Construction of a High-Quality Digital Elevation Model of the Amundsen Crater and Landing Area Selection for Future Lunar Missions

Abstract

The Amundsen crater is located in the Aitken Basin of the lunar nearside. Its unique location and the possibility of water ice make it a prime landing area for lunar exploration missions. Constructing a high-quality digital elevation model (DEM) and performing a detailed landing site analysis are critical for research and practical applications. However, this region has many permanently shadowed areas, making optical remote sensing observations impractical. The lunar orbiter laser altimeter (LOLA) has provided the highest quality and largest satellite altimetry dataset, making it ideal for constructing a high-quality DEM. High-resolution DEMs derived from LOLA data contain significant noise due to the geographic uncertainty of laser altimetry data. This article utilizes an adaptive iteration method and a filtering method for slope detrending to construct a high-quality DEM of the Amundsen area. Various factors are comprehensively analyzed, including slope, illumination conditions, and temperature. The optimal landing location in the Amundsen area is identified (90.716°E, 84.727°S). The illumination conditions during the landing of the lunar exploration mission are estimated by calculating the obstruction angle of the optimal landing site and the solar altitude angle from 2023 to 2028. The optimal landing time is in October, providing favorable illumination conditions in the coming months. We calculate the maximum range of the azimuth angles (0°–59.5° and 287.5°–360°) that can receive sufficient sunlight at the designated landing site. Our study provides a novel strategy for selecting the placement of solar panels for lunar exploration instruments.

Keywords

• Amundsen
• digital elevation model (DEM)
• illumination conditions
• landing site
• lunar orbiter laser altimeter (LOLA)