The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Laser Ranging Investigation

Zuber, M. T.; Smith, David E.; Zellar, R.; Neumann, Gregory A.; Sun, Xiaoli; Katz, Robert; Kleyner, Igor; Matuszeski, Adam; McGarry, Jan F.; Ott, Melanie N.; Ramos-Izquierdo, Luis; Rowlands, D. D.; Torrence, M. H.; Zagwodzki, Thomas W.

doi:10.1007/s11214-009-9511-z

Cited by 92 publications

(50 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…The position and pointing information is archived in a set of SPICE kernels created, released, and maintained by the NAIF Team, the LRO Mission Operations Center at Goddard Space Flight Center, and the Science Teams for the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA) and Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) (Acton 1996;Zuber et al 2009;Smith et al 2010;Mazarico et al 2011Mazarico et al , 2013. A series of Spacecraft Position Kernels (SPKs), C-Matrix Kernels (CKs), and a single Frames Kernel (FK) store the exterior orientation parameters for the spacecraft and associated instruments.…”

Section: Exterior Orientationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pre-flight and On-orbit Geometric Calibration of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera

et al. 2014

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The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) consists of two imaging systems that provide multispectral and high resolution imaging of the lunar surface. The Wide Angle Camera (WAC) is a seven color push-frame imager with a 90 • field of view in monochrome mode and 60 • field of view in color mode. From the nominal 50 km polar orbit, the WAC acquires images with a nadir ground sampling distance of 75 m for each of the five visible bands and 384 m for the two ultraviolet bands. The Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) consists of two identical cameras capable of acquiring images with a ground sampling distance of 0.5 m from an altitude of 50 km. The LROC team geometrically calibrated each camera before launch at Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego, California and the resulting measurements enabled the generation of a detailed camera model for all three cameras. The cameras were mounted and subsequently launched on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) on 18 June 2009. Using a subset of the over 793000 NAC and 207000 WAC images of illuminated terrain collected between 30 June 2009 and 15 December 2013, we improved the interior and exterior orientation parameters for each camera, including the addition of a wavelength dependent radial distortion model for the multispectral WAC. Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (These geometric refinements, along with refined ephemeris, enable seamless projections of NAC image pairs with a geodetic accuracy better than 20 meters and sub-pixel precision and accuracy when orthorectifying WAC images.

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Section: Exterior Orientationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pre-flight and On-orbit Geometric Calibration of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera

et al. 2014

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“…The WAC 90° field of view (monochrome mode) allows for a 104-km region within 2° degrees of the pole to be acquired at a pixel scale of 100 m. This mulitemporal coverage delimits permanently shadowed regions and permanently (or near permanently) illuminated regions over full year (2/16/2010 to 2/16/2011) with time steps every 2.3 hrs (on average) [Speyerer, et al 2012a]. The polar images were map projected on the LOLA shape model produced in December 2010 with LOLA derived crossover corrected ephemeris (when available) and an improved camera-pointing model to provide accurate geospatial positioning [Zuber et al, 2010;Mazarico et al, 2012]. As the Moon rotates, LRO's orbital inclination changes slightly, which causes the WAC frames to wander across the poles over time thus slightly reducing the area of complete repeat coverage.…”

Section: Wac Polar Moviesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…NAC images were map projected onto the LOLA polar 5 m/pixel DEM using the LOLA crossover corrected ephemeris at a pixel scale of 2 m [Smith et al, 2010;Mazarico et al, 2012]. The images were not registered to one another, and the mapping error between images is on average 7.2 meters in the sample direction and 4.6 meters in the line direction.…”

Section: Nac Polar Mosaicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Remaining gores were filled with images acquired at other times with similar lighting conditions. The non-polar images were map projected onto the GLD100 (WAC derived 100m/pixel DEM) while polar images were map projected on the LOLA shape model (79° to 90° N/S) and the GLD100 (60° to 79° N/S) [Smith et al, 2010;Scholten et al, 2012]. In addition, the LOLA derived crossover corrected ephemeris and a precise camera pointing model provide accurate positioning of each WAC image (to within a pixel) [Mazarico et al, 2011; Speyerer et al, 2012b].…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Exploring the Moon With the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera

Robinson

Speyerer

Boyd

et al. 2012

Int. Arch. Photogramm. Remote Sens. Spatial Inf. Sci.

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ABSTRACT:The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) consists of three imaging systems: a Wide Angle Camera (WAC) and two Narrow Angle Cameras (NACs). Since entering lunar orbit in June of 2009, LROC has collected over 700,000 images. A subset of WAC images were reduced into a global morphologic basemap, a near-global digital elevation model, and multitemporal movie sequences that characterize illumination conditions of the polar regions. In addition, NAC observations were reduced to meter scale maps and digital elevation models of select regions of interest. These Reduced Data Record (RDR) products were publicly released through NASA's Planetary Data System to aid scientists and engineers in planning future lunar missions and addressing key science questions. INSTRUMENT OVERVIEWThe Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) system provides synoptic and high resolution imaging of the lunar surface . The Wide Angle Camera (WAC) is a seven band (315, 360, 415, 566, 604, 643, 689nm) push frame imager with a 90° field of view in monochrome mode, and 60° field of view in multispectral mode. From the nominal 50 km polar orbit, the WAC acquires images with a nadir pixel scale of 75 meters for the visible filters (384 meters for the UV filters). The WAC images almost the entire Moon each month, capturing the lunar surface under a variety of lighting conditions over time. This global dataset enables the creation of morphologic maps, near-global digital elevation models (DEMs), and polar illumination movie sequences.The Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) consists of two line scan cameras that provide high resolution images at a pixel scale of 0.5 to 2.0 meters and a combined field of view of 5.7°. Around summer solstice at each lunar pole, when shadows are at a minimum, hundreds of images are acquired and later reduced into high resolution maps. These NAC polar mosaics extend from the pole out to 85.5° N/S and have a pixel scale of two meters. In addition to polar mosaics, high resolution (pixel scale between 0.5 and 2.0 meters) maps are also created for other regions of interest across the Moon. Finally, NAC stereo observations are also processed into high resolution DEMs. DEMs generated from NAC stereo pairs acquired over many months are processed and mosaicked to create regional terrain models with a pixel scale of two to five meters.Since entering orbit in 2009, LROC has acquired over 700,000 images WAC and NAC images. A subset of this image collection provides the basis for the production of DEMs and image mosaics over a broad range of spatial scales. LROC images (Experiment Data Records, or EDR) and Reduced Data Record (RDR) products created by the LROC team are publicly released through NASA's Planetary Data System to aid scientists and engineers investigating the Moon [Jolliff et al., 2011, Mahanti et al., 2012 Ashley et al., 2012]. REDUCED DATA RECORDS WAC Global BasemapThe WAC global mosaic is comprised of over 15,000 images acquired between November 2009 and February 2011. The WAC maps the whole Moon in one month, ...

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“…Experience on laser altimetry from space has already been established in the course of the past four decades. The lunar surface had been explored with space-borne altimeter systems from the Apollo 15, 16, and 17 spacecraft [5], as well as the Clementine [6], the SELENE [7], and, very recently, from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter [8], the Chandrayaan-1 [9], and the Chang'E-1 [10] missions. The terrestrial surface has been investigated from space by the Shuttle Laser Altimeter [11] and the Geoscience Laser Altimeter [12].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Space-qualified laser system for the BepiColombo Laser Altimeter

et al. 2013

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The space-qualified design of a miniaturized laser for pulsed operation at a wavelength of 1064 nm and at repetition rates up to 10 Hz is presented. This laser consists of a pair of diode-laser pumped, actively q-switched Nd:YAG rod oscillators hermetically sealed and encapsulated in an environment of dry synthetic air. The system delivers at least 300 million laser pulses with 50 mJ energy and 5 ns pulse width (FWHM). It will be launched in 2017 aboard European Space Agency's Mercury Planetary Orbiter as part of the BepiColombo Laser Altimeter, which, after a 6-years cruise, will start recording topographic data from orbital altitudes between 400 and 1500 km above Mercury's surface.

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The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Laser Ranging Investigation

Cited by 92 publications

References 18 publications

Pre-flight and On-orbit Geometric Calibration of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera

Pre-flight and On-orbit Geometric Calibration of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera

Exploring the Moon With the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera

Space-qualified laser system for the BepiColombo Laser Altimeter

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