KAGUYA lunar explorer (aka SELENE) Options

[dilo]

Hi FordPrefect! (and thanks for all the fish! ).
Obviously is impossible to make stereography or photoclinometry for completely dark regions, however Kaguya has anoboard laser altimetry...
http://www.selene.jaxa.jp/en/equipment/lalt_e.htm
your friend Arthur Dent.

[nprev]

exp 42!

[FordPrefect]

Thank you Arthur, err dilo for pointing that out. Laser-altimetry! I should have known better.

[Phil Stooke]

The image gallery mentioned above has been updated with Earthrise/Earthset images.

PS Ford - it does have a laser altimeter, but the data are not yet adequate for what you are talking about. In these earliest views the slope would just be extrapolated into shadows for visualization.

Phil

[Norm Hartnett]

NASA just announced GRAIL http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2007/dec/H...il_Mission.html and I am a little puzzled as to how this differs from the expected KAGUYA - RELAY - VRAD satellite results on MASCONs etc.

[nprev]

Hmm. We just might be seeing the bare beginnings of a land rush here, IMHO. Looks like there's lots of resource/geophysical survey interest all of a sudden from several quarters. The next ten years might be interesting indeed...

[edstrick]

"I am a little puzzled as to how this differs from the expected KAGUYA - RELAY - VRAD satellite results on MASCONs etc."

I believe this is 2 spacecraft in low orbit, one following the other. Essentially a lunar version of the ultra high signal-to-noise and high resolution GRACE mission in low earth orbit. Spacecraft track each other. Kaguya/Relay simply gets the lunar orbiter radio signal out from behind the farside for otherwise "as usual" range/doppler radio tracking.

[Guest_Zvezdichko_*]

http://www.jaxa.jp/press/2007/12/20071214_kaguya_e.html Observations using the Spectral Profiler (SP) now that's interesting.

[elakdawalla]

JAXA press release: Transition to normal science operations (Japanese - Google translation)

I think these are all-new videos too but I'm not sure what they show...there's an elf preventing me from sitting and watching them all the way through...there does seem to be some geometrical information in a table on the original release page, describing the locations of the videos.

--Emily

[Phil Stooke]

Nice. Yes, there is lat-long data for each. And the Apollo 17 flyover also shows the dark 'bay' of Le Monnier crater, containing the Lunokhod-2 site. Another video is of the Sinus Iridum area with the Lunokhod-1 site off at left early in the video.

Phil

[djellison]

Lens Flare. Sweet

[nop]

JAXA press release: Transition to normal science operations (Japanese - Google translation)

The release says that checkout has been finished and all instruments exhibit expected performance, except for XRS and CPS.
As for XRS, they found that observation by four CCDs causes more measurement noises than expected. Now they are considering how to reduce noises. And they are using a single CCD for the time being, which seems better than observation with four CCDs. Resolution will be halved, but it seems enough for getting desired data.
CPS turned out to be disordered in detection of heavy particles about two hours after starting observation, because of overheating of voltage control circuit. Now they are using CPS when the temperature is low.
Anyway, they are now managing to solve these problems.

I think these are all-new videos too but I'm not sure what they show...there's an elf preventing me from sitting and watching them all the way through...there does seem to be some geometrical information in a table on the original release page, describing the locations of the videos.

You can see four videos directly at:
http://space.jaxa.jp/movie/index_20071221_kaguya_j.html
- Crater Lyot and Mare Australe (14 Nov, 22:47-22:55)
- Crater Posidonius and Mare Serenitatis (19 Nov, 3:21-3:29)
- Rise of crescent Earth and Venus, seen from South Pole (22 Nov, 3:14-3:22)
- From Mare Imbrium to Sinus Iridium and Montes Jura (23 Nov, 17:17-17:25)

... though I cannot find out where the venus is

The circle in the following image points around Apollo 17 landing site. The right region is Montes Taurus, and the left is Mare Serenitatis.
http://www.jaxa.jp/press/2007/12/img/20071...kaguya_01_j.jpg

[nop]

FYI, you can download Kaguya's orbit ephemeris data during the critical phase (compressed with LZH format):
http://edu.jaxa.jp/news/file.cgi/722.lzh?id=722

The data is based on the CCSDS format (epoch, X, Y, Z, X_dot, Y_dot, Z_dot).
http://public.ccsds.org/publications/archive/502x0b1.pdf

[elakdawalla]

They just posted a story, including some neat images, on successful observations using the laser altimeter and radar sounder. The results seem really important -- they report detection of near-horizontal strata as much as 500 meters below the surface of the Moon. I won't have time to study this stuff closely until after the MESSENGER flyby, which is too bad -- there's some really great science to look at here!
KAGUYA (SELENE) Observations with Laser Altimeter (LALT) and Lunar Radar Sounder (LRS) Sounder Mode

--Emily

[FordPrefect]

The LALT will cover the entire region of the Moon with a height resolution of 5 m at a sampling interval smaller than 2 km.

As someone trying to CG render parts of the lunar surface with a high degree of accuracy, and sorry for my non-scientific interruption here, that comment in the recent press release above got me very excited. How many times did I long for a decent DEM map of the entire Moon, like we have of Mars today! It looks like we don't need to wait for LRO to do this job (if it was ever intended to do so...)
Now the big question is whether it will be publicly available, once they've completed it? I guess that process alone will take some time (years?).