Autonomously Deployable Tower Infrastructure for Exploration and Communication in Lunar Permanently Shadowed Regions

NASA is interested in characterizing and robotically exploring the lunar permanently shadowed regions (PSRs) in advance of Artemis crewed landings. The challenging terrain of these regions means a lander would only be able to access the rim of a PSR, limiting line-of-sight communication and sensing into the PSR. Autonomously deployed lunar tower infrastructures could provide valuable lines of sight into and around these PSRs. NASA has developed deployable composite booms for use in microgravity, and we propose an extension of those capabilities by deploying a composite boom vertically in the lunar gravity field. Services hosted by the elevated platform at the top of the boom, such as power beaming, radio repeaters, or imagers, could support the near-term operations of multiple distributed, mobile, robotic assets as well as long-term regional operations of exploration crews. The Multifunctional Expandable Lunar Lightweight, Tall Tower (MELLTT) design, created by our interdisciplinary team of MIT graduate and undergraduate students in October 2019, has been selected and funded by NASA STMD and Space Grant as a finalist in the National Institute of Aerospace’s NASA BIG Idea 2020 Challenge and will be demonstrated at the virtual BIG Idea Forum in January 2021. The expected result of this work is a proof-of-concept of a TRL 4 prototype of a deployable, tall lunar tower by January 2021, setting the stage for future development along a path to flight targeting an early 2020’s lunar tower technology demonstration mission in support of the Artemis program.