49th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference 2018 (LPI Contrib. No. 2083) 2394.pdf BI-SAT OBSERVATIONS OF THE LUNAR ATMOSPHERE ABOVE SWIRLS (BOLAS): TETHERED SMALLSAT INVESTIGATION OF HYDRATION AND SPACE WEATHERING PROCESSES AT THE MOON. T. J. Stubbs1, B. K. Malphrus2, R. Hoyt3, M. A. Mesarch1, M. Tsay4, D. J. Chai1, M. K. Choi1, M. R. Collier1, J. W. Keller1, W. M. Farrell1, J. R. Espley1, J. S. Halekas5, A. P. Zucherman2, R. R. Vondrak1, P. E. Clark6, D. C. Folta1, T. E. Johnson7, G. Y. Kramer8, S. Fatemi9, J. Deca10, J. R. Gruesbeck11, J. L. McLain11, M. E. Purucker1, 1NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA, 2Morehead State University, Morehead, KY, USA, 3Teth- ers Unlimited, Inc., Bothell, WA, USA, 4Busek Co. Inc., Natick, MA, USA, 5University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA, 6NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, USA, 7NASA Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops, VA, USA, 8Lunar and Planetary Institute, Houston, TX, USA, 9Swedish Institute of Space Physics, Kiruna, Sweden, 10University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA, 11University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA.
[email protected] Introduction: Space weathering and hydration/hy- ii. how this relates to the formation of lunar swirls, droxylation of the lunar surface are fundamental pro- space weathering and the evolution of airless bodies. cesses for the Moon and other inner Solar System airless bodies [1, 2]. A thorough characterization of these pro- cesses is vital to our understanding of the evolution and origins of airless bodies, especially the production and transport of volatiles [3, 4]. At the Moon, space weath- ering of the surface regolith appears to be driven by the implantation of solar wind protons and meteoroid im- pacts, causing surfaces to darken, redden, and lose spec- tral features that could be used to constrain their mineral composition [1].