Lunar South Pole Landing Sites: Analogue Mineralogy and ISRU

Supervisor:

• Professor John Bridges
• Dr Julia Cartwright

Project Description:

• The lunar south pole is a key region for human and robotic exploration.

• The PhD will characterise lunar meteorites and thermophysical properties of ice-bearing analogues

• PhD is available from Jan-March 2025 for 3.5 years

The Lunar South Pole (LSP) is a key region for human and robotic exploration for NASA’s Artemis programme as well as other international and commercial missions. This is for a variety of compelling scientific, engineering and in-situ resource utilisation (ISRU) reasons. For instance, mineralogical terrains at the LSP around Shackleton Crater are predicted to include outcrops of ancient, primary crust, that are partially covered by impact ejecta. Sampling such rock types will provide scientists with a detailed record of the earliest stages of planetary magma oceans and crust development. 

In this PhD studentship, we will prepare mineralogical analogues for likely south pole landing sites. The synthesised analogues will be measured for thermal conductivity in ice-bearing samples, over a range of appropriate temperatures and ice sublimation loss rates to mimic the lunar environment. The results from these experiments, will improve thermal models to predict likely depths of water ice preservation. In tandem with this, the student will identify and study the mineralogy of lunar meteorites and Apollo samples analogous to the South Pole Aitken Basin. In particular this studentship will make use of the University of Leicester Advanced Microscopy Facility Zeiss Hercules Microscope. This system is the first in Europe and enables correlated Computerised Tomography CT scanning at ~1 micron resolution with Zeiss Crossbeam SEM-WDS-EDX and focused ion beam extraction for subsequent STEM and TEM analyses at micron to nm scales.

The student will join Space Park Leicester, a vibrant, new multidisciplinary space science hub that combines academic projects, teaching, PhDs, together with commercial partners.