Science Missions of the Korean Lunar Exploration Program

Abstract

The Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO), which is the Korean first lunar and space exploration spacecraft, will be launched in August 2022 and arrive in a lunar orbit in December 2022. The KPLO will carry out nominal missions while in a lunar polar orbit an ~100-km altitude for one year. The KPLO has five lunar science mission payloads and one technology demonstration payload in order to achieve their own science and technology goals. The science payloads consist of four Korean domestic instruments and one internationally collaborated science instrument for scientific investigations on the lunar surface and in a space environment. The Korean dometstic science instruments are the gamma-ray spectrometer named KGRS, the wide-angle polarimetric camera named PolCam, the fluxgate magnetometer named KMAG, and the high resolution camera named LUTI. The name of the internationally collaborated science instrument is ShandowCam, which was developed by Arizona State University, U.S., and funded and managed by NASA. The science data acquired by the science payloads will be released to the public in order to enhance scientific and educational achievements. The science data acquired by each science instrument will be archived and released through the web sites of the KPDS (KARI Planetary Data System) for the Korean science instruments and the NASA PDS (Planetary Data System) for the internationally collaborated science instrument.