Study towards construction and operations of large lunar telescopes Original Research Article

In this paper the construction of a large lunar south pole infrared telescope will be discussed and analyzed. The important issues that arose during this study will be addressed and the devised construction strategy will be shown, starting with the foundation and ending with the operation of the telescope with possible expansion, upgrading and maintenance. The roles of humans and robots in the different construction phases will be discussed and briefly described. Finally an overview of the most important unsolved issues is given, including the temperature environment in permanently shadowed craters, dust contamination and mitigation, and human-robot interactions. It appears possible to construct a 25 meter segmented single aperture infrared telescope on the lunar south pole. Modest advances in many technology areas and the filling of certain gaps of data are necessary before this telescope can become a reality.