Unmanned landing sites from LRO, Surveyors, Lunas, Lunakhods and impact craters from hardware impacts |
Unmanned landing sites from LRO, Surveyors, Lunas, Lunakhods and impact craters from hardware impacts |
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![]() Senior Member ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 3419 Joined: 9-February 04 From: Minneapolis, MN, USA Member No.: 15 ![]() |
I figured it was time to begin a thread like this, especially since some of us may still be looking for the Surveyor III retro motor casing (assuming the bright dot to the north of the landing site isn't it).
We ought to be seeing some of the other Surveyors fairly soon, I would think. We know most of their locations pretty accurately. Again, I think there is a lot to be gained, both from scientific and engineering standpoints, from detailed imaging of the Surveyor VII landing site, just to mention one. And I really want to see how visible the Lunakhod tracks are as opposed to the MET and LRV tracks. So... until we begin to see images of other unmanned hardware (or the craters caused by same), we could always discuss comparisons of Surveyor III surface imagery to the new LROC images of its landing site here. I'm especially taken by how you can resolve many of the blocks in Block Crater in the LROC image, which gives you a good feel for the explosive nature of the ejecta and roughly where in the ejecta plume a given block might have come from. Might be interesting/useful to apply this information to the samples taken at that location. ![]() -the other Doug -------------------- “The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right.” -Mark Twain
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![]() Senior Member ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 1729 Joined: 3-August 06 From: 43° 35' 53" N 1° 26' 35" E Member No.: 1004 ![]() |
I have been reading the article "Declassifying the Space Race - part 2" in the October issue of Aerospace America (http://www.aerospaceamerica.org/Pages/TableOfContents.aspx)
interesting things: apparently the National Security Agency had means of intercepting the full telemetry of some Soviet probes including Luna 18 and 20. A detailed timeline of events concerning the latter is given, and as to the former, the NSA apparently used a tracking software fed with Soviet tracking data (!) the NSA also wrote: "The landing site of Luna 20 is very near that of Luna 18 which crashed to the surface at 03-43N, 056-30E on 11 September 1971". the author notes that this differs from the official impact point, which is given (see for ex http://www.laspace.ru/rus/luna18.html) as 3° 34' N, 56° 30' E. and adds "To date, amateur astronomers using the official Russian location data have been unable to find Luna 18's crash site via NASA's photographic archives from its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter program." I suspect that this is just a typing error in the NSA report, but I was wondering: do LRO imagery of 3° 43' N, 56° 30' E exist? |
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![]() Member ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 236 Joined: 5-June 08 From: Udon Thani Member No.: 4185 ![]() |
I suspect that this is just a typing error in the NSA report, but I was wondering: do LRO imagery of 3° 43' N, 56° 30' E exist? LROC image search http://wms.lroc.asu.edu/lroc/search gives me more then 300 possible images for this location, so it is covered by LRO. http://wms.lroc.asu.edu/lroc/view_lroc/LRO....0/M192588983LC should cover it, afaik, but there are far more options. Just like you, however, I suspect this is a typing error in the NSA report, and I doubt whether they know any better then the Soviets where Luna 18 ended up. The Lavochin description on the website you stated earlier differs quite strongly from several other publications and gives the impression that Luna 18 lost comms much earlier in the descent then previously was stated, making it more likely it completely smashed to smithereens and all we might ever find of it is a crater. As I read my translation from the Lavochin state, Luna 18 suffered engine/stabilisation problems already during LOI due to a blocking in the oxidizer supply to one of the engines controlling the pitch. Due to this error, LOI was cut short by 15 seconds and it ended up in the wrong orbit altogether, loosing a lot of extra fuel in attempts to compensate. When finally a landing was attempted, it lost stabilisation and crashed. What confuses me however is that this sounds very much like all descriptions of Luna 15, while I've never seen any other publication stating that Luna 18 ended up the wrong orbit after LOI.. Other publications and statements often seem to suggest that Luna 18 either lost radar-lock or ran out of fuel at very low altitude (some state after the vernier engines took over on final approach, which is at aprox. 20 mtrs above the surface). If that is true, we might find some wreckage aka Luna 23 and the candidate Phil Stooke earlier pointed to seems most likely. If the Lavochin site is correct (and they are the ones who should know, I would say) then there were already so many problems just steering it in the correct orbit and with the thing loosing stabilisation early in the burn, it might have come down anywhere and the coordinates they give is probably only the best guess or the intended location. I hope someone finds it, but it's a big area to search and lots of stones and craters down there. |
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