Targets for LRO Options

[Bernard]

I vote for Ina, too.

[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

[Phil Stooke]

Luna 16 landed at night carrying cameras and artificial lighting. The lights failed. The images were transmitted, showing a landscape weakly lit by earthlight - very poorly exposed. Those images have never been released, but I think modern image processing methods would be able to get useful images from them if the original data tapes could be found in the state archives.

Luna 20 landed in daylight, and its images have been published in part (I think you can find them among these threads).

Then the lander was redesigned and Lunas 23 and 24 did not carry cameras.

Phil

[GravityWaves]

I would like to see it image the rover tracks - Apollo's lunar rovers, Soviet Lunokhods.

[J.J.]

I have a soft spot for old Tycho; I'd love to see the kind of rugged landforms in that young crater that have been muted in older regions of the Moon (jagged mountains, hint-hint).

[dvandorn]

The problem is, the Moon doesn't really have any jagged peaks. Even around Tycho. Take a look at the pans from Surveyor VII -- even that close to Tycho's rim, the landforms are *still* all softened and rounded-looking.

-the other Doug

[remcook]

why is that? why is the moon so smooth? there's not much erosion....

[Phil Stooke]

That's not really true. The surface is constantly subjected to micrometeorite sandblasting and mini-meteorite 'gardening' - processes which don't affect Mars, for instance. Slow, but acting over very long periods.

On top of that, because almost every feature, and every recent feature, is impact-generated, it's covered with or consists largely of unconsolidated rubble. Tycho's central peaks, for instance, though uplifted crust, must be badly shattered and partly covered with fall-back ejecta. The Apennines at Hadley, ditto. So they will tend to assume angle-of-repose type slopes from the start. And to add to the effect, every mid-sized or larger impact creates a seismic event which further subdues all that loose rubble.

Not only that - I would suggest that most steep slopes on Earth are created by erosion. Lack of erosion on other worlds reduces opportunities for steep topography.

[Phil Stooke]

This shows the area. - duh! - referred to in the Apollo 15 thread. Sorry!

Phil

[monitorlizard]

The ultrastrange swirls of Reiner Gamma get my vote for LRO targeting. I'd like to see all of the LRO instruments used to study this, including the highest resolution images we can get. If it was formed by a comet impact, there may still be volatiles embedded in the lunar soil leaking back into space, so the UV spectrometer might yield the most useful information. Too bad LRO has nothing to study the Reiner Gamma magnetic anomaly with.

[PhilHorzempa]

I would like to see LRO get high-res images of Copernicus' central peak.
Here is a link to a LPOD discussion of Lunar Orbiter 2's famous photo of
that crater.

This is the LPOD for January 10, 2004 -

http://www.lpod.org/archive/archive/2004/0...-2004-01-10.htm


If you look closely, then you will see a thin dark line crossing one of
Copernicus' central peaks. This is thought to be a geologic intrusion called
a dike. However, LO2's image is just not sharp enough to be definitive
on that call. LRO could help resolve what type of geologic layering is actually
present in those central peaks.

If you read Chuck Wood's description of that image, then you will notice that he
mentions that the middle peak seems to be split. I think that he is referring to
the one that has the possible dike. However, if it is split, then LRO's high-res
images should reveal a gold mine of info into the history of this area. As any
geologist knows, if you can see layering (as in Victoria Crater on Mars) then you
can read the past in the rocks.


Another Phil

[Phil Stooke]

Copernicus would be interesting, but Lunar Orbiter 5 also got very good images of the peaks. Check out:

http://astrogeology.usgs.gov/lo-cgi-bin//v...Name=Copernicus

and other frames from:

http://astrogeology.usgs.gov/Projects/Luna...s_veryhigh.html

Not to say more would not be nice, especially for areas lost in shadow in LO5 images.

Phil

[charborob]

Resurrecting an old thread here.
You can view LRO's LROC targets on the following page:
http://target.lroc.asu.edu/output/lroc/lroc_page.html
You can even propose your own favorite target.

(I seem to remember someone posting a map of LROC targets somewhere, but I can't find it anymore. Unless I saw that on another website. Sorry if I am duplicating a previous post.)

[Phil Stooke]

The maps are here, half way down the page. And they were an LPOD. Also check out the Constellation targets (just above the maps, two PDFs)

Phil

http://ser.sese.asu.edu/LSM/targeting.php

[SpaceListener]

Thanks Phil for the fantastic link.