In the coming decades, exploration of the lunar surface is likely to increase as multiple nations execute ambitious lunar exploration programs. Among several environmental effects of such activities, increasing traffic near and on the lunar surface will result in the injection of anthropogenic neutral gases into the lunar exosphere. The subsequent ionization of such anthropogenic neutrals in the lunar environment may contribute to and ultimately exceed the generation of 'native' lunar pickup ions, thereby altering the fundamental space plasma interaction with the Moon. To better understand these possible effects, we conducted plasma simulations of the solar wind interaction with the Moon in the presence of increasing ion production rates from an anthropogenic lunar exosphere. At ionization levels between 0.1 and 10 times the native lunar exospheric ion production rate, little to no changes to the solar wind interaction to the Moon are present; however, ionization levels of 100 and 1000 times the native rate result in significant mass loading of the solar wind and disruption of the present-day structure of the Moon's plasma environment. Comparing to the planned Artemis landings, which are likely to contribute only an additional X10% of the native lunar exospheric ion production rate, we conclude that the Artemis program will have little effect on the Moon's plasma environment. However, more frequent landings and/or continual outgassing from human settlements on the Moon in the more distant future are likely to fundamentally alter the lunar plasma environment. (c) 2024 COSPAR. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights are reserved, including those for text and data mining, AI training, and similar technologies.

Solar wind precipitation on atmosphere-less bodies like the Moon generates backscattered and sputtered energetic neutral atoms (ENAs) from the surface. Since ENAs does not sense electromagnetic fields, ENAs can be assumed to retain the initial velocity if gravity effect can be ignored. This makes remote sensing of surface properties and near-surface plasma conditions possible from a spacecraft orbit. Lunar Neutrals Telescope (LNT) is an ENA instrument on the first Turkish Lunar Mission. LNT is tailored to answer several fundamental scientific questions. Three scientific objectives are set: (1) To search for volatile-rich areas on the surface including permanently shadowed regions, (2) to investigate the structure of mini- magnetosphere created by lunar magnetic anomalies and its response to the solar wind, and (3) to investigate the formation and maintenance processes of the lunar exosphere. We will present LNT scientific objectives as well as a brief description of the instrument.

This paper reports on the Sub-keV Atom Reflecting Analyzer (SARA) experiment that will be flown on the first Indian lunar mission Chandrayaan-1. The SARA is a low energy neutral atom (LENA) imaging mass spectrometer, which will perform remote sensing of the lunar surface via detection of neutral atoms in the. energy range from 10 eV to 3 keV from a 100 kin polar orbit. In this report we present the basic design of the SARA experiment and discuss various scientific issues that will be addressed. The SARA. instrument consists of three major subsystems: a LENA sensor (CENA), a solar wind monitor (SWIM), and a digital processing unit (DPU). SARA will be used to image the solar wind-surface interaction to study primarily the surface composition and surface magnetic anomalies and associated mini-magnetospheres. Studies of lunar exosphere sources and space weathering on the Moon will also be attempted. SARA is the first LENA imaging mass spectrometer of its kind to be flown on a space mission. A replica of SARA is planned to fly to Mercury onboard the BepiColombo mission.