Canadian American British Lunar Explorer (CABLE)

CABLE provides a platform to nurture international collaboration between Canada, Britain and the U.S. on launcher and lander technologies, realizing a low-cost lunar landed mission through the international partnering of complementary capabilities and technologies.

Encompassing a launcher and transfer vehicle, a soft lander with some hazard avoidance capability, and a highly capable micro-rover based on Canada’s Kapvik Prototype, the planned baseline science mission is to investigate surface characteristics of a region of the Moon that has never been explored in situ, and would address fundamental geologic and lunar resources issues for the first time.

The baseline mission timeframe for the Phase E flight is 2018 to 2021.

For the first mission, the prime candidate region for the landing is the Aristarchus Plateau Constellation Site 2 near -52.40 longitude and 27/70 latitude, on the lunar near side. This is a geologically diverse terrain between the lunar mare and highlands. It encompasses a large area of lunar explosive volcanism and therefore provides insight into lunar volcanic processes and composition of the interior. This site has also been identified by the international science community as a potential human outpost because of its resource exploitation potential.