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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
nprev
Scientifically, Aristarchus (sp?) is probably the most interesting area of the Moon since it's been the most frequent site of transient lunar events (TLEs). There might be some accessible volatiles there (probably mostly CO2), and therefore should be closely examined by LRO.
Phil Stooke
Other Phil, I have Surveyor 4 and Surveyor 6 about 4 km apart, about 2.5 miles. Bearing in mind we don't really know exactly where Surveyor 4 is, of course. You should also know that sites based on tracking were often off by several km from where the spacecraft was eventually found, which would enlarge the search area.

I would be most interested in the landing sites we do not have exact positions for: all Lunas, Surveyor 5, and the many impact sites not yet identified - such as Apollo 15, 16 and 17 SIVBs, Apollo 12, 15 and 17 LMs, Ranger 4 (long shot), Lunas 7 and 8, and of course SMART-1. To me, Lunokhod 1 is the most interesting of all.

Phil
As old as Voyager
If all the science has been achieved from LRO's initial orbit and the spacecraft's perilune is lowered sufficiently it could well image the scuffed up lunar soil around Apollo 11's descent stage. Perhaps even resolving individual bootprints under the required illumination.

That would certainly be one for the album.

Resolving the the six LM descent stages may also provide some science. The top surface of the descent stages have a fairly large surface area that has been exposed to space for a known period of time and images of sufficient quality could reveal if they have suffered any small impacts. Of course the vast majority of micro-craters would require a microscope to spot but there may be the odd dent a few CM across in one or more of them.

This may help to determine the average impact rate on the lunar surface. Something future Moonwalkers will definately want to know.

The crater left by the impact of Luna 2 is another must see and my money's on Phil Stooke for identifying it in LRO images.
Phil Stooke
A little snippet from NASA night at LPSC which I don't recall seeing mentioned anywhere else - and apologies if I get the official names of the various NASA units wrong here, I can't keep up with them all.

Right now, LRO comes under the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate. They will run it for one year. Then it will be handed over to the Planetary Science Division. So, first, it supports operations by looking for landing sites, then it goes into a science-driven extended mission.

LRO will image areas seen in Apollo panoramic camera images (the best Apollo pics for resolution) to try to find new craters, and assess the impact rate that way.

As for Luna 2, its location is quite uncertain. It will be next to impossible to locate. But there was a story in Sky and Telescope in 1959 about its impact being seen, with a location supported by two observers.... who knows?

Phil
edstrick
Another crater/debris field that is poorly located is Surveyor 2's.

Surveyor 2 had one vernier engine fail to ignite during midcourse correction after a successful launch and trans-lunar insertion. It was put into a roughly 2 second fast tumble. Repeated engine firings and burpings never got that engine to lite and as it approached the moon on an uncontrolled (disturbed by all the engine burps) trajectory, it was in a 1 second-ish tumble and with dwindling battery power.

To get the most engineering value out of a lost mission that they could, they turned on most or all of the normally used retro-landing electronics, and command fired the main (solid fuel) retro when they were very close to lunar impact. Seconds (?) later, they lost signal from the spacecraft. A careful reading of the Survey 2 Mission Report, JPL TR-32-???? utterly failed to make it clear if they had any clear idea if the LOS was due to depletion of battery power or disintegration of the vehicle under retrofire during it's 1 RPS tumble.

Somewhere, on the moon, in a very poorly known (and by now even more thoroughally forgotten location). is either a discrete crater formed by Surveyor 2 when it impacted, or a main crater with subsidiary (not secondary) craters nearby (which would have formed form pieces falling off the breaking up vehicle)

Note that for all Surveyors (except 2 and maybe 4), there will be 2 subsidiary craters: The Altitude Marking Radar was IN THE NOZZLE of the main retro and was rather violently jettisoned at retro ignition, to impact the moon at essentially full terminal approach velocity. A minute later, following main retro burnout, the vernier engines throttled up momentarily to full thrust and the solid retro case was jettisoned. That would have impacted much closer to the final landing site and at only a few hundred (I think) miles/hr. None, to my knowledge, has ever been spotted from orbit or from the lander (or in Apollo 12 panoramas, etc.), but they should be larger, more intact and much closer to the main spacecraft than the AMR.
As old as Voyager
The Luna 2 impact site will also boast a second crater; that of Luna 2's third stage that hit the Moon some thirty minutes after Luna 2.

I wonder if the impact of the third stage was ever observed?
antipode
Is the LRO going to be able to image the terminator? I'm wondering if any of this putative 'electrostatic weather' at sunrise might be resolvable.

Apart from that - yes - any fairly well documented sight for TLPs would be interesting.

Putting on my tinfoil hat for a moment - what about a re-imaging of the infamous 'blair cuspids' rolleyes.gif

P
Phil Stooke
The Luna 2 third stage crashed about 30 minutes after the spacecraft. If it followed exactly the same trajectory in space, its impact site would have been displaced by the Moon's orbital motion, which I very roughly estimate to mean it would be somewhere near 30 north, 75 east. But the chance of finding it is very remote.

Those Surveyor retro systems were never observed in images. Even if they could be seen in LRO images it might be difficult to distinguish them from rocks.

Phil
As old as Voyager
QUOTE (antipode @ Apr 8 2007, 01:23 PM) *
Putting on my tinfoil hat for a moment - what about a re-imaging of the infamous 'blair cuspids' rolleyes.gif

P


On this dubious subject, does anyone remember 'The Shard'? That 1.5 mile high pillar seen in Lunar Orbiter 3 image III-84-M? Too bad it was just an image flaw and didn't show up in any other images of the same area.

I think when it comes to possible lunar geological activity, 'Ina' should be very high on the list of potential targets.

http://www.physorg.com/news82217633.html
dvandorn
QUOTE (Phil Stooke @ Apr 8 2007, 07:29 AM) *
Those Surveyor retro systems were never observed in images. Even if they could be seen in LRO images it might be difficult to distinguish them from rocks.

That's the real problem, isn't it -- finding things that didn't make obvious craters.

Lunar Orbiter images showed us one landed Surveyor (the first one, out by the Flamsteed Ring) and, as I recall, one of the Ranger impact craters (the last one, in Alphonsus). The Apollo panoramic camera showed us landed LMs, S-IVB impact craters, LM ascent stage impact craters, and even a few of the Ranger impact craters.

But no lunar orbiting camera has ever shown us Luna 9, Luna 13, or either Lunakhod (mostly, I'm sure, due to large uncertainties about their locations). And as you point out, none of the Surveyor retro-rocket systems has ever been imaged.

And the problem with that is we can see the craters formed by man-made objects 'cause they're usually fresh, blocky and rayed. Anything in the field of view in an area we *know* contains an artificial object's final resting (or splatting) place that shows signs of being quite recent becomes identifiable. But a lump, between a third and a half meter across, and thus at the extreme range of single-pixel coverage in a given iimage?

You'd have better luck finding a thoat in MRO images... biggrin.gif

And someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe that LRO can achieve any greater resolutions from its planned specification by lowering its orbit -- the relative speed of the spacecraft over the lunar surface would cause blurring of the image, no matter what you do. (LRO already uses motion compensation, IIRC, so there's not much further you can do to achieve greater resolutions.) So, don't be expecting imagery of bootprints around landed LMs any time in the near future.

Finally, when it comes to the overall topic, here, we want to be very careful about high-reolution imagery on the Moon. The ubiquitous regolith and massive gardening of the upper crust actually make it *more difficult* to observe lunar geologic processes at high resolutions, not easier. For scientific purposes, LRO's resolution needs to be used for such things as stereo slope mapping and observation of small features that have an intrinsic interest. For example, you might want to take high-res images of the dark-halo vents in Alphonsus, since those might be places where gas is escaping and disturbing surface materials. Beyond that kind of thing, the Moon is better observed, geologically, at lower resolutions. (Read Don Wilhelms' 'To a Rockey Moon' if you don't believe me... smile.gif )

-the other Doug
Phil Stooke
I thought the shard was from an Apollo Hasselblad image... they tried to rope me into that.

It was Ranger 8's crater that was imaged by Lunar Orbiter (3, I think, don't have it in front of me). - look in "Exploring Space with a Camera". (you must have that, Doug!) Then nos. 7 and 9 were found by Ewen Whitaker in Apollo 16 images. He also found the Apollo 13 and 14 SIVB craters and Apollo 14's LM ascent stage crater ejecta. I just got hold of before and after scans of the latter site - I'll post them soon. Everything else is up for grabs.

Ina is one of my highest priority sites. It just cries out for a human or a rover mission. Come on, people!

Phil
Phil Stooke
I want to clarify something Doug just said, citing Don Wilhelms: "the Moon is better observed, geologically, at lower resolutions."

Don did write that, and nobody would know it better than him. But he was talking about recognizing geologic units - areas of different origin or composition. It doesn't apply to things like block size distributions, small fractures etc. - see the very high resolution panoramic camera images in "Apollo over the Moon", for instance, with very narrow recent fractures in the regolith in Mare Serenitatis. We would also do better with much higher resolution images of Ina! I expect the LRO images will be very useful and probably surprising in many ways.

Phil
dvandorn
Oh, of course, Phil -- that's exactly what I meant. It's those relatively few things that you mention (mostly special features and things like block population counts) that lend themselves to the very high resolution offered by LRO.

When you consider that LRO is designed primarily to support future manned lunar operations, it's instructive to remember that while most Apollo landing sites had imagery available at between 1 and 3 meter resolution, some of the later sites (particularly Hadley) had much lower-resolution imagery available pre-flight. I believe the best Hadley imagery prior to Apollo 15 was at 22-meter resolution, and was obtained by LO IV. And that photogeologists, straining to bleed data out of imagery that just didn't contain it, were capable of badly mis-identifying small landforms as volcanic when they were primarily impact-related (as with the 3- to 5-meter resolution images used to plan the Apollo 16 landing at Descartes).

All I'm trying to do is make sure we don't forget lessons learned, here, when it comes to lunar geologic investigations. On a world where erosion and landscape modification is now extremely slow, but which has been almost completely gardened, vertically mixed (and somewhat horizontally mixed) right at the surface, you have to carefully select targets which will actually give you greater insights with very-high-resolution imagery. (Remember, Apollo astronauts had a hard time determining rock types, even when they held the rocks in their hands, because they were usually very dust-covered. John Young on Apollo 16 quipped that one rock was so dust-covered that it "defied description." If you can't tell anything about a rock when you hold it in your hand, how much are you going to be able to tell about it at 50-cm resolution?)

And, just to add my voice to the chorus, yes -- Ina is a definite must for detailed imagery. It's one of those places where the very high resolution might provide some real answers...

-the other Doug
Phil Stooke
Early Apollo sites were blanketed by high resolution LO strips, but the Apollo 14 and 15 sites were imaged less intensively - good stereo at medium resolution, but the High Res strips were just samples distributed across the area. At Apollo 14 they landed in one of the high res strips, but at Apollo 15 they landed in an area covered only with the medium resolution stereo - it was LO5, not LO4. The high res strips covered areas initially considered for landing but dropped. By then the Apollo planners were confident that they could land safely without the highest resolution coverage.

Phil
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). wink.gif
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

Click to view attachment
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.
stevesliva
Holy schmoly. That really drives home the amount of labor-intensive planning these orbiters do ahead of time. We want to take photos of these 6,494 places. Sheesh. Sometimes 5000 just won't do. Sorting the spreadsheet by column E 'human artifacts' is fun. Looks like they're depending on some Stooke fellow for the Luna and Lunokhod locations.
Phil Stooke
We're all doomed!

Phil
PhilCo126
on the contrary, looking forward to the extreme closeup images of the lunar surface with a spatial resolution of 0.5 meters per pixel over 5 kilometers wide swathes. Wishing You had these available for the International Atlas of Lunar Exploration to show the Ranger impact sites and Surveyor, Luna,... hardware left there in the 1960s and 1970s.

And the black monolith in the Moon crater Clavius wink.gif
ugordan
QUOTE (PhilCo126 @ Jun 19 2009, 01:37 PM) *
And the black monolith in the Moon crater Clavius

Nonsense.




Everybody knows the monolith is in fact located near Tycho.
Zvezdichko
There is a moon crater Clavius, plus a fictional base named Clavius.

Now, seriously, I really like LRO to find out the location of the old Soviet probes - Luna 9, for example..
Phil Stooke
Me too, but that and Luna 13 will be extremely difficult.

Phil
Tom Tamlyn
I've read that it will take a couple of months to fine tune the orbit.

How soon after that can we expect some high resolution pictures of an Apollo landing site?

(I realize that the scientific value isn't so high; I'm just eager to see them.)

TTT
ugordan
QUOTE (Tom Tamlyn @ Jun 19 2009, 05:43 PM) *
How soon after that can we expect some high resolution pictures of an Apollo landing site?

I read somewhere they will be trying to capture an image of the Apollo 11 landing site in time for the 40th anniversary.
jmknapp
QUOTE (ugordan @ Jun 19 2009, 12:02 PM) *
I read somewhere they will be trying to capture an image of the Apollo 11 landing site in time for the 40th anniversary.


According to http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/whereislro/ LRO is currently traversing longitude 71E and 109W in its orbit. Since its longitude moves westward about one degree every two-hour orbit, it should fly pretty close to the Apollo 11 landing site (at 23E) in about 71 - 23 = 48 orbits or about 4 days. Could it happen? smile.gif

Joe
Stu
QUOTE (jmknapp @ Jul 8 2009, 11:27 AM) *
Could it happen? smile.gif


Hmmm... let me think... 40th anniversary coming up... Constellation floundering... public support for a "Return To The Moon" sorely lacking... conspiracy theorists insisting we never went to the Moon in the first place... a science-friendly but budget-reviewing new President to impress....

I'm guessing "yes". laugh.gif
ugordan
I'm guessing that even if it's taken, it won't be released until the actual anniversary date, probably on the day of the landing. Maximum PR impact etc.
jmknapp
QUOTE (ugordan @ Jul 8 2009, 07:12 AM) *
I'm guessing that even if it's taken, it won't be released until the actual anniversary date, probably on the day of the landing. Maximum PR impact etc.


I wonder what the PR impact of such an image would be though, outside the enthusiast ranks. What would it show? At 50cm/pixel at best (and probably more like 1m/pixel) it's not like much detail on the LEM platform (diameter 5m) or whatever would be resolved, right? People might say, "where are the footprints?"

Maybe Apollo 17 would be of more photographic interest? Since the rover traveled around quite a bit (35km total traverse), is it possible that its tracks would show up on the photo as discernible lines? It's at longitude 31E which should come up a bit quicker, this Saturday.
ugordan
QUOTE (jmknapp @ Jul 8 2009, 02:16 PM) *
I wonder what the PR impact of such an image would be though, outside the enthusiast ranks. What would it show? At 50cm/pixel at best (and probably more like 1m/pixel) it's not like much detail on the LEM platform (diameter 5m) or whatever would be resolved, right? People might say, "where are the footprints?"


MRO didn't show much detail on the rovers and Phoenix either, but it was a large PR impact for those of us who did care. The rest of the folks couldn't care less anyway. I expect the same with LRO images. What will be visible depends on solar elevation, lower elevation would benefit contrast between hardware and surface and give longer shadows, but mostly albedo markings like footprints would benefit from a lower phase angle. Yes, the Apollo 11 site isn't the best candidate, but given the approaching anniversary it would be a fitting way to mark the event by imaging it first. The rest of the sites can wait for their anniversaries laugh.gif
Stu
I don't care how vague or fuzzy or blurry the images are when they appear, they'll still be very moving, I'm sure. I remember how I felt when I saw that first MRO shot of Oppy on the edge of Victoria Crater, I actually didn't say a word for about five minutes, I just sat there thinking "Wow... we built that and sent it to Mars, where it was photographed by something else we built and sent to Mars..."

(BTW, I'm mega-chuffed that Phil Plait has just plugged my 'LRO vs Apollo Hoaxers' blog post on his "Bad Astronomy" blog. biggrin.gif )
FordPrefect
Oh boy, this mission is so exciting. Can't wait for those images of Apollo hardware and other stuff on the surface. Hopefully they'll take some snaps of the Apollo 17 ascent stage impact site on the South Massif too.
ilbasso
It will be interesting to see those sites in the light of the setting sun - shadows will be going in the opposite direction from when we last saw those sites. Given the very low sun angles in the current LROC photos, I'm sure that the topography and any visible artifacts will be very dramatically lit.
charborob
If I am not mistaken, the NAC on LRO takes images in very narrow stripes (3 km? wide). I guess it could easily miss the Apollo 11 site. I mean, it could image an area just to the East of the landing site on one orbit, and the area just to the West on the following orbit, unless the swaths overlap, of which I am not certain at near-equatorial latitudes. Can LROC be pointed a bit sideways, or is it allways pointing directly down?
djellison
LROC is bolted to LRO, so, like MRO with HiRISE, to image off-nadir you have to command the spacecraft to cant over one direction or the other. I would fully expect them to be able to not only successfully target any known landing site, but to nail it pretty much dead centre.
mcaplinger
QUOTE (djellison @ Jul 8 2009, 02:45 PM) *
I would fully expect them to be able to not only successfully target any known landing site, but to nail it pretty much dead centre.

There are always map uncertainties, but in the case of the Apollo landing sites the ALSEP laser retroreflectors allow very accurate knowledge of the site position in the Earth reference frame.

But I believe the spacing at the equator orbit to orbit is about 30 km, so slewing off-nadir would be required for arbitrary targets.
brellis
Did LRO detect the "reddish hue" on the lunar surface during the penumbral eclipse on July 7th? PS blog
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