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Emplacement of four or more kinetic penetrators geographically distributed over the lunar surface can enable a broad range of scientific exploration objectives of high priority and provide significant synergy with planned orbital missions. Whilst past landed missions achieved a great deal, they have not included a far-side lander, or investigation of the lunar interior apart from a very small area on the near side. Though the LCROSS mission detected water from a permanently shadowed polar crater, there remains in-situ confirmation, knowledge of concentration levels, and detailed identification of potential organic chemistry of astrobiology interest. The planned investigations will also address issues relating to the origin and evolution of the Earth-Moon system and other Solar System planetary bodies. Manned missions would be enhanced with use of water as a potential in-situ resource; knowledge of potential risks from damaging surface Moonquakes, and exploitation of lunar regolith for radiation shielding. LunarNet is an evolution of the 2007 LunarEX proposal to ESA (European Space Agency) which draws on recent significant advances in mission definition and feasibility. In particular, the successful Pendine full-scale impact trials have proved impact survivability for many of the key technology items, and a penetrator system study has greatly improved Exp Astron (2012) 33:587-644 589 the definition of descent systems, detailed penetrator designs, and required resources. LunarNet is hereby proposed as an exciting stand-alone mission, though is also well suited in whole or in-part to contribute to the jigsaw of upcoming lunar missions, including that of a significant element to the ILN (International Lunar Network).

Grande, M., Maddison, B. J., Howe, C. J., Kellett, B. J., Sreekumar, P., Huovelin, J., Crawford, I. A., Duston, C. L., Smith, D. F., Anand, M., Bhandari, N., Cook, A. C., Fernandes, V. A., Foing, B. H., Gasnault, O., Goswami, J. N., Holland, A. D., Joy, K. H., Kochney, D., Lawrence, D. J., Maurice, S., Okada, T., Narendranath, S., Pieters, C., Rothery, D. A., Russell, S. S., Shrivastava, A., Swinyard, B. M., Wilding, M., Wieczorek, M. (2009). The C1XS X-ray Spectrometer on Chandrayaan-1. Planetary and Space Science, 57 (7), 717-724. This is a description of the C1XS instrument for which M. Grande is Principal Investigator. It is a multi author paper since includes most of the large team led by MG in the building and exploitation.The Chandrayaan-1 X-ray Spectrometer (C1XS) is a compact X-ray spectrometer for the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chandrayaan-1 lunar mission. It exploits heritage from the D-CIXS instrument on ESA's SMART-1 mission. As a result of detailed developments to all aspects of the design, its performance as measured in the laboratory greatly surpasses that of D-CIXS. In comparison with SMART-1, Chandrayaan-1 is a science-oriented rather than a technology mission, leading to far more favourable conditions for science measurements. C1XS is designed to measure absolute and relative abundances of major rock-forming elements (principally Mg, Al, Si, Ca and Fe) in the lunar crust with spatial resolution ?25 FWHM km, and to achieve relative elemental abundances of better than 10%.Peer reviewe

The Solar Intensity X-ray and particle Spectrometer (SIXS) on the BepiColombo Mercury Planetary Orbiter (“Bepi”) measures the direct solar X-rays, energetic protons, and electrons that bombard, and interact with, the Hermean surface. The interactions result in X-ray fluorescence and scattering, and particle induced X-ray emission (PIXE), i.e. “glow” of the surface in X-rays. Simultaneous monitoring of the incident and emitted radiation enables derivation of the abundances of some chemical elements and scattering properties of the outermost surface layer of the planet, and it may reveal other sources of X-ray emission, due to, for example, weak aurora-like phenomena in Mercury’s exosphere. Mapping of the Hermean X-ray emission is the main task of the MIXS instrument onboard BepiColombo. SIXS data will also be used for investigations of the solar X-ray corona and solar energetic particles (SEP), both in the cruise phase and the passes of the Earth, Venus and Mercury before the arrival at Mercury’s orbit, and the final science phase at Mercury’s orbit. These observations provide the first-ever opportunity for in-situ measurements of the propagation of SEPs, their interactions with the interplanetary magnetic field, and space weather phenomena in multiple locations throughout the inner solar system far away from the Earth, and more extensively at Mercury’s orbit.In this paper we describe the scientific objectives, design and calibrations, operational principles, and scientific performance of the final SIXS instrument launched to the mission to planet Mercury onboard BepiColombo. We also provide the first analysis results of science observations with SIXS, that were made during the Near-Earth Commissioning Phase and early cruise phase operations in 2018–19, including the background X-ray sky observations and “first light” observations of the Sun with the SIXS X-ray detection system (SIXS-X), and in-situ energetic electron and proton observations with the SIXS Particle detection system (SIXS-P).

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