Results from the first year of Mini-RF operations on Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter

Details Results from the first year of Mini-RF operations on Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Results from the first year of Mini-RF operations on Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter

Dec 2010

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010agufm.p34a..07b&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2010, abstract #P34A-07

Mathematics

Logic

[5420] Planetary Sciences: Solid Surface Planets / Impact Phenomena, Cratering, [5462] Planetary Sciences: Solid Surface Planets / Polar Regions, [5470] Planetary Sciences: Solid Surface Planets / Surface Materials And Properties

Scientific paper

Mini-RF is a Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) on board NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. It can operate in both S and X bands and has a best spatial resolution of 30 meters. It uses a hybrid-polarity architecture where it transmits a circular polarized signal, but receives horizontal and vertical linear polarizations, together with the phase information. From these data the Stokes parameters for the received signal can be calculated, together with derived daughter products (e.g. circular polarization ratio) thus permitting the detailed characterization of the surface backscatter characteristics. Since LRO entered its 50 km circular mapping orbit on September 2009 Mini-RF has acquired significant coverage of the lunar surface, predominantly in S-band. During a polar-mapping campaign conducted in June and July of this year Mini-RF was able to acquire greater than 95% of the polar regions within 20° latitude of both poles. Additionally throughout the year Mini-RF has imaged more than 40% of the entire Moon. These data provide new insight into the geologic processes that shape the Moon. Initial analysis of the Mini-RF data has shown them to be particularly useful for mapping the ejecta blankets surrounding craters. The data can be used to easily distinguish the extent of both the continuous and discontinuous eject blankets. Also sometimes the data indicates the presence of ejecta that is not visible in optical data. This is likely due to the fact that the radar is sensitive to changes in surface roughness at wavelength scales. Similarly the radar data can be used to map impact melt deposits. The Mini-SAR instrument on the Indian Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter discovered numerous craters in the north polar region with radar signatures consistent with the presence of buried water ice deposits. Mini-RF has mapped several of these craters, at a factor of five higher spatial resolution, the analysis of these data will provide more information on these deposits. As with the other LRO instruments the Mini-RF data are archived to the PDS within 3 to 6 months of the data being acquired. To date, several terabytes of data has been archived and is available for scientific analysis by the lunar and radar communities.

Affiliated with

Also associated with

No associations

Rating

Results from the first year of Mini-RF operations on Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter 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 Results from the first year of Mini-RF operations on Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Results from the first year of Mini-RF operations on Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-1496987