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

[PhilHorzempa]

Another LRO candidate would be the landing sites of Luna 18/Luna 20 and
Luna 23/Luna 24. Each of these Luna craft were sample-return missions.
I put those together as pairs since, according to landing site
coordinates, each lander in that pair is within a few miles of the other. This occurred
because the 1st spacecraft in each pair never launched its Earth-return capsule, for one reason
or another,while the 2nd one did succeed. Apparently, the Soviets just reflew the 2nd one
using the same nav software as for the 1st?

With LRO photos, we will be able to inspect the terrain around each lander, perhaps giving
clues why Luna 18 and 23 did not function correctly. Also, it will be nice to see the specfic
geologic context for each lander, since, as I recall, landing site imagery was not returned
even by the successful "scoopers." (Did some of them land at night?)

One more site of great interest would be the landing site for Luna 15. As far as I can tell,
the Soviets never gave a really clear explanation of what happened to Luna 15. Was it
descending too quickly? Was it damaged while landing? Was it like Surveyor 4 - an abrupt
loss of signal while still several hundred, or several thousand, feet above the surface?
Photos of Luna 15's landing site may tell us a lot.



Another Phil