LuNaDrone: Small Autonomous Spacecraft for Lunar Lava Tubes Exploration

Interest in human exploration of the Moon is increasing again, giving greater importance to the exploration of geological structures that could be used as lunar habitats such as lunar lava tubes. In this paper we present an overview of the importance of the exploration of these sites and propose the LuNaDrone mission concept, which relies on a compact spacecraft capable of performing autonomous flight in the lunar near-surface environment and inside lunar pits, in order to find potential openings to lava tubes. We discuss exploration challenges and compare strengths and weaknesses with different institutions’ proposals, then describe the LuNaDrone concept of operations and present the current development of the most critical spacecraft systems.