New research indicates that potential landing sites at the moon’s south pole for robotic landers and crewed Artemis missions are susceptible to quakes and landslides.
Science results published early this year in the Planetary Science Journal point to a group of faults located in the moon’s south polar region, making use of data on moonquakes recorded by seismometers set up by Apollo moonwalkers over 50 years ago.
“The potential of strong seismic events from active thrust faults should be considered when preparing and locating permanent outposts and pose a possible hazard to future robotic and human exploration of the south polar region,” the research paper explains.
Lunar building codes
The installation of habitats, landing pads, equipment shelters, tall towers on the moon could be off to a shaky start, suggests Nerma Caluk, an intermediate designer and lunar specialist for Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, an architecture and structural engineering firm in San Francisco, California.
As public and private entities are seeking to establish building infrastructure on the lunar surface, a need for lunar design criteria will be more apparent with time, said Caluk. Unlike terrestrial building codes, the lunar building codes are non-existent, she observed.
To wrestle with this issue, a Space Engineering and Construction committee, part of the American Society of Civil Engineering (ASCE) Aerospace Division, is developing a guideline document.
“One of the crucial sections of this guideline document is the seismic design criteria,” Caluk said, “in which information such as site-specific requirements, minimum design force, fatigue and service considerations will be addressed.”
That criteria work is currently being undertaken as part of a NASA Small Business Technology Transfer program grant, during which Skidmore, Owings, & Merrill, Slate Geotechnical Consultants, and Colorado School of Mines are addressing the concerns of the lunar seismic hazard on a variety of structural systems.
Caluk said that terrestrial engineering practices and codes “will need to be re-imagined” to address the factors that are not present on Earth. And one of those factors is moonquakes.
Old data, new challenges
The uniqueness of lunar seismic activity imposes new challenges, said Caluk. “Additionally, applying statistical models developed for earthquake recordings could lead to uncertainties in the lunar…
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