Small satellites with micro-propulsion for communications with the Lunar South Pole Aitkens Basin

A lunar sample return mission to the Lunar South-Pole Aitkens Basin (LSPAB) has been highlighted as a high priority objective of the most recent (2011) Decadal Survey for Planetary Science, by the National Research Council. This class of mission, however, faces a dramatic communications limitation, due to the lack of a frequent, or continuous, line-of-sight communications path to Earth-based ground stations. Brunner and others have proposed a communications system utilizing Low Lunar Polar Orbits (LLPO) and Lunar Halo orbits for this purpose. Ely and others have outlined proposals for using several communication satellites to form a relay network using LLPO, taking into account the Lunar masscon's that would perturb such orbits. However, any relay network of communication satellites would still have to connect back to a suitable Earth-based ground station (Near Earth Network, or otherwise), or a tracking and data relaying satellite (e.g., TDRS).