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LRO Mission
On a Wednesday, June 18. 2009, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) was launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida onboard of an Atlas V launch vehicle. The spacecraft will orbit the Moon for at least one year on a polar and circular orbit with an altitude of only 50 km above the natural satellites surface. LROs most important mission objectives include:
- the search for potential landing sites of future manned Lunar missions
- the identification of potential natural resources
- the exploration of the radiation in the vicinity of the Moon and on its surface
TU Professor and head of the department Planetary Geodesy of the Institute of Planetary Research at the German Aerospace Center (DLR), Prof. Jürgen Oberst, supporting this mission from a scientific perspective.
Data of the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA) and the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC), only two of the seven scientific instruments onboard the spacecraft, are processed and analysed within the scope of two PhD. studies at the TU Berlin.
- Eines der ersten NAC Bilder vom 2.07.09.
- © NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera consists of one Wide Angle Camera (WAC) and two Narrow Angle Cameras (NACs). While the WAC is globally mapping the lunar surface at a scale of 100 m per pixel, the NACs provide images of selected targets at a scale of unprecedented 0.5 meter per pixel.
Based on images of the LROC Cameras new lunar maps as well as high precision Digital Terrain Models (DTMs) will be derived.
more to: LROC - The Camera Experiment
- Die charakteristische 'Würfelfünf' LOLA's (LRO Laser Altimeter). Pro Laserschuß wird der Laserstrahl in 5 Strahlen aufgeteilt, was die Datendichte deutlich gegenüber herkömmlichen Laserexperimenten erhöht.
- © NASA
LOLA, the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter on board the LRO spacecraft works like an oversized laser pointer which shoots laser beams to the surface of the Moon at a rate of 28Hz. The travel time each laser shot requires to go from the spacecraft to the Moon and back can be transformed into a distance measurement.
A feature of this laser is that the emitted single laser beam is seperated into 5 beams by special optics, allowing 5 measurements for each emitted laser pulse. Therefore a precise and dense digital elevation model of the Moon can be derived.
more to: LOLA - The Laser Altimeter Experiment
