面南极—艾肯（South Pole-Aitken,SPA）盆地内的冯·卡门（Von Kármán）撞击坑是“嫦娥4号”初步选定的着陆区,该区域的地形地貌分析是任务设计的一个重要环节。根据LOLA （Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter）高程数据和LROC（Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera）影像数据,建立了马尔科夫随机场模型,从聚类的角度对该区域的地形地貌进行了表示和分析。具体而言,利用模型中的似然函数对呈近似正态分布的观测数据进行了建模,模型的标记随机场则刻画了不同地物形貌间的空间关系,并通过概率推断求解出最终的聚类结果。实验结果表明,从聚类角度进行数据表示,可以更好地展示出冯·卡门撞击坑内低对比度区域的地形地貌;而通过设置不同的聚类数目,还有助于分析冯·卡门撞击坑内整体的地形分布与局部的典型地貌。     

基于多因子综合评估的月球探测软着陆区域及最佳巡航路线分析

选择合适的软着陆区域及规划合理的巡航路线是月球探测的基础工作。以位于月球背面南极—艾肯（South Pole-Aitken,SPA）盆地内的冯·卡门（Von Kármán）撞击坑作为研究区域,综合使用多因子分析评估了月球探测的着陆区域和巡航路线。评价体系主要包括能表征着陆安全性的撞击坑的密度、撞击坑的影响区域、整个区域的平整情况、部分区域的平整情况等因子和体现科学探索意义的区域垂直结构、岩石属性和（FeO+TiO₂）含量等因子,其中科学探索的评估分析是在安全可行性的基础上进行的。结果表明：在多因子叠加分析的基础上可选择出A、B及C 3个着陆区,并通过科学研究因子分析出路线2及路线3为合适的巡航路线。本研究为月球探测器着陆和巡航路线的规划提供了科学依据,为后续的月球探测工作提供了技术支持。     

月球阿波罗盆地区域月壳结构及光谱特征

位于月球南极–艾肯(South Pole-Aitken Basin,SPA)盆地内的前酒海纪阿波罗盆地跨越了SPA盆地的瞬时穴和盆缘。SPA盆地是已确认的月球上最大最古老的撞击盆地,因此阿波罗盆地对于认识月球的内部结构和成分、区域地质作用和演化历史具有不可替代的作用。阿波罗盆地区域月壳具有很强的不对称性,靠近SPA盆缘处厚而靠近SPA盆地中心处薄,其峰环内部拥有最薄的月壳厚度。阿波罗盆地区域具有不同的光谱吸收特征。在阿波罗盆地外,靠近SPA盆缘具有更多Mg辉石吸收特征的短波吸收,而靠近SPA中心区域具有更多高Ca辉石吸收特征的长波吸收。盆地内部不同地质单元的光谱吸收特征也有差异,月海为高Ca辉石的吸收特征,峰环为Mg辉石的短波长吸收。阿波罗盆地具有最薄的月壳厚度、高程差达8 km的地层剖面、位于月球背面SPA盆地内的月海、发育充分的中央峰环,其独特性使它成为最有价值的采样点。     

Identification and characterization of science-rich landing sites for lunar lander missions using integrated remote sensing observations

Despite more than 52 years of lunar exploration, a wide range of first-order scientific questions remain about the Moon’s formation, temporal evolution, and current surface and interior properties. Addressing many of these questions requires obtaining new in situ analyses or return of lunar surface or shallow subsurface samples, and hence rely on the selection of optimal landing sites. Here, we present an approach to optimize science-rich lunar landing site selection studies based on the integration of remote sensing observations. Currently available remote sensing data, as well as features of interest published in the recent literature, were integrated in a Geographic Information System. This numerical database contains geographic information about all these findings, which can be consulted and used to simultaneously display multiple features and parameters of interest. To illustrate our approach, we identified the optimal landing sites to address the two top priorities (or goals) relative to Concept 3 of the National Research Council of the National Academies (2007), namely to ‘Determine the extent and composition of the primary feldspathic crust, (ur)KREEP layer, and other products of differentiation’ and to ‘Inventory the variety, age, distribution and origin of lunar rock types’. We review site requirements and propose possible landing sites for both these goals. We identified 29 sites that best fulfill both these goals and compare them with the landing sites of planned future lunar lander missions. Finally, we detail two of these science-rich sites (Aristarchus and Theophilus craters) which are particularly accessible through their location on the nearside.     

“嫦娥4号”月球背面软着陆任务设计

介绍了"嫦娥4号"月球背面软着陆任务设计方案。着陆区初步选定为月球背面南极–艾特肯(South PoleAitken,SPA)盆地内的冯·卡门(Von Kármán)撞击坑内。采用中继星实现着陆器和巡视器的对地通信,并选择环绕地月拉格朗日L2点的halo轨道作为其使命轨道。采用CZ-4C火箭和CZ-3B火箭,分别完成中继星和着陆器–巡视器组合体的发射。两器一星上共配置了6台国内研制科学载荷和3台国际合作科学载荷,开展以低频射电天文观测、巡视区形貌、矿物组份及浅层结构为主的科学探测。此外,还搭载了2颗月球轨道编队飞行微卫星、月面微型生态圈和大孔径激光角反射镜,分别开展超长波天文干涉测量试验、月面生态系统试验和超过地月距离的激光测距试验。通过创新设计顶层任务,充分继承成熟技术和产品,增加中继通信功能模块,开放资源引入高性能载荷和搭载项目,将实现一次低成本、短周期、大开放、高效益的月球探测任务。     

“嫦娥4号”月球背面着陆区月壳及深部结构特征

深部月壳和月幔物质结构是月球科学探测的关键问题之一。“嫦娥4号”初步将月球背面南极—艾肯（South Pole-Aitken,SPA）盆地内的冯·卡门（Von Kármán）撞击坑作为着陆点,具有重要的科学研究价值。结合月球重力、地形、布格重力、月壳厚度等地球物理数据,综合对冯·卡门撞击坑的月壳及其深部结构特征进行了分析。结果显示：冯·卡门撞击坑重复撞击到南部的冯·卡门M撞击坑上,后者的中央峰具有明显的布格正重力异常和线性的布格重力梯度特征,显示出高密度的幔部物质向上涌起;冯·卡门撞击坑极有可能穿透了该区域的整个月壳,并挖掘出了深部月幔的物质;该区域南部月壳厚度较薄小于5 km,北部平均月壳厚度在15～20 km,月壳平均密度为2 630 kg·m^-3,比背面高地月壳密度高,且平均孔隙度为9%,低于月球的平均孔隙度12%。     

基于场理论的“嫦娥4号”着陆区亮温时空分布特征研究

“嫦娥4号”（Chang’e-4）将首次实现在月球背面软着陆,而着陆区初步定为月球背面南极–艾肯（South Pole-Aitken,SPA）盆地内的冯·卡门（Von Kármán）撞击坑。利用“嫦娥”微波辐射计穿透性强的特点,针对微波辐射亮温缺乏场分析的问题,从场观点出发利用SVD方法分析冯·卡门撞击坑的亮温时空分布特征。结果表明冯·卡门撞击坑的3 GHz昼夜亮温场和37 GHz昼夜亮温场之间存在显著的耦合模态,同时在撞击坑内的亮温变化趋势相对一致;FeO+TiO₂（FTA）含量高的区域其相关性较高,也是亮温变化的关键区域,但是其等值线密度和FTA含量没有明显相关关系,主要和月表粗糙度相关。最后通过分析冯·卡门撞击坑的亮温时空分布特征综合地形特征、地层单元和物质化学成分等因素,为Chang’e-4着陆区的选择提供了参考。     

A new approach based on crater detection and matching for visual navigation in planetary landing

This paper provides an approach of crater detection and matching to visual navigation in planetary landing missions. The approach aims to detect craters on the planetary surface and match them to a landmark database during the descent phase of a planetary landing mission. Firstly an image region pairing method is proposed to detect the crater by using an image region feature detector. Then a WTA-rule is adopted to match the detected crater to the crater in database. To further reduce the false matching rate, an efficient method for reducing false matches using parameters of crater in 3-D database is proposed. Real images of planetary terrain and a semi-physical planetary landing simulation platform are utilized to test the performance of the approach, simulation results show the proposed approach is able to match the required number of craters to the database for pin-point planetary landing with a low rate of false detection and false matching, which will lead to an improved planetary landing precision.     

嫦娥四号着陆器月面工作遮挡应对方案研究

嫦娥四号着陆于月球背面南极 艾特肯盆地内,着陆区周围复杂地形导致测控和通信遮挡风险。针对这一问题,开展了着陆区的测控、光照遮挡分析,提出利用轨道控制策略的精细化设计来提高着陆点精度、优化月面工作程序和增加自主控制功能的设计方法,全方面降低嫦娥四号着陆器在月球背面着陆区的生存风险。该方法已通过嫦娥四号着陆器在轨验证,可以为其他深空探测任务提供参考和借鉴。     

月面无人自主采样返回任务动力下降点确定及验证

动力下降点确定是实施月面软着陆的重要环节，是多系统间复杂迭代的过程，涉及轨道设计、制导律设计、着陆目标的采样区确定、着陆及起飞安全分析。其设计结果直接影响了最终着陆点的位置和着陆过程的着陆安全，也间接影响采样安全和采样工程目标的实现结果。针对嫦娥五号在实施月面软着陆前确定动力下降点的任务需求，提出了通过多次轨道控制与最优标称制导轨迹搜索联合控制策略的动力下降点确定方法。首先，根据月面无人自主采样返回任务设计总结了动力下降点确定原理和约束条件；然后，详细论述了月面无人自主采样返回任务软着陆过程动力下降点确定方法；最后，通过嫦娥五号在着陆前主要的几次轨控实施结果分析了其对动力下降点的影响，同时综合了着陆区地形分析及着陆、起飞安全性分析，对动力下降点进行确定并根据最终在轨飞行结果进行验证。验证结果表明，基于“逐次逼近寻优方法”的月面软着陆环节动力下降点的确定方法有效，可以为后续地外天体软着陆等任务提供参考和借鉴。     

嫦娥四号着陆区织女陨坑电场环境数值模拟

由于太阳紫外、X射线和太阳风粒子作用,近月表形成尘埃等离子体环境,而月表陨坑地形使得这种尘埃等离子体环境更为复杂.本文以位于嫦娥四号着陆区的织女陨坑为研究对象,基于高程数据构造了该陨坑的三维模型.根据太阳-月球关系和陨坑地理坐标信息,计算了陨坑白天任意时刻的有效太阳辐照度分布,探讨了不同时刻陨坑内外的光照面积占比,得到陨坑随地方时而发生的遮蔽效应特征.同时,基于月表充电方程计算了织女陨坑在不同地方时条件下的平衡表面电势、德拜鞘高度和电场强度分布,发现陨坑自身遮蔽效应对坑内电场环境影响十分明显.以坑底中心为例,讨论了地方时和纬度对类织女陨坑的平衡表面电势、德拜鞘高度及电场强度的影响,结果表明三者变化特征均以正午时刻及赤道为界呈对称分布,越接近12:00LT或者越接近赤道,坑底中心的平衡表面电势和电场强度越高,德拜鞘高度越低.      

Single crater-aided inertial navigation for autonomous asteroid landing

In this paper, a novel crater-aided inertial navigation approach for autonomous asteroid landing mission is developed. It overcomes the major deficiencies of existing approaches in the literature, which mainly focuses on the case where craters are abundant in the camera field of view. As a result, traditional crater based methods require at least three craters to achieve crater matching, which limits their application in final landing phase where craters are scarce in the camera’s field of view. In contrast, the proposed algorithm enables single crater based crater matching based on a novel 2D-3D crater re-projection model. The re-projection model adopts inertial measurements as a reference, and re-projects the 3D crater model onto descent images to achieve the matching to its counterpart. An asteroid landing simulation toolbox is developed to validate the performance of the proposed approach. Through comparison with the state-of-the-art local image feature and crater based navigation algorithms, the proposed approach is validated to achieve a competitive performance in terms of feature matching and pose estimation accuracy with a much lighter computational cost.     

Optimal multi-site selection for a PV-based lunar settlement based on a novel method to estimate sun illumination profiles

Recently, space organizations have considered the Moon to host lunar bases. Such bases require power and energy to function. However, the efficient and safe use of the energy resources on the Moon is a huge challenge. Space photovoltaic (PV) power systems are appealing technologies due to their maturity and high solar energy availability at some locations on the Moon. The effectiveness of these PV systems depends on their selenographic location, which might necessitate the deployment of energy storage technologies to cover the base’s energy demand. Some analysts have proposed the installation of PV modules on kilometers-tall towers near the lunar poles to harvest more solar energy and limit the need for energy storage systems (ESSs). Alternatively, this paper proposes to harvest the energy from multiple sites in the lunar South Pole region using a novel technique to compute the Sun illumination profile and the LOLA topographic databases to compute the terrain elevations. The proposed algorithm seeks the most optimal configuration of sites and tower heights to minimize the longest night period and total distance between the sites. This study assesses groups of 1 to 6 sites assuming the use of towers having heights of 10, 100, and 500 [m]. The time horizon for the analysis is one Axial Precession Cycle, which is approximately 18.6 years. According to the results, a system of two sites with a separation of 42.05 [km] and towers of 500 [m] height has a maximum darkness period of only 3 [h] while another solution proposes a system of three sites with towers of 10 [m] that removes the need of EES (solar eclipse periods by the Earth are not considered). The proposed technique is suitable for engineering applications, such as base planning and operation management.     

藏匿在冯·卡门坑南部下方的月球质量瘤

月球着陆探测的候选着陆区域的质量异常分布,预示着对应区域发生过复杂的动力学演化过程,存在着异常丰富的物质组成。对月球的质量异常分布或重力场异常的探测是基于绕月卫星重力探测方法获取的,结合“嫦娥1号”月球探测获得的月球重力场异常模型与地形探测模型的数据,分析揭示存在于月球背面的质量瘤区域,研究结果表明：使用多次任务的数据首次证认了一个位于中尺度撞击区域,冯·卡门（Von Kármán）撞击坑的南半部和边缘的正下部的质量瘤,暂定编号CEFC04,冯·卡门撞击坑是该区域形成后,又一次大型撞击产生的。这类显著的被藏匿的中尺度月球质量瘤的发现,对探测研究月球的演化有重要意义。     

基于LOLA数据的冯·卡门地区地形特征分析

冯·卡门（Von Kármán）撞击坑位于南极—艾肯（South-Pole Aitken,SPA）盆地西北部,为“嫦娥4号”的预选着陆区。本文基于LRO卫星LOLA数据,分别采用最大平均值法、均方根高程法和盒维数法,得到并分析了冯·卡门地区的坡度、粗糙度和分形维数等地形参数信息。结果表明：冯·卡门撞击坑的海拔低,其中坑底最南部海拔最低,其余地区海拔相对较高;冯·卡门撞击坑内存在很多小的撞击结构;冯·卡门撞击坑平均坡度为1.3°,小于2°的地区约占盆地底部面积的85%;粗糙度值小于20 m的区域占95.1%;整体上有较大的分形维数。上述结果说明冯·卡门撞击坑整体上地形起伏小,结构稳定。统计结果表明：冯·卡门撞击坑南部、东南部及西北部地区都有较小的坡度、粗糙度值和较大的分形维数值,可满足探测器的着陆要求。与“嫦娥3号”着陆区地形的对比表明,冯·卡门撞击坑内部的地形条件要优于“嫦娥3号”着陆区。     

月球重力转弯软着陆的模糊变结构控制

针对月球软着陆的最终段,提出了以重力转弯方式进行软着陆的模糊变结构制导律.首先设计了次优滑动面,然后引入模糊控制器,使滑动变量逐渐收敛到0,实现安全着陆.考虑了发动机推力偏差、着陆器初始质量估计偏差、月球引力加速度偏差、初始条件干扰、敏感器测量误差及姿态跟踪误差.并用Monte Carlo技术验证了所设计的模糊变结构制导律具有很强的鲁棒性,能够克服各种随机偏差及干扰的影响.因此,所设计的软着陆制导律是可行的,并且只须以斜向距离和斜向速度作为输入,工程实现简单.      

月球着陆器着陆安全分析方法

月球着陆器软着陆地点选择及安全着陆实现是探月二期的关键问题.采用不考虑着陆器着陆过程中发动机控制、着陆姿态控制和动力学性能,在计算机上依据低精度月面数据和已有月面典型地形特征分布/形状模型仿真生成高精度着陆区域;根据着陆器的结构尺寸和着陆安全要求对每个安全参数进行计算、比较、判断得到单次着陆安全性,利用蒙特卡洛方法计算多次在仿真地形上的着陆安全概率.试验结果表明:采用这种方法时,着陆器的结构尺寸相同分析结果才有意义.在计算机上仿真生成着陆区域、设置着陆器结构尺寸和安全参数,使其可以用于地面系统的仿真实验,也可在月面软着陆过程中实时分析选定区域的着陆安全概率.     

月球撞击坑辐射纹的形成和消失机制及可能的年代学应用

辐射纹是年轻撞击坑周缘呈辐射状分布的明亮细条纹,是月表最显著的地貌特征之一,也是月球科学领域热点研究之一.根据目前对于月球撞击坑辐射纹的形成和类型的认识,分析辐射纹消失相关的空间风化、撞击导致的物质混合等地质过程;比较不同形成年龄撞击坑辐射纹的光学成熟度(OMAT)剖面,发现溅射物逐渐成熟过程中OMAT剖面的演变过程,...     

基于刚柔耦合模型的月球着陆器动力学分析

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