The Artemis program led by NASA aims to establish a sustained human presence at the lunar south pole, increasing the need to characterise the mechanical behaviour of polar regolith, particularly within the highland terrains that dominate the lunar crust. This study investigates the compressive, shear and tensile strengths of the frozen lunar highland simulant LHS-1E under controlled moisture contents of 5–13 wt%, representing ice-bearing conditions reported in permanently shadowed regions. Freezing serves as a controlled terrestrial proxy for assessing ice-cemented behaviour, although full lunar vacuum and cryogenic conditions are not replicated. Results show systematic strengthening with increasing moisture content. Namely, the unconfined compressive strength increased from 1.09 MPa to 6.31 MPa, the Young’s modulus from 66 MPa to 238 MPa, the friction angle from 35° to 45°, and the tensile strength from 286 kPa to 463 kPa, while the cohesion remained between 6 and 8 kPa and the Poisson’s ratio decreased from 0.19 to 0.09. These findings capture and quantify the mechanical transition from friction-dominated to ice-bonded granular behaviour and provide strength bounds relevant to infrastructure development and excavation in ice-bearing lunar polar regolith.
Battsengel et al. (Mon,) studied this question.