Targets for LRO Options

[PhilHorzempa]

You can imagine this to be a companion thread to the one requesting suggestions
for MRO targets on Mars.

The LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter) is set to launch in a little over a year
from now. There was to a be a site selection workshop in May 2007, next month, but
I see now that it has been cancelled. Therefore, it appears that it is up to us, the UMSF
Community to take up the baton and help NASA out. It was done for New Horizons at Jupiter
and was very productive.

So, what are the sites that you would like to see imaged at 0.5 meter resolution by
LROC, LRO's High-Resolution camera?

My first suggestion would be to re-photograph the Surveyor 1 landing site to compare
it with the images obtained by Lunar Orbiter 3.

My second suggestion would be to photograph the Surveyor 6 landing area. This
should image S-6 itself, but even more interesting, it may capture images of
Surveyor 4, which should be only a mile or so away. This would help to
determine whatever happened to S-4, which abruptly stopped transmitting just
short of touchdown.



Another Phil

[Guest_Zvezdichko_*]

I also think that an attempt is possible to be made if not tomorrow, in the next few days. Next week NASA is celebrating the anniversary. It'll be a huge PR for the agency.

[charborob]

I also think that an attempt is possible to be made if not tomorrow, in the next few days. Next week NASA is celebrating the anniversary. It'll be a huge PR for the agency.

Except that if they don't succeed in imaging the Apollo 11 site on Saturday, the next opportunity will be in about 4 weeks, when the ground track crosses the area again.

[jmknapp]

Except that if they don't succeed in imaging the Apollo 11 site on Saturday, the next opportunity will be in about 4 weeks, when the ground track crosses the area again.

Wouldn't it be two weeks, when the other side of the orbit (ascending side?) swings around?

[Guest_Zvezdichko_*]

Wouldn't it be two weeks, when the other side of the orbit (ascending side?) swings around?

And when the place will be in total darkness.

[jmknapp]

And when the place will be in total darkness.

Ah--of course.

I made an animation of the LRO passes over the Apollo 11 site, using the "mission baseline v8" data given at http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/downloads.html. That baseline was for the original launch date of July 17, & so is about 1 day ahead of schedule. I just figured out how to add fixed points like the Apollo sites to the map projection & this is a first cut:

http://cboh.org/~jmk/lro_apollo11.mpg (54MB mpg file).

I put in all 50 primary LRO targets into the model, but only the handful visible on these ~2 orbits come up.

Joe

[Paul Fjeld]

VERY cool, Joe!

So (just thinking out loud while I run around my cylinder, punching the air :-) the day late means that LRO will be roughly 13 degrees east of the target compared to your LRO_Cockpit view? Looking at the V8 data, the LRO orbit traverses ~12 degrees of Longitude per day? So tomorrow, the cameras should be passing over the Apollo 11 site with a nice 40 degree western sun (or so) and be baked out and focussed. Maybe a shot from 120km will reveal something neat that can be released with appropriate hoopla in the next week or so?

EDIT: I see now that LRO is about to pass over the Apollo 17 site with an even more dramatic sun angle. From 120 km high, the Descent Stage structure (not including the gear) will be nearly 4 pixels wide; the low sun shadow should be considerably more than that. Hope those cameras are baked out and ready!

2nd EDIT: I just read the previous couple of pages and see y'all had figured this out already. Feel a little silly...

[jmknapp]

So (just thinking out loud while I run around my cylinder, punching the air :-) the day late means that LRO will be roughly 13 degrees east of the target compared to your LRO_Cockpit view?

Glad you got the musical reference! Going by the v8 data, I get 12.94 degrees/day in the commissioning orbit (and 13.13 degrees/day in the mapping orbit). So that amounts to 360 degrees in about 27.4 days. I suppose that makes it sun-synchronous? BTW, assuming that LRO passes over the Apollo 11 site around 4am tomorrow UT (by my calc) the sun will be at around 10 degrees elevation.