We have decided to model our mission on the recent Deep Impact mission.  We plan to drop multiple impactors into the unlit craters around the Lunar south pole.  The impacts will create a small crater and plume of Lunar material.  They will also carry a bright light and a deep penetrator.  A Lunar polar orbiter will fly over the impact site and record images, spectral readings, and look for water vapor.

Similar missions have been designed for NASA programs [8].  Deep Impact is the most recent [9].  It hit a comet with a crater making projectile and recorded the impact from a near fly-by craft.  A great deal of science and technology resulted from the mission [11].  We intend to do about the same thing.

There are three types of impactors on the Lunar surface.  One would be a shield that impacts to create a crater and material plume, similar to the Deep Impact [10].  It would have no electronics.  The second one would be a penetrator with electronics, similar to the ill-fated Deep Space 2 penetrators [12] [9].  The third impactor will carry a very bright light that illuminates the crater before it impacts.

The design is to have the three impactors hit in about the same spot in order to record overlapping data from the orbiting craft.  We hope to have several sets of impactors for different craters.  The number of sets would be determined by the capability of the launch vehicle.

The detection of water vapor can be accomplished remotely [13].  The Hubble has been used to detect water on the moon already.  A detector in Lunar orbit could certainly sense vapor kicked up by our impactor.

Concerns that the water may be trapped deeper in the lunar surface could be resolved by having the launch vehicle revolve around the moon several times and release extra sets of impactors at the exact same locations as the previous sets. Each additional set will impact an already dug crater, allowing the present set of impactors to dig deeper into the surface.