Lunar Exploration Roadmap v.1-1

The Lunar Exploration Roadmap Version 1.1 is the first second version of a living document that will be updated and further developed over time as more data becomes available from current missions, as further analyses by LEAG Specific Action Teams impact the roadmap, and as other relevant analyses are reported. Suggestions for revisions to the roadmap can be given to the LEAG Chair, the LEAG Executive Secretary or via the e-mail address at the LEAG website. 

The three themes described below are at various degrees of fidelity. The Science Theme has a long heritage of study, including NRC studies, and represents community consensus. The Feed Forward Theme has been presented to the Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group and their comments have been incorporated. It has also been presented to the Small Bodies Assessment Group (SBAG). The Sustainability Theme is at the lowest fidelity, representing a small (but growing) body of opinion and knowledge, and will require further refinements.

Overall the roadmap is intended to layout an integrated and sustainable plan for lunar exploration that will allow NASA to transition from the Moon to small bodies to Mars (and beyond) without abandoning the lunar assets built up using tax payer dollars. As such, the roadmap will enable commercial development, through early identification of “commercial on ramps”, that will create wealth and jobs to offset the initial investment of the taxpayer. In addition, the roadmap will, with careful planning, enable international cooperation to expand our scientific and economic spheres of influence while enabling an expansion of human and robotic space exploration.

The draft of the Lunar Exploration Roadmap can be downloaded as a PDF document.

The Lunar Exploration Roadmap is also available as an Excel file.

This Excel file contains a number of different worksheets:

• The TGOI worksheet contains everything that is in the PDF document.
• The OBJECTIVES worksheet contains just Objectives where all the investigations have the same priority and time phasing, but the investigations are listed under the Objectives when they have different priorities and time phasings;
• The Timing & Priorities worksheet puts the list in the previous worksheet into Low, Medium and High priority blocks against Early, Middle and Late stage exploration phases.

The 2011 roadmapping effort had two objectives:

• Evaluate the Roadmap against the current Planetary Sciences Division Decadal Survey: Vision and Voyages for Planetary Science in the Decade 2013-2022 (hereafter the “Decadal”); and

• Devise an enabling robotic precursor campaign that would implement the Roadmap in a sustainable way.

This effort produced two letters, one regarding the roadmap evaluation against the recent Decadal Survey (click here to download this letter), and one regarding an outline for a robotic precursor campaign (click here to download this letter).

The 2012 roadmapping effort mapped the GAP-SAT report to the Lunar Exploration Roadmap. Click here to download the results of this effort.

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