Rocket Seismology and Its Prospects for Lunar Structural Exploration

Deep-space exploration has entered a new stage focused on fine-scale structural characterization and candidate site assessment. Precisely characterizing the shallow structures, cavity structures and stratigraphic properties of the Moon and other extraterrestrial bodies is essential for understanding planetary evolution and ensuring the safe construction of the future International Lunar Research Station (ILRS). Nevertheless, existing deep space exploration technologies still suffer from significant technical bottlenecks in penetration capability, the deployment of active artificial seismic sources and high-resolution imaging. Building on the accumulated research in the space field and the preliminary theoretical basis of rocket seismology, this paper systematically reviews and refines the conceptual framework of this emerging field. Drawing on routine space missions, it treats the high-energy vibrations generated by rockets during liftoff and ascent on Earth, supersonic flight, booster reentry, and landing and liftoff on extraterrestrial bodies as reusable artificial seismic sources. Integrated with dense seismic array observations and high-precision seismological inversion algorithms, these sources enable fine-scale imaging of both ground sites and extraterrestrial body structures. This approach thus establisheds a new paradigm of value-added space exploration featuring "one rocket, multiple capabilities." Based on in situ observations at the Hainan Commercial Space Launch Site, the observability of rocket-source seismic signals is preliminarily assessed. Combined with lunar-analogue experiments conducted in the Leiqiong volcanic lava caves, the application potential of rocket sources and the conditions for their adaptation to lunar exploration are analyzed. Considering the development opportunities and practical constraints of this technology for lunar exploration, this paper outlines the key technical challenges that remain to be solved, including the characterization of composite rocket sources, joint inversion of multiple geophysical observations, and the adaptation of instruments and analysis methods to extraterrestrial exploration environments. These insights may offer new research ideas and technical references for active-source exploration, and can support future lunar base site selection, extraterrestrial geological hazard risk assessment, and planetary resource exploration.