Research

Research

CLEVER addresses three overlapping science and exploration themes.

CLEVER Themes

The three overlapping science and exploration themes explored by CLEVER are each comprised of multiple integrated tasks. Their goal? Characterizing and understanding the lunar environment and volatile inventories required for near-term human lunar missions. These resources and knowledge are absolutely required for the NASA Artemis program and sustainable presence of humans on the Moon.

Learn more about each Theme

Theme 1

This theme focuses on experimental and theoretical modeling of space weathering, i.e. solar-wind (ion, and electron) and micrometeorite induced volatile production and transport.

Theme 2

Theme 2 focuses on radiation processing of icy regolith and understanding volatile transport and sequestration particularly in the polar regions.

Theme 3

This theme will address the fundamental radiation effects involved in radiometric dating and geochronology, the physics and chemistry correlated with dust charging, and novel electrostatic approaches to mitigate the risks of dust.