Abstract We present a small-scale mission concept to characterize the permanently shadowed regions of the lunar south pole. MARAUDERS aims to measure in situ for the first time the presence, distribution, and state of volatiles in one permanently shaded crater at a greater resolution than existing orbital measurements using up to 12 deployed impactors. A total of 15 permanently shadowed regions have been characterized as potential landing sites candidates for the probes. The science principle is based on penetrometry, that has proven in the past to be an efficient technique to estimate regolith properties from acceleration profiles. We demonstrate this concept by numerically simulating the surface interaction between our probes and the lunar regolith, thereby demonstrating how deceleration profiles can elucidate information on key regolith properties and help discriminate between two ice-regolith end-members. The preliminary payload design indicates that a good baseline for the impactors would be a spherical shell of 30–40 ​mm in size and ~90 ​g in mass per impactor, including electronics and the communication system. This would sum up to an overall payload of ~1 ​kg contained in a volume of ~15.10−4 ​m3, which is in agreement with a small-scale payload. Preliminary landing trajectory design enabled the computing of a nominal deployment scenario (with constraint on altitude, ejection velocity and spin rate) that would provide dispersions of the probes from ~250 ​m down to ~20 ​m if deployed from orbit, and down to ~10 ​m if deployed from a carrier lander/rover. Both scenarios will be able to comply with the MARAUDERS’ objectives to assess: (1) the presence (2) the distribution and (3) the surface strength heterogeneity (that can be traced back to the state of volatiles through lab experiments) of water-ice volatiles in permanently shadowed regions at a resolution ​

中文翻译：

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掠夺者：用微型撞击器探测月球两极挥发性分布和特性的任务概念

摘要 我们提出了一个小规模的任务概念来表征月球南极的永久阴影区域。MARAUDERS 旨在首次原位测量一个永久阴影陨石坑中挥发物的存在、分布和状态，其分辨率高于使用多达 12 个部署的撞击器的现有轨道测量。总共有 15 个永久阴影区域被定性为探测器的潜在着陆点。科学原理基于穿透测定法，过去已证明这是一种从加速剖面估计风化层特性的有效技术。我们通过数值模拟我们的探测器和月球风化层之间的表面相互作用来证明这个概念，从而展示了减速剖面如何阐明关键风化层特性的信息，并帮助区分两个冰-风化层末端成员。初步的有效载荷设计表明，撞击器的良好基线是一个 30-40 毫米大小的球壳，每个撞击器的质量约为 90 克，包括电子设备和通信系统。这将总计约 1 公斤的总有效载荷包含在约 15.10-4 立方米的体积中，这与小规模有效载荷一致。初步着陆轨迹设计能够计算标称部署场景（受高度、弹射速度和旋转速率的限制），如果从轨道部署，该场景将提供从 ~250 米到 ~20 米的探测器分散如果从航母着陆器/漫游车部署，则约为 10 米。