• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.38 no.11
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• pp.1136-1143
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• 2010

One-way laser ranging technology is applied for the precise orbit determination of LRO, which is the first trial for supporting the missions of lunar or planetary spacecraft. In this paper, LRO payload and ground system are discussed for LRO laser ranging, and some errors effecting on time of flight and tracking mount accuracy are analyzed. Additionally several technologies are also analyzed to make laser pulses shot from ground stations to arrive in the LRO earth window. Measurement data of LRO laser ranging verified that these technologies could be implemented for one-way laser ranging of lunar spacecraft.

• Journal of Aerospace System Engineering
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.73-80
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• 2015

For Korean first lunar exploration program, KARI(Korea Aerospace Research Institute) has been researching in various fields and investigating cases of abroad lunar exploration spacecrafts. In the field of the flight software, KARI has been analysing some cases such as NASA LRO, and this paper describes the result of the case study on LRO flight software.

• Corrosion Science and Technology
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.214-219
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• 2023

Considering the case in the United States where most nuclear power plants with an initial design life of 40 years continue to operate until 60 or 80 years after undergoing material soundness evaluation, it is time to plan a more robust long-term operation strategy for nuclear power plants in Korea. There are some reports that SRO/LRO might be formed when Alloy 690 is heat treated for 10,000 hours to 100,000 hours at 360 to 450 ℃. The possibility of LRO formation in Alloy 690 steam generator tubings of Kori nuclear power plant unit 1 (Kori-1) was investigated using existing research papers. The mechanism in which SRO/LRO occurred was also surveyed. Alloy 690 was found to be more likely to cause ordering than Alloy 600 in terms of alloy composition. The ordering could be evaluated through changes in material properties. However, it is difficult to evaluate it from a microstructural point of view. The likelihood of LRO in Alloy 690 of the Kori-1 plant operated at 320 ℃ for 19 years seemed to be low in terms of time and exposure temperature.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.131-140
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• 2014

Lava caves could be useful as outposts for the human exploration of the Moon. Lava caves or lava tubes are formed when the external surface of the lava flows cools more quickly to make a hardened crust over subsurface lava flows. The lava flow eventually ceases and drains out of the tube, leaving an empty space. The frail part of the ceiling of lava tube could collapse to expose the entrance to the lava tubes which is called a pit crater. Several pit craters with the diameter of around 100 meters have been found by analyzing the data of SELENE and LRO lunar missions. It is hard to use these pit craters for outposts since these are too large in scale. In this study, small scale pit craters which are fit for outposts have been investigated using the NAC image data of LROC. Several topographic patterns which are believed to be lunar caves have been found and the similar pit craters of the Earth were compared and analyzed to identify caves. For this analysis, the image data of satellites and aerial photographs are collected and classified to construct a database. Several pit craters analogous to lunar pit craters were derived and a morphological pit crater model was generated using the 3D printer based on this database.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.46 no.4
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• pp.338-344
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• 2018

The lunar surface temperature is important as a environmental parameter for the thermal design of the lunar exploration vehicles such as orbital spacecraft, lander, and rovers. In this study, the temperature is numerically predicted through a simplified lumped system model for the energy conservation. The physical values required for the analysis of the energy equation are derived by considering the geometric shape, and the values presented in the previous research results. The areal specific heat, which is the most important thermo-physical property of the lumped system model, was extracted from the temperature measurements by the Diviner loaded on the LRO, and the value was predicted by calibration of the analytical model to the measurements. The predicted temperature distribution obtained through numerical integration has sufficient accuracy to be applied to the thermal design of the lunar exploration vehicles.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.32-38
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• 2011

Galvanized steel has gone through a chemical process to keep it from corroding. The steel gets coated in layers of zinc because rust will not attack this protective metal. For countless outdoor, marine, or industrial applications, galvanized steel is an essential fabrication component. The reduction of the corrosion rate of zinc is an important topic. In the past, a very popular way to reduce the corrosion rate of zinc was to use chemical conversion layers based on $Cr^{+6}$. However, a significant problem that has arisen is that the use of chromium salts is now restricted because of environmental protection legislation. Therefore, it is very important to develop new zinc surface treatments that are environmentally friendly to improve the corrosion resistance of zinc and adhesion with a final organic protective layer. In this study, a Urethane solution (only Urethane 20 wt.%; S-700) and an organic/inorganic solution with Si (Si polysilicate 10 wt.% + Urethane 10 wt.%; LRO-317) are used. Based on the salt spray test of 72 h, S-700 and LRO-317 had a superior effect for the corrosion resistance on EGI and HDGI, respectively.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.60-66
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• 2010

Zinc has a number of characteristics that make it well suited for use as a coating to protecting iron and steel products from corrosion. Its excellent corrosion resistance in most environments accounts for its successful use as a protective coating on a variety of products and in many exposure conditions. The excellent field performance of zinc coatings results from their ability to form dense, adherent films that corrode at a rate that ranges from 1% to 10% of the corrosion rate of ferrous materials, depending on the environment. Recently, EU RoHS and EU ELV prohibited the use of materials that adversely affect the environment, such as Pb, Hg, Cd, and $Cr^{+6}$. In this study, environmentally-friendly, Cr-free solutions (epoxy solution, acrylic solution, and urethane solution S-700) and organic/inorganic solution with Si; LRO-317) were used to evaluate the corrosion resistance of zinc-coated steel subjected to a saltwater spray for 72 hours. The coating of urethane solution (S-700) was best among the three kinds of solution with heat treatment during five minutes at $190^{\circ}F$. Test specimens with S-700 and LRO-317 coating were heat treated in a drying oven at 170, 180, 190, 200, and $210^{\circ}C$ for five minutes. The results show that the optimum corrosion resistance was $190^{\circ}C$ in EGI and $170^{\circ}C$ in HDGI, respectively.

• The Journal of the Petrological Society of Korea
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.373-384
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• 2017

A new era with the $4^{th}$ Industrial Revolution certainly brings new opportunities for human to explore human's activities outside of the Earth. After the Apollo program, exploration for lunar resources and establishment of lunar base seem to be in reality. This could be due to new findings by the LCROSS and LRO proving the advanced scientific development and new scientific results about the moon from Asian countries including China with Chang'E missions. It is expected that fossil fuels will be in shortage in the near future and at this time, Helium-3 could be an energy resource as a replacement of the fossil fuels. At present it is well known that countries like Russia, USA, and Europe will continue to investigate on lunar exploration especially with landers toward future human activities on the moon to establish a lunar base. With this point of view, it is important for human to understand lunar resources and prepare for prospective utilization of lunar resources. This review paper considers on a point of view in both lunar resource exploration and establishment of lunar base.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.120.1-120.1
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• 2012

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) launched on June 16, 2009 has six experiments including of the Cosmic Ray Telescope for the Effects of Radiation (CRaTER) onboard. The CRaTER instrument characterizes the radiation environment to be experienced by humans during future lunar missions. The CRaTER instrument measures the effects of ionizing energy loss in matter specifically in silicon solid-state detectors due to penetrating solar energetic protons (SEP) and galactic cosmic rays (GCRs) after interactions with tissue-equivalent plastic (TEP), a synthetic analog of human tissue. The CRaTER instrument houses a compact and highly precise microdosimeter. It measures dose rates below one micro-Rad/sec in silicon in lunar radiation environment. Forbush decrease (FD) event is the sudden decrease of GCR flux. We use the data of cosmic ray and dose rates observed by the CRaTER instrument. We also use the CME list of STEREO SECCHI inner, outer coronagraph and the interplanetary CME data of the ACE/MAG instrument.We examine the origins and the characteristics of the FD-like events in lunar radiation environment. We also compare these events with the FD events on the Earth. We find that whenever the FD events are recorded at ground Neutron Monitor stations, the FD-like events also occur on the lunar environments. The flux variation amplitude of FD-like events on the Moon is approximately two times larger than that of FD events on the Earth. We compare time profiles of GCR flux with of the dose rate of FD-like events in the lunar environment. We figure out that the distinct FD-like events correspond to dose rate events in the CRaTER on lunar environment during the event period.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.138.2-138.2
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• 2012

Cave on the Moon is considered as the most appropriate place for human to live during the frontier lunar exploration. While the lava flows, the outer crust gets cooled and solidified. Then, the empty space is remained inside after lava flow stops. Such empty space is called the lava caves. Those lava tubes on the Earth are formed mostly by volcanic activity. However, the lava tubes on satellite like Moon and planet like Mars without volcanic activity are mostly formed by the lava flow inside of the crater made by large meteorite impact. Some part of lava tube with collapsed ceiling appears as the entrance of the cave. Such area looks like a deep crater so called a pit crater. Four large pit craters with diameter of > 60 m and depth of > 40 m are found without difficulty from Kaguya and LRO mission image archives. However, those are too deep to use as easily accessible human frontier base. Therefore, now we are going to identify some smaller lunar caves with accessible entrances using LRO camera images of 0.5 m/pixel resolution. Earth's lava caves and their entrances are well photographed by surface and aerial camera in immense volume. Thus, if the image data are sorted and archived well, those images can be used in comparison with the less distinct lunar cave and entrance images due to its smaller size. Then, we can identify the regions on the Moon where there exist caves with accessible entrances. The database will be also useful in modeling geomorphology for lunar and Martian caves for future artificial intelligence investigation of the caves in any size.