Intrepid: Lunar Roving Prospector

Recent lunar missions provide the planetary science community with a wealth of new measurements enabling new insights into lunar geosciences. While these orbital observations have significantly contributed to our understanding, a series of surface measurements are now needed to enable detailed investigations of key science targets and provide ground truth for orbital remote sensing observations. We propose a highly mobile rover, Intrepid, which will investigate at least six key lunar terrain types over the course of a four-year mission. The Intrepid mission concept and proposed traverse are specifically designed to address key outstanding science questions related to Decadal Survey goals and to strengthen interpretations of remotely sensed datasets collected over the past 25 years. The Intrepid mission concept has twelve specific goals:

- Determine the nature of the Reiner Gamma magnetic anomaly and associated albedo feature

- Determine magma compositions and evolution over 3 byrs of lunar history, in a region far from the Apollo and Luna sites

- Determine ray formation mixing systematics (local material vs. ejected material)

- Determine the nature and extent of pyroclastic volcanism (bulk volatile content of mantle)

- Document target material dependence of impact crater formation

- Investigate contemporary changes (since 2009) to the surface

- Determine the chemistry and mineralogy of the crust exposed by the Aristarchus crater event

- Document key landforms diagnostic of impact mechanics (meter to 50 km scale craters)

- Test the hypothesis of young volcanism (<100 myrs or >1byr)

- Inventory H abundance across a broad range of regolith compositions

- Investigate compositional and textural heterogeneities within orbital remote sensing pixels

- Document the surface radiation and solar wind environment

To achieve these goals, Intrepid will traverse over 1800 kilometers, and acquire thousands of chemical, reflectance, imaging, magnetic, radiation, and solar wind observations. This ambitious concept requires detailed planning of stops and a disciplined science and operations team to stay on schedule and keep costs manageable. Measurement objectives are carried out with a suite of instruments picked to reach the goals while minimizing rover complexity.