1. Beijing Institute of Spacecraft System Engineering,Beijing 100094,China
2. College of Surveying and Geo-Informatics,Tongji University,Shanghai 200092,China
Show less
History+
Received
Published Online
2025-12-31
2026-11-03
PDF
(1491KB)
Abstract
Given the challenges faced by in-situ exploration missions at the lunar south pole, the complex terrain and rapidly changing illumination conditions make it difficult to ensure a safe landing, maintain a continuous lighting environment, and meet navigation and remote sensing imaging requirements. A method for spatiotemporally constrained mission design for in-situ exploration of the lunar south pole was proposed. Based on high-resolution Digital Elevation Model(DEM)and ephemeris data, terrain slope and dynamic illumination of the lunar south pole were modeled. Besides, various engineering constraints were taken into account during the pre-descent circumlunar remote sensing phase, the lunar surface landing phase and the lunar surface moving phase. Taking a potential landing area at the lunar south pole as an example, a landing site and landing time satisfying the continuous illumination constraint, a traverse path meeting the light-tracking requirement, and a remote sensing imaging window matching the landing time were obtained. The results demonstrate that the proposed method can provide implementable full-process mission planning support for in-situ exploration missions at the lunar south pole and can also serve as a reference for the mission design of China’s future lunar south pole exploration.
Song Peng, Jingbo Sun, Tianyi Zhang, Wei Rao, Yue Fang, Yiyuan Zhang, Shiyu Chen.
Mission Design for In-Situ Exploration of Lunar South Pole with Spatiotemporal Constraints.
Journal of Deep Space Exploration, 2026, 13 (4) : 346-354 DOI:10.3724/j.issn.2096-9287.2026.20260023
LiC LYan & LiuJ J. Innovative developments in lunar and planetary science promoted by China’s lunar exploration. Science China Earth Sciences53(11), 2437–2456 (2023).
[2]
LiSLuceyP & MillikenR E. Direct evidence of surface exposed water ice in the lunar polar regions. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences115(36), 8907–8912 (2018).
[3]
AnandM Lunar water: a brief review. Earth, Moon, and Planets107(1), 65–73 (2010).
[4]
LuchsingerK & ChanoverN J. Seasons of ice: water ice migration and seasonal transient shadow at the lunar poles. Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets127(10), 1–18 (2022).
[5]
SpeyererE & RobinsonM S. Persistently illuminated regions at the lunar poles: ideal sites for future exploration. Icarus222(1), 122–136 (2013).
[6]
YuH MRao & ZhangY Y. Mission analysis and spacecraft design of Chang’E-7. Journal of Deep Space Exploration10(6), 567–576 (2023).
[7]
FengY JLiH & TongX H. Optimized landing site selection at the lunar south pole: a convolutional neural network approach. IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing17, 10998–11015 (2024).
[8]
WangCJiaY & XueC B. Scientific objectives and payload configuration of the Chang’E-7 mission. National Science Review11(2), 1–16 (2024).
[9]
LiuDGan & WeiG F. Lunar south polar landing area selection constrained by illumination conditions and slopes. Journal of Deep Space Exploration10(5), 544–556 (2023).
[10]
YuT YFeiJ & LiL C. Study on path planning method of lunar rover. Journal of Deep Space Exploration6(4), 384–390 (2019).
[11]
Wang Y M, Yuan Q F, Guo Y N, et al. Path planning for lunar rover based on Bi-RRT algorithm[C]//Proceedings of the 2021 40th Chinese Control Conference(CCC). Shanghai, China: IEEE, 2021.
[12]
Hu T, Cao T, Zheng B, et al. Large-scale autonomous navigation and path planning of lunar rover via deep reinforcement learning[C]// Proceedings of 2021 China Automation Congress(CAC). Kunming, China: IEEE, 2021.
[13]
MiaoQ & WeiG F. A dynamic illumination-constrained spatio-temporal A* algorithm for path planning in lunar south pole exploration. Remote Sensing18(2), 1–28 (2026).
[14]
Lamarre O, Malhotra S, Kelly J. Safe mission-level path planning for exploration of lunar shadowed regions by a solar-powered rover[C]//Proceedings of IEEE Aerospace Conference. Montana, USA: IEEE, 2024.
[15]
MazaricoEBarkerM & JaggeA M. Sunlit pathways between south pole sites of interest for lunar exploration. Acta Astronautica204, 49–57 (2023).
[16]
Allan M, Wong U, Furlong P M, et al. Planetary rover simulation for lunar exploration missions[C]//Proceedings of IEEE Aerospace Conference. Montana, USA: IEEE, 2019.
[17]
Litaker H L, Beaton K H, Bekdash O S, et al. South pole lunar lighting studies for driving exploration on the lunar surface[C]//Proceedings of IEEE Aerospace Conference. Montana, USA: IEEE, 2025.
[18]
MazaricoENeumannG & SmithD E. Illumination conditions of the lunar polar regions using LOLA topography. Icarus211(2), 1066–1081 (2011).
[19]
YeZQian & XuY S. Adaptive weighted multi-image shape from shading for precise topographic reconstruction at the lunar south pole. The Astronomical Journal170(1), 1–16 (2025).
[20]
FolknerW MWilliamsJ & BoggsD H. The planetary and lunar ephemerides DE430 and DE431. Interplanetary Network Progress Report196(1), 142–196 (2014).
[21]
ZhangJ DMengZ & PingJ S. Preliminary Study of illumination characteristics of aristarchus plateau using LOLA data. Journal of Deep Space Exploration4(2), 171–177 (2017).
[22]
RaoWFang & PengS. Landing site selection method of lunar south pole region. Journal of Deep Space Exploration9(6), 571–578 (2022).
[23]
QinY QSunD & LiN. Path Planning of mobile robot based on particle swarm optimization algorithm. Robot (3), 222–225 (2004).
[24]
ParsopoulosK & VrahatisM N. Particle swarm optimization method for constrained optimization problems. Intelligent Technologies–Theory and Application: NewTrends in IntelligentTechnologies76(1), 214–220 (2002).
[25]
ZhuS YYang & HuangX Y. Research progress of autonomous hazard avoidance guidance technologies on extraterrestrial body landing. Journal of Astronautics44(12), 1785–1796 (2023).
[26]
WuBZeng & HuH. Illumination invariant feature point matching for high-resolution planetary remote sensing images. Planetary and Space Science152, 45–54 (2018).
Rights & permissions
The Author(s) 2026. Published by Higher Education Press. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the CC BY license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).