Density, strength and compressibility characteristics of lunar regolith simulant

Humankind will soon be returning to the Moon, as part of NASA’s Artemis program, where the objective is long-term habitation to facilitate extra-terrestrial exploration and in situ resource utilisation. The Artemis program is focused on inhabiting the Moon’s South pole, which consists of lunar highlands regolith. The Lunar Construction Group, which is part of the University of Adelaide’s Andy Thomas Centre for Space Resources (ATCSR), is actively undertaking research to design and construct infrastructure on the Moon. Due to the lack of availability of lunar regolith samples, lunar simulants have been developed which are intended to provide authentic surrogates of lunar regolith. It is essential, for the development of sustainable and resilient lunar infrastructure, that the geotechnical characteristics of the regolith are quantified and understood. This paper begins by first summarising the known ground conditions on the Moon and then presents the results of laboratory testing on three lunar simulants LHS-1 (lunar highland simulant), MAB-1 (a modified lunar highland simulant, which is a mixture of anorthosite and basalt), and LMS-1 (lunar mare simulant), in order to quantify their strength and compressibility characteristics.