Analysis of illumination conditions at the lunar south pole using parallel computing techniques

In this Master Thesis an analysis of illumination conditions at the lunar south pole using parallel computing techniques is presented. Due to the small inclination (1.54o) of the lunar rotational axis with respect to the ecliptic plane and the topography of the lunar south pole, which allows long illumination periods, the study of illumination conditions is of great importance. As a result of the large amount of computation time needed to calculate illumination conditions with sequential programming techniques, a new parallel tool was developed. Different tests are presented using different areas and periods of time. The cross-validation of the tool with TUB-Shader and ICAT is presented. Two case studies analyzing the landing site candidate for the Russian Luna- Resurs and the Shackleton Vicinity (SV1) landing site are presented. This tool allowed us to conduct simulations in a reduced amount of time. As an example we have reduced the computation time from a 24 hours process analyzing a 20 km by 20 km region over a 1 year period to 25 minutes for the same set up.