Improved Lunar Control and Topography

Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy

Scientific paper

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Scientific paper

We are completing the Unified Lunar Control Network (ULCN) 2005, an update and combination of the ULCN (Davies and Colvin 1994) and the Clementine LCN (CLCN) (unpublished) on which USGS Clementine mosaics are based. The new network should correct for large ( 7 km average to > 15 km) errors in the CLCN by constraining ULCN positions and camera angles, and by solving for radii at all points rather than assuming a sphere. The result will be a 3-D network, including a globally complete and consistent topographic model for the Moon tied directly to horizontal control.
The estimated horizontal accuracy of our current solution ranges from 1 km in the areas of ULCN points to 3 km outside these areas. The current ULCN has a vertical accuracy of a few hundred meters when compared to Clementine lidar. The true accuracy may be higher, due to interpolation and lidar positional errors involved in the comparison.
The final version should be available at the time of the DPS. Our current solution includes 546,142 image measures of 272,949 points and 43,866 Clementine (mostly 750-nm) images. We will report the results in a peer-reviewed article and distribute the network data from our website (http://astrogeology.usgs.gov/Projects/ControlNetworks/).
This solution will be useful for scientific study of lunar morphology and basins; and for operational uses in selecting and targeting landing sites and evaluating landing hazards due to topography. A future solution will include Lunar Orbiter, Mariner 10, and Galileo data. Additionally, it will serve as the basis for solutions with data from upcoming missions, thus placing all data in one consistent coordinate system.
We acknowledge the initiation of this work by T. Colvin and (the late) M. Davies at RAND, and funding from the NASA PG&G program.

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