Altimetric Crossover Analysis: Application to Slowly-rotating Planetary Bodies

Details Altimetric Crossover Analysis: Application to Slowly-rotating Planetary Bodies Altimetric Crossover Analysis: Application to Slowly-rotating Planetary Bodies

Dec 2011

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011agufm.p44b..08n&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2011, abstract #P44B-08

Physics

[1221] Geodesy And Gravity / Lunar And Planetary Geodesy And Gravity, [5494] Planetary Sciences: Solid Surface Planets / Instruments And Techniques, [6250] Planetary Sciences: Solar System Objects / Moon

Scientific paper

Neumann et al. (2001) applied crossover adjustments to improve registration and radial accuracy of single-beam altimetric profiles on Mars using the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) data. Refined orbit determination (Lemoine et al., 2001) benefitted from new gravity solutions and force modeling, but only partially employed altimetric crossover constraints, so that a final altimetry-only adjustment was warranted. Crossovers on Mars are relatively evenly distributed across all latitudes owing to the significant angle between ascending and descending ground tracks caused by a full rotation every dozen or so orbits, and the 92.9° inclination of the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft. Lunar polar orbiting satellites such as Kaguya and the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), with typical periods under two hours, have much fewer crossovers at mid-latitudes because of the Moon's slower 27-day rotation period. The convergence of the orbits near the poles leads to abundant polar crossovers, which allows very precise, purely kinematic adjustment of the altimetric profiles in the polar regions. However, to exploit the limited number of crossovers in equatorial regions requires a different approach, that relies on the fact that slow-rotator ground tracks are nearly coincident for long distances, over which the topography sampled on adjacent tracks is highly correlated statistically. Thus stronger weights may be assigned to these crossovers and a semi-continuous adjustment derived. Moreover, the multi-beam crossovers provided by the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter on board LRO provide even more powerful constraints for sub-parallel tracks. We demonstrate that such adjustments provide meter-level consistency between ground tracks and sub-meter radial consistency in global elevation models.

Affiliated with

Also associated with

No associations

Rating

Altimetric Crossover Analysis: Application to Slowly-rotating Planetary Bodies 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 Altimetric Crossover Analysis: Application to Slowly-rotating Planetary Bodies, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Altimetric Crossover Analysis: Application to Slowly-rotating Planetary Bodies will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-873220