DewTwin-Coin: an onboard autonomous framework for lunar water-ice prospecting using Chandrayaan-3 LIBS and ChaSTE data
Abstract
It is important to locate water-ice in the lunar regolith to build futuristic, sustainable bases there. But communication delays from Earth, limited bandwidth, and power constraints demand an onboard, autonomous, time-efficient decision-making framework for locating volatiles such as water-ice in the lunar regolith. In this work, we present a framework, DewTwin-Coin, that can locate potential water-ice sites in real time without drilling. Its decision-making principle is based on a find-S learning algorithm that uses surface temperature and the Hydrogen-to-Oxygen intensity ratio at a location. The core idea is a physics-based rule − water-ice is stable only if the temperature is below 110 K and the Hydrogen-to-Oxygen intensity ratio is between 1.7 and 2.3. We validate DewTwin-Coin on Chandrayaan-3's 3165 laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) elemental data with 387 Chandra's surface thermophysical experiment (ChaSTE) data. On a 16 GB RAM system, it classified all 3165 locations within 615 seconds, yielding no strong signatures of water-ice, which matches the Chandrayaan-3 in-situ analysis. This framework is very important for future lunar and other planetary missions in which an onboard rover can autonomously determine feasible drilling locations for water-ice without issuing false drilling commands in warm terrains. Thus, the mission's onboard setup can stretch its technical limits in both power and memory capacity.
Related
- Spectro-polarimetry of HAbitable Planet Earth (SHAPE) on Chandrayaan-3: Instrument characteristics, calibration and onboard performance
- Layering of lunar regolith at the Chandrayaan-3 landing site observed from the ChaSTE experiments from the lander
- Lunar Geochemistry from X-Ray Line Flux Ratios Using CLASS on Chandrayaan-2
- Elemental Composition Evolution during the 2024 September 30 Solar Eruption: A Comparison of Hot and Cool Plasma Components with Solar Orbiter/SPICE, Hinode/EIS, and Chandrayaan-2/XSM
- The Gamma-Ray Monitor Onboard the SVOM Satellite
BibTeX
@misc{soundarya2026dewtwincoin,
title = {{DewTwin-Coin: an onboard autonomous framework for lunar water-ice prospecting using Chandrayaan-3 LIBS and ChaSTE data}},
author = {Soundarya R. and Debasish Mondal},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.17379},
eprint = {2609.17379},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.17379},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - DewTwin-Coin: an onboard autonomous framework for lunar water-ice prospecting using Chandrayaan-3 LIBS and ChaSTE data
AU - Soundarya R.
AU - Debasish Mondal
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/15
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.17379
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.17379
AB - It is important to locate water-ice in the lunar regolith to build futuristic, sustainable bases there. But communication delays from Earth, limited bandwidth, and power constraints demand an onboard, autonomous, time-efficient decision-making framework for locating volatiles such as water-ice in the lunar regolith. In this work, we present a framework, DewTwin-Coin, that can locate potential water-ice sites in real time without drilling. Its decision-making principle is based on a find-S learning algorithm that uses surface temperature and the Hydrogen-to-Oxygen intensity ratio at a location. The core idea is a physics-based rule − water-ice is stable only if the temperature is below 110 K and the Hydrogen-to-Oxygen intensity ratio is between 1.7 and 2.3. We validate DewTwin-Coin on Chandrayaan-3's 3165 laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) elemental data with 387 Chandra's surface thermophysical experiment (ChaSTE) data. On a 16 GB RAM system, it classified all 3165 locations within 615 seconds, yielding no strong signatures of water-ice, which matches the Chandrayaan-3 in-situ analysis. This framework is very important for future lunar and other planetary missions in which an onboard rover can autonomously determine feasible drilling locations for water-ice without issuing false drilling commands in warm terrains. Thus, the mission's onboard setup can stretch its technical limits in both power and memory capacity.
ER -