An Emergency Mitigation System for Safer Lunar Surface Exploration

The analysis presented in this paper provides a preliminary assessment of a proposed system to extend safe lunar surface EVA range and scientific capabilities. The approach detailed herein described an emergency mitigation system. This system contains an ECLSS on the rover and a small inflatable shelter around the passenger seat that can be inflated with an astronaut inside if necessary. The proposed emergency system has the potential to expand EVA capabilities by providing single-fault tolerance in the face of a wide variety of suit and rover failure modes. The viability of this proposed system was evaluated and found to be compatible with the Apollo lunar roving vehicle design. Assuming that future rovers have a larger carrying capacity than the Apollo era rovers, this demonstrates that both the mass and volume of these proposed systems can be accommodated by the rover to greatly increase the range and capability of science and exploration missions on the lunar surface.