Mission architectures for the exploration of the lunar poles

Mars has been a recent focus of solar system exploration in the search for extraterrestrial water. However, Earth's nearest neighbor the Moon may yield the nearest aquifer. Scientific results returned by Clementine and Lunar Prospector showed a hydrogen anomaly to be present at the lunar poles that may be water ice. This result, however, cannot be confirmed without further investigation. The purpose of this paper is to discuss a mission architecture to explore the lunar poles and answer the lingering scientific questions. This is done through a comparison of possible architectures using common criteria such as science merit and implementation risk. A survey of recently proposed missions is conducted to establish if the best route to exploring the poles is being pursued.