Exploration and evaluation of lunar volatiles as potential resource within the ESA lunar lander context

The European Space Agency (ESA) Topical Team on Exploitation of Local Planetary Materials (TT- ELPM) is investigating the viability of lunar volatiles as a potential resource for future exploration activities and the possible application of the ESA Lunar Lander to help address unknowns on the abundance and distribution of volatiles on the Moon. The ESA Lunar Lander is a mission currently being investigated within the Human Space Flight Directorate of ESA, as a precursor mission to future exploration of the Moon. A candidate payload for the mission will measure lunar volatiles in-situ. We report on the findings of the Topical Team to date, in terms of the potential applications of lunar volatiles for exploration, the unknowns associated with the composition, abundance, distribution and extraction of those volatiles and the potential of the ESA Lunar Lander to address some of these issues