As the demand for constructing lunar and Martian bases continues to rise, lava tubes—with their unique advantages such as natural shielding from cosmic radiation, thermally stable conditions, and ready-to-use subsurface living spaces—have become a core consideration for deep space exploration and the selection of long-term extraterrestrial base sites. Compared to traditional methods relying solely on surface rovers or single-sensor orbital identification, future scientific exploration of lunar and Martian lava tubes requires a systematic approach to address key questions: "Where are they?", "What do they look like?", "How do we explore them?", and "How do we use them?" This necessitates the establishment of a comprehensive, multi-dimensional detection system.
Recently, a study published in the journal Space: Science & Technology focused on the Jingpo Lake lava tube as a typical terrestrial analog site. Led by China University of Geosciences (Beijing) in collaboration with domestic and international research teams, including the Aerospace Information Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences; Heilongjiang Second Surveying and Mapping Engineering Institute; Peking University; Technology and Engineering Center for Space Utilization, Chinese Academy of Sciences; Chengdu University of Technology; and the University of Padova, Italy, a comprehensive five-year scientific investigation was conducted. Leveraging the Jingpo Lake lava tube network in Heilongjiang Province and taking advantage of the environmental conditions during winter when liquid water is absent—thereby simulating lunar lava tube exploration scenarios—this study carried out multi-sensor, integrated ground-air-space surveys. For the first time, an integrated ground-air-space exploration scheme for lava tubes was proposed. This scheme integrates multi-source detection technologies, including spaceborne synthetic aperture radar (SAR), UAV-based close-range photogrammetry, airborne LiDAR, in-tube GeoSLAM, hyperspectral LiDAR, and ground-penetrating radar (GPR). A multi-platform, multi-scale collaborative survey of the Jingpo Lake lava tube area was conducted, establishing a complete technical chain from surface skylight identification and subsurface void detection to the precise acquisition of in-tube geometric and spectral information. This work provides a robust terrestrial analog validation foundation and technical reference for future comprehensive lunar lava tube exploration.
