How GRAIL Radio Occultations Could Enable Future Lunar Missions for Mapping the Near-Surface Dust

Past NASA's Lunar missions, including Surveyor, Apollo, and Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE), have provided valuable insights into the dynamics of the lunar exosphere and its relationship with solar wind flux. However, it has been a challenge for the scientific community to interpret the dust lofting and levitation on the moon. This research aims to utilize NASA's Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) radio science as Signals of Opportunity (SoOP) to evaluate the Radio Science Measurements for the future Radio Occultation (RO) mission to investigate the lunar dust and surrounding plasma interactions. This paper will provide an assessment of new science observations derived using GRAIL RO data as a reference for the scientific community to design the future Lunar Radio Occultation Missions to improve understanding of the dense dust formation and evolution near the moon surfaces. Furthermore, the observations of the lunar dust with GRAIL's radio science signals of opportunity will provide a clean reference without lander impacts since the Apollo era as a comparison and a reference for future investigations of moon dust dynamics, especially in the south pole region where future Artemis human mission will land.