Status of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Geodetic Investigation

Details Status of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Geodetic Investigation Status of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Geodetic Investigation

Dec 2011

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011agufm.p41b1610m&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2011, abstract #P41B-1610

Physics

[1221] Geodesy And Gravity / Lunar And Planetary Geodesy And Gravity, [5417] Planetary Sciences: Solid Surface Planets / Gravitational Fields, [6250] Planetary Sciences: Solar System Objects / Moon

Scientific paper

We present the status of the Precision Orbit Determination work performed at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center by the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA) Science Team. LOLA, the multi-beam laser altimeter instrument onboard the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), has been operating continuously since July 13, 2009 and has provided more than 4.5 billion measurements as of July 2011. The high precision (10cm) and small footprint (5m) of the altimetric data, as well as the high resolution (25cm per pixel) of the LRO Camera (LROC), require high-accuracy orbits of the LRO spacecraft in order to maximize their scientific value and to enable proper coregistration of the various datasets obtained by LRO. Radiometric tracking data are complemented by altimetric crossover constraints derived from individual LOLA profiles. With a pre-LRO a priori gravity field (GLGM-3), the crossovers helped substantially improve the self-consistency of the reconstructed LRO orbits (assessed through orbit overlaps), from ~70m overlap RMS (radiometric-only) down to ~25m.We also used the LRO tracking and altimetric data to obtain a new solution of the lunar gravity field, specifically designed to provide enhanced orbit accuracy. With this preliminary LRO field (LLGM-1), the radiometric-only orbits achieve ~25m overlap precision. When complemented by the altimetric crossovers, the orbit consistency improves to better than 15m. Results from more than 2 years of radiometric tracking data and LOLA altimetry will be shown, including an updated gravity field solution. Current efforts to use very long integration arcs (4 months at a time) will also be presented, with the goal of combining all the available farside crossover constraints to help refine the short-wavelength farside gravity field.

Affiliated with

Also associated with

No associations

Rating

Status of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Geodetic Investigation does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with Status of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Geodetic Investigation, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Status of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Geodetic Investigation will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-871456