LRO will use derivatives of the CTX on MRO to do approx 50cm/pixel panchromatic imaging of the surface - and then a derivative of MARCI on MRO to do 500m/pixel @ 7 different wavelengths.
http://www.msss.com/lro/lroc/index.html
I'd have thought we'd see data going online in the usual fashion, 6 or maybe 3 months chunks - 6 months later.
Doug
Full Version: LRO development
LRO's high resolution camera will only provide spot coverage, like MOC at Mars, especially designed for landing site certification. The global resolution will be about 100 m/pixel, I believe, but at lower sun angles than Clementine. That will be similar to Lunar Orbiter 4 nearside coverage, but better than farside coverage. It might not be better than SMART-1.
Phil
Phil
QUOTE (Phil Stooke @ Sep 4 2006, 08:12 AM) 
The global resolution will be about 100 m/pixel, I believe, but at lower sun angles than Clementine. That will be similar to Lunar Orbiter 4 nearside coverage, but better than farside coverage. It might not be better than SMART-1.
I still do not understand it really well. It might be due that I do not know about the LCROSS' future path of orbit. I seem that what you say is that LCROSS will orbit between poles (180 degree inclination). That is that the sun angle will vary according to its orbit position. What longitude would be the constant orbit of LCROSS. I would assume that it would be near to Longitudinal 0 degree since it is pointing to Earth for better communications?
Rodolfo
QUOTE (Phil Stooke @ Sep 4 2006, 08:12 AM)
It might not be better than SMART-1.
What, you mean it might only generate six instead of eight publically-released images?
-the other Doug
QUOTE (RNeuhaus @ Sep 4 2006, 07:23 AM)
I still do not understand it really well. It might be due that I do not know about the LCROSS' future path of orbit. I seem that what you say is that LCROSS will orbit between poles (180 degree inclination). That is that the sun angle will vary according to its orbit position. What longitude would be the constant orbit of LCROSS. I would assume that it would be near to Longitudinal 0 degree since it is pointing to Earth for better communications?
I don't know about LRO's orbit, but LCROSS will not be doing much orbiting at all. See --
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Reconnaissance_Orbiter
Thanks Doug and Phil for your replies!
I am just wondering if in the future, thanks to LRO, we will get a hi-resolution true colour map of the moon along with a precise elevation map, just as they are available for Earth (-> Blue Marble) and Mars today, enabling us to render the moon in 3d applictions with a high degree of accuracy? If LRO is going to map the surface at lower sun angles than Clementine, probably with shadows casting that would be a disadvantage for such a task though...
I am just wondering if in the future, thanks to LRO, we will get a hi-resolution true colour map of the moon along with a precise elevation map, just as they are available for Earth (-> Blue Marble) and Mars today, enabling us to render the moon in 3d applictions with a high degree of accuracy? If LRO is going to map the surface at lower sun angles than Clementine, probably with shadows casting that would be a disadvantage for such a task though...
If most or all the planned orbiters fly successfully, between them we should have a pretty good combination of images to assemble plenty of high quality digital maps.
If people want a good map with oblique lighting but not too many shadows, the new USGS mosaic of Lunar Orbiter images should be the first one available - not ready yet but it won't be too long. It can be patched here and there with Clementine. As for true colour, just set the image mode to grayscale instead of RGB and you have it! The level of elevation resolution and accuracy you want will come from stereo, probably, rather than altimetry, and that would take a fairly long time to put together. Altimetry will be quicker but lower resolution, but it's necessary as a base for the stereo mapping.
Phil
If people want a good map with oblique lighting but not too many shadows, the new USGS mosaic of Lunar Orbiter images should be the first one available - not ready yet but it won't be too long. It can be patched here and there with Clementine. As for true colour, just set the image mode to grayscale instead of RGB and you have it! The level of elevation resolution and accuracy you want will come from stereo, probably, rather than altimetry, and that would take a fairly long time to put together. Altimetry will be quicker but lower resolution, but it's necessary as a base for the stereo mapping.
Phil
Thanks Phil. I remember to have read that the LRO will be equipped with a laser altimeter for elevation mapping as well, wouldn't that be sufficient to create an elevation map?
Phil, do you really consider the lunar surface just shades of grey, c'mon... there are colours present, even if they're subtle...
Phil, do you really consider the lunar surface just shades of grey, c'mon... there are colours present, even if they're subtle...
If Phil thinks the Moon is greyscale - it means his publisher saves a fortune on printing costs 
Seriously - yes - there are some very subtle colours on the moon - but not so much as one would notice with the naked eye really.
Doug
Seriously - yes - there are some very subtle colours on the moon - but not so much as one would notice with the naked eye really.
Doug
QUOTE (djellison @ Sep 5 2006, 10:07 AM)
Seriously - yes - there are some very subtle colours on the moon - but not so much as one would notice with the naked eye really.
It all seems to depend on your phase angle relative to the Sun. Many of the Apollo astronauts saw brownish tints in the Moon at high phase (Sun directly or near-directly overhead), while some others never saw anything except shades of gray. I think you have to be a lot closer than Earth-Moon distances to get enough sunlight off the lunar surface to really see much color there with the naked eye, though.
In actuality, sensitive spectrographic studies have shown that some portions of the visible lunar surface have a reddish tint, while others have a bluish tint. I believe reddish tints include much of the anorthositic highlands and a few of the maria, and bluish tints predominate in high-titanium mares.
Also, some of the more sharp-eyed Apollo CMPs have seen streaks of both yellow-orange and light green glasses deposited in various areas where fire fountains once emplaced basaltic glass droplets. I recall that Ron Evans, in particular, was able to see orange and red glass streaks in the Sulpicius Galles (sp?) region.
-the other Doug
Click to view attachment
You can convert the measured spectral reflectivity of planets into CIE XYZ, and from there into gamma-corrected sRGB 24-bit colors. In my "planetary paint-chip" image above, I adjusted the Y values to be proportional to the albedos of the objects.
You can convert the measured spectral reflectivity of planets into CIE XYZ, and from there into gamma-corrected sRGB 24-bit colors. In my "planetary paint-chip" image above, I adjusted the Y values to be proportional to the albedos of the objects.
QUOTE (DonPMitchell @ Sep 6 2006, 01:03 AM)
You can convert the measured spectral reflectivity of planets into CIE XYZ, and from there into gamma-corrected sRGB 24-bit colors. In my "planetary paint-chip" image above, I adjusted the Y values to be proportional to the albedos of the objects.
Very interesting. Did you use average spectra of the objects, that is does Saturn's color include both the rings and the planet itself? Hence the color Saturn reduced to a point source would have, just as Saturn appears in the night sky?
EDIT: When you say gamma-corrected, do you mean compensating for the CRT 2.2 gamma or something else? I'm having trouble getting a grasp just what gamma value should be set, when converting linear-light images for viewing on monitors, escpecially not knowing whether the LUT in the video card's RAMDAC already takes care of that. Most modern video card drivers do allow setting the gamma manually, but I'm uncertain whether this is just applying another one on top of the 0.45 gamma.
BTW, here's a nice page about the subtle colors of the moon: http://www.colormoon.pt.to/
Will LRO be able to detect the orange regolith exposed by Apollo 17 in Taurus-Littrow?
http://www.psrd.hawaii.edu/Feb97/MoonVolcanics.html
http://www.psrd.hawaii.edu/Feb97/MoonVolcanics.html
Saturated Colour Photo of the Moon
exposure details
This image is a mosaic of 15 separate and slightly overlapping 8.2 megapixel images from my Canon EOS-20D (unmodified), taken in Raw mode and converted and stitched together in Photoshop CS2. As you can see from the EXIF data, the exposures were each 1/5 second at ISO 100.
Though the moon is generally made of gray, dusty material it is very bright, photographically, since it is bathed in sunlight.
I mounted my 20D to my Meade LX200 GPS UHTC 10" Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope via my 2x Televue Powermate (a focal length doubler, similar to a teleconverter, which also serves to mate my camera to the 2" telescope eyepiece tube). Effective focal length was 5000mm f/20.
Looking through the viewfinder I swept across the surface in a zig-zag fashion, trying for about 1/3 overlap between frames. I triggered the shutter with my TC80-N3 remote timer/controller. I did the stitching by hand in Photoshop.
Since it is tremendously downsized from the original mosaic, which was almost 40 megapixels, and was taken at the camera's most noise-free setting (ISO 100), the data is very accurate, and thus I was able to strongly increase the saturation via Photoshop's Image - Adjust - Hue/Saturation function.
Somebody send this guy an invite to UMSF that is truely a stunning image and an impressive bit of processing.
exposure details
This image is a mosaic of 15 separate and slightly overlapping 8.2 megapixel images from my Canon EOS-20D (unmodified), taken in Raw mode and converted and stitched together in Photoshop CS2. As you can see from the EXIF data, the exposures were each 1/5 second at ISO 100.
Though the moon is generally made of gray, dusty material it is very bright, photographically, since it is bathed in sunlight.
I mounted my 20D to my Meade LX200 GPS UHTC 10" Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope via my 2x Televue Powermate (a focal length doubler, similar to a teleconverter, which also serves to mate my camera to the 2" telescope eyepiece tube). Effective focal length was 5000mm f/20.
Looking through the viewfinder I swept across the surface in a zig-zag fashion, trying for about 1/3 overlap between frames. I triggered the shutter with my TC80-N3 remote timer/controller. I did the stitching by hand in Photoshop.
Since it is tremendously downsized from the original mosaic, which was almost 40 megapixels, and was taken at the camera's most noise-free setting (ISO 100), the data is very accurate, and thus I was able to strongly increase the saturation via Photoshop's Image - Adjust - Hue/Saturation function.
Somebody send this guy an invite to UMSF that is truely a stunning image and an impressive bit of processing.
QUOTE (paxdan @ Sep 6 2006, 02:55 PM)
Somebody send this guy an invite to UMSF that is truely a stunning image and an impressive bit of processing.
Indeed. Good equipment doesn't hurt, either.
QUOTE (paxdan @ Sep 6 2006, 08:55 AM)
Saturated Colour Photo of the Moon
exposure details
Somebody send this guy an invite to UMSF that is truely a stunning image and an impressive bit of processing.
exposure details
Somebody send this guy an invite to UMSF that is truely a stunning image and an impressive bit of processing.
Thanks Paxdan, I have just robed your picture. For me, that is the most beautiful Moon's picture.
Rodolfo
wowsh the moon.....
QUOTE (AlexBlackwell @ Jul 24 2006, 10:29 AM)
The Workshop on Lunar Crater Observing and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) Site Selection
October 16–17, 2006
NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California
First Announcement
October 16–17, 2006
NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California
First Announcement
The program with embedded links to abstracts is online.
The abstracts are interesting... for not being very interesting!
One gets the impression that the meeting has not attracted a lot of interest. Of course, the opportunity to select from a large pool of sites is really not there. It's a far cry from the vast array of choice for MSL or MER. The Arecibo DEM modelling really only gives about 5 good crater floor candidates for holding ice, and two are better than the others for being potentially visible to earth-based radar (pre and post impact imaging) and line of sight viewing. So those two sites are suggested (southern Shoemaker, and south of Malapert). What other choices are there?
Two interesting asides... the chance for about 4 m/pixel radar imaging from Goldstone is tantalizing... and in the Print-only section Jack Green is still promoting his volcanic views. Check out Don Wilhelms' "To a Rocky Moon" to see the beginnings of that story, 40+ years ago!
PS - in my view... the probability that useful quantities of ice exist at the poles is small...
Phil
One gets the impression that the meeting has not attracted a lot of interest. Of course, the opportunity to select from a large pool of sites is really not there. It's a far cry from the vast array of choice for MSL or MER. The Arecibo DEM modelling really only gives about 5 good crater floor candidates for holding ice, and two are better than the others for being potentially visible to earth-based radar (pre and post impact imaging) and line of sight viewing. So those two sites are suggested (southern Shoemaker, and south of Malapert). What other choices are there?
Two interesting asides... the chance for about 4 m/pixel radar imaging from Goldstone is tantalizing... and in the Print-only section Jack Green is still promoting his volcanic views. Check out Don Wilhelms' "To a Rocky Moon" to see the beginnings of that story, 40+ years ago!
PS - in my view... the probability that useful quantities of ice exist at the poles is small...
Phil
Gorgeous super-saturated moon images!
It's better to not set the LUT on a monitor, because many of them do a mapping of 8-bit to 8-bit values. Anything except the identify function actually causes you to lose some of the 256 possible values that can be displayed.
Modern monitors are supposed to obey the sRGB spec, or the closely-related new HDTV specs. So the best practice is to generate an image in floating point, as linear radiance values, L. Than calculate an 8-bit display value n, as follows:
n = int( pow( L, 1.0/2.2 ) * 255.0 + 0.5 )
and when loading an sRGB image:
L = pow( float(n)/255.0, 2.2 )
QUOTE (ugordan @ Sep 6 2006, 12:12 AM)
EDIT: When you say gamma-corrected, do you mean compensating for the CRT 2.2 gamma or something else? I'm having trouble getting a grasp just what gamma value should be set, when converting linear-light images for viewing on monitors, escpecially not knowing whether the LUT in the video card's RAMDAC already takes care of that. Most modern video card drivers do allow setting the gamma manually, but I'm uncertain whether this is just applying another one on top of the 0.45 gamma.
It's better to not set the LUT on a monitor, because many of them do a mapping of 8-bit to 8-bit values. Anything except the identify function actually causes you to lose some of the 256 possible values that can be displayed.
Modern monitors are supposed to obey the sRGB spec, or the closely-related new HDTV specs. So the best practice is to generate an image in floating point, as linear radiance values, L. Than calculate an 8-bit display value n, as follows:
n = int( pow( L, 1.0/2.2 ) * 255.0 + 0.5 )
and when loading an sRGB image:
L = pow( float(n)/255.0, 2.2 )
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Successfully Completes Critical Design Review
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/t...06/lro_cdr.html
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/t...06/lro_cdr.html
From the February 12, 2007, issue of Aviation Week & Space Technology:
Bush Budget Analysis
Lunar Robots May Cover NASA Budget Shortfall
Aviation Week & Space Technology
02/12/2007, page 32
Frank Morring, Jr.
Washington
Pending Senate action makes NASA budget academic. Lunar robots already targeted.
Bush Budget Analysis
Lunar Robots May Cover NASA Budget Shortfall
Aviation Week & Space Technology
02/12/2007, page 32
Frank Morring, Jr.
Washington
Pending Senate action makes NASA budget academic. Lunar robots already targeted.
QUOTERobots that NASA plans to send as early scouts for humans on the Moon could wind up as the "bill payer" for International Space Station resupply costs after the space shuttle retires. The need will be particularly acute during a space-access gap that may be extended by proposed cuts in the agency's Fiscal 2007 spending.
Spaceflight managers must find some $900 million in station-supply savings through Fiscal 2011, the first year after the shuttle's planned September 2010 standdown. If they can't, funding for robotic lunar-precursor missions will be tapped to make up the difference, says Administrator Michael Griffin.
[...]
Griffin says protecting development of [Orion and Ares I] will be the top priority as NASA prepares its Fiscal 2007 operating plan (AW&ST Jan. 15, p. 418). Beyond that, the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate places high value on mapping the Moon for future explorers starting with the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), set for launch next year. The Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite that will ride piggyback on LRO to an impact at the Moon's south pole may reveal water ice or other volatiles there (AW&ST Apr. 17, 2006, p. 26).
For those who haven't seen them, there are some really interesting presentations at the LRO Project Library. Be sure to check out some of the LRO Project Science Working Group (PSWG) presentations.
EDIT: See also the latest issue of The Planetary Report.
EDIT: See also the latest issue of The Planetary Report.
Check out the LRO's new Assembly Update of April 24, 2007 -
http://lunar.gsfc.nasa.gov/042407.html
On that page, there is a link to a Hardware Gallery of images.
The first signs that the LRO is coming to life!
Another Phil
http://lunar.gsfc.nasa.gov/042407.html
On that page, there is a link to a Hardware Gallery of images.
The first signs that the LRO is coming to life!
Another Phil
Kewl! You just don't know how much I'm looking forward to seeing what LRO comes up with. I have a deep and abiding interest in selenology. Comes from having been 13 years old in the summer of 1969, I think... *grin*...
Thanks for the link, Phil!
-the other Doug
Thanks for the link, Phil!
-the other Doug
A new LRO-related paper:
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Overview: The Instrument Suite and Mission Status
Gordon Chin et al.
Space Sci. Rev., In Press, 2007
DOI 10.1007/s11214-007-9153-y
Published online May 4, 2007
1.8 Mb PDF
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Overview: The Instrument Suite and Mission Status
Gordon Chin et al.
Space Sci. Rev., In Press, 2007
DOI 10.1007/s11214-007-9153-y
Published online May 4, 2007
1.8 Mb PDF
LRO Participating Scientist Opportunity Announced (75 Kb PDF)
June 2007
June 2007
Goddard have unveiled a new antenna farm at White Sands that will support LRO:
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/t...07/ka-band.html
The antennas use glue instead of bolts! The future of the DSN?
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/t...07/ka-band.html
The antennas use glue instead of bolts! The future of the DSN?
$20m for 3 new 18m dishes - but assuming a scaling of the third dish costing half as much as the second which cost half as much as the first ish... perhaps only $3m each for future dishes
250 sq m
70m dish is about 15,400
61 dishes - call it $200m for a 70m class array...maybe.
With HUGE flexibility.
Doug
250 sq m
70m dish is about 15,400
61 dishes - call it $200m for a 70m class array...maybe.
With HUGE flexibility.Doug
I can't wait to see these arrays come online. They have so many advantages over the large dishes for deep-space communication. You can choose how big an aperture you need to support a communications session and just use some of the dishes, reserving the rest for a simultaneous communications session with a different spacecraft. You can always have some fraction of them offline for routine maintenance without affecting communications schedules. If they're built to a common design, they'll be cheaper to maintain.
A question: three 18-meter dishes is equivalent to one dish of what size? Does it scale directly to the area, so that the three-dish array is equivalent to one 31-meter dish?
--Emily
A question: three 18-meter dishes is equivalent to one dish of what size? Does it scale directly to the area, so that the three-dish array is equivalent to one 31-meter dish?
--Emily
I assume it scales with area, but there's probably a proviso regarding losses when combining the antennae - I'm not sure how much that is though.
http://trs-new.jpl.nasa.gov/dspace/bitstre...5/1/05-0738.pdf
http://trs-new.jpl.nasa.gov/dspace/bitstre...4/1/06-2024.pdf
Some help - but not definitive on how well it actually scales.
Doug
http://trs-new.jpl.nasa.gov/dspace/bitstre...5/1/05-0738.pdf
http://trs-new.jpl.nasa.gov/dspace/bitstre...4/1/06-2024.pdf
Some help - but not definitive on how well it actually scales.
Doug
Aghgh - I hate headlines that use something that MIGHT happen, as fact.
Doug
Doug
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter:
http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2004/dec/H...ar_orbiter.html
The angular resolution of LROC imager will be about 50 cm/pixel (dependent on the final orbit of course). With this resolution it will definitely be possible to spot the Apollo hardware such as Lunar Module descent stages and the 3 Rovers."
http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2004/dec/H...ar_orbiter.html
The angular resolution of LROC imager will be about 50 cm/pixel (dependent on the final orbit of course). With this resolution it will definitely be possible to spot the Apollo hardware such as Lunar Module descent stages and the 3 Rovers."
I want to commend the LRO team for keeping us up-to-date on the assembly of the LRO.
Check out the website at http://lunar.gsfc.nasa.gov
for a very extensive photo record as LRO is being built up.
I do want to predict,, however, that LRO's launch date will probably slip to March 2009 from
its current scheduled lift-off in October 2008. I base this on where LRO is in its ATLO sequence.
It has not yet been completely assembled and it has several milestones to cross before
launch, including shake tests, thermal-vac, software tests, transport to the Cape, fueling,
more testing, then transport to the pad. You will note on Kepler's website that it is near
completion of assembly, with a scheduled launch in February 2009.
Another Phil
Check out the website at http://lunar.gsfc.nasa.gov
for a very extensive photo record as LRO is being built up.
I do want to predict,, however, that LRO's launch date will probably slip to March 2009 from
its current scheduled lift-off in October 2008. I base this on where LRO is in its ATLO sequence.
It has not yet been completely assembled and it has several milestones to cross before
launch, including shake tests, thermal-vac, software tests, transport to the Cape, fueling,
more testing, then transport to the pad. You will note on Kepler's website that it is near
completion of assembly, with a scheduled launch in February 2009.
Another Phil
Kepler is a very different sort of vehicle. I would be more inclined to compare the LRO ATLO schedule with something like MRO or a member of the EOS system.
Doug
Doug
In the spirit of things expanding to consume the resources available for them, we can note that lunar missions have no launch window, so an incremental slip is just an incremental slip, unlike the terrible delays that Messenger ended up with. That takes a lot of pressure off... bringing with it both good consequences and potentially bad.
LRO launch delayed to NET Nov. 24
(source: http://lro.gsfc.nasa.gov/launch.html)
available launch windows are presented here: http://spaceflightnow.com/atlas/av020/080421windows.html
(source: http://lro.gsfc.nasa.gov/launch.html)
available launch windows are presented here: http://spaceflightnow.com/atlas/av020/080421windows.html
In case you've access to AW&ST Frank Morring JR blog, here is the link : http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/blogs/space...mentId=blogDest
It's said that there are thinking to change the targeted crater (Shakleton) as follow : "Dan Andrews, NASA's LCROSS project manager at Ames Research Center, said today that the mission science team has decided to target an older crater to get the best possible data. While Shackleton is almost exactly on the lunar south pole, craters slightly to the north also have permanently dark floors and are within rage of LCROSS. Prime candidates are Shoemaker Crater and Faustini Crater, just to the east of Shoemaker."
BTW (and OT), I bought Shackleton's book (l'Odyssée de l'Endurance) last week and I target to read it anyway
It's said that there are thinking to change the targeted crater (Shakleton) as follow : "Dan Andrews, NASA's LCROSS project manager at Ames Research Center, said today that the mission science team has decided to target an older crater to get the best possible data. While Shackleton is almost exactly on the lunar south pole, craters slightly to the north also have permanently dark floors and are within rage of LCROSS. Prime candidates are Shoemaker Crater and Faustini Crater, just to the east of Shoemaker."
BTW (and OT), I bought Shackleton's book (l'Odyssée de l'Endurance) last week and I target to read it anyway
Emily has reported this information on her blog with more details
This is oldish news to people who have been following the mission in detail. A site selection update was given at the LCROSS Astronomer Workshop held at NASA Ames Research Center on 29 February 2008, by Tony Colaprete. Shackleton wasn't on the list - they don't know its interior properties well enough yet. The target crater varies week by week depending on the libration and illumination conditions. Colaprete gave a table of targets for different launch dates up to Christmas. If the launch is delayed beyond that, as seems possible, a new list will emerge.
Phil
Phil
Twitter's on for LRO : http://twitter.com/LRO_NASA
As is lcross web site : http://lcross_nasa/
(hopefully soon, I've got an error message today)
As is lcross web site : http://lcross_nasa/
(hopefully soon, I've got an error message today)
I was reading up on this mission and have a few questions:
1) Some of the instruments, e.g., LAMP (or LAVA LAMP, haha) will be used to identify any water ice in the "permanently shadowed" parts of polar craters. But with the Earth at least, the pole is said to have migrated quite a bit. Is the Moon conversely so locked in synchrony that its own pole can't wander appreciably? Seems like even if transient, it might not take too long to burn off any ice.
2) I was wondering what the first "earthrise" opportunity might be for LRO postcard purposes. According to the available SPICE kernels the initial orbit comes in around longitude 90 over the south pole and so from the point of view of earth circles without eclipse initially until it eventually precesses around or whatever.
3) The launch has been delayed by a month. Is there any possibility this mission might be cancelled? I.e., has NASA (read: US Congress) ever cancelled a mission where the spacecraft had essentially been built?
1) Some of the instruments, e.g., LAMP (or LAVA LAMP, haha) will be used to identify any water ice in the "permanently shadowed" parts of polar craters. But with the Earth at least, the pole is said to have migrated quite a bit. Is the Moon conversely so locked in synchrony that its own pole can't wander appreciably? Seems like even if transient, it might not take too long to burn off any ice.
2) I was wondering what the first "earthrise" opportunity might be for LRO postcard purposes. According to the available SPICE kernels the initial orbit comes in around longitude 90 over the south pole and so from the point of view of earth circles without eclipse initially until it eventually precesses around or whatever.
3) The launch has been delayed by a month. Is there any possibility this mission might be cancelled? I.e., has NASA (read: US Congress) ever cancelled a mission where the spacecraft had essentially been built?
briefly:
1 - yes
2 - don't know
3 - no
Phil
1 - yes
2 - don't know
3 - no
Phil
3 pt. 2 - they did cancel Mars Surveyor 2001 Lander, but there's no reason to do the same with LRO.
QUOTE (jmknapp @ Jun 19 2008, 11:47 AM)
has NASA (read: US Congress) ever cancelled a mission where the spacecraft had essentially been built?
Yes. Triana.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triana_%28satellite%29
QUOTE (mcaplinger @ Jun 19 2008, 05:13 PM)
After the recent postponement, the LRO website says "LRO will launch no earlier than November 24, 2008." Kind of an odd way to put it, no?
Interesting about Triana, another "backyard" kind of mission. LRO could have the problem of a tie-in to the manned program, and catch flak from opponents of same--maybe pushed into a new Administration?
The shuttle program uses that phraseology. "NET" = "no earlier than." So take that for what it's worth, but I don't think there's anything worrisome about it.
QUOTE (PhilHorzempa @ Mar 27 2008, 06:53 PM)
I do want to predict,, however, that LRO's launch date will probably slip to March 2009 from
its current scheduled lift-off in October 2008. I base this on where LRO is in its ATLO sequence.
It has not yet been completely assembled and it has several milestones to cross before
launch, including shake tests, thermal-vac, software tests, transport to the Cape, fueling,
more testing, then transport to the pad. You will note on Kepler's website that it is near
completion of assembly, with a scheduled launch in February 2009.
Another Phil
its current scheduled lift-off in October 2008. I base this on where LRO is in its ATLO sequence.
It has not yet been completely assembled and it has several milestones to cross before
launch, including shake tests, thermal-vac, software tests, transport to the Cape, fueling,
more testing, then transport to the pad. You will note on Kepler's website that it is near
completion of assembly, with a scheduled launch in February 2009.
Another Phil
For those who were not convinced of my reasoning, check this link that suggests that the LRO's launch will slip to February 2009.
http://www.livescience.com/blogs/author/leonarddavid/
Pretty close to my earlier analysis and prediction.
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