Locating the LCROSS Impact Craters
The Lunar CRater Observations and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) mission impacted a spent Centaur rocket stage into a permanently shadowed region near the lunar south pole. The Sheperding Spacecraft (SSC) separated \sim9 hours before impact and performed a small braking maneuver in order to observe the...
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ftdatacite:10.48550/arxiv.1103.1687 2023-05-15T18:23:16+02:00 Locating the LCROSS Impact Craters Marshall, William Shirley, Mark Moratto, Zachary Colaprete, Anthony Neumann, Gregory Smith, David Hensley, Scott Wilson, Barbara Slade, Martin Kennedy, Brian Gurrola, Eric Harcke, Leif 2011 https://dx.doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1103.1687 https://arxiv.org/abs/1103.1687 unknown arXiv https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11214-011-9765-0 arXiv.org perpetual, non-exclusive license http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/ Space Physics physics.space-ph Geophysics physics.geo-ph FOS Physical sciences article-journal Article ScholarlyArticle Text 2011 ftdatacite https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1103.1687 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11214-011-9765-0 2022-04-01T14:17:38Z The Lunar CRater Observations and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) mission impacted a spent Centaur rocket stage into a permanently shadowed region near the lunar south pole. The Sheperding Spacecraft (SSC) separated \sim9 hours before impact and performed a small braking maneuver in order to observe the Centaur impact plume, looking for evidence of water and other volatiles, before impacting itself. This paper describes the registration of imagery of the LCROSS impact region from the mid- and near-infrared cameras onboard the SSC, as well as from the Goldstone radar. We compare the Centaur impact features, positively identified in the first two, and with a consistent feature in the third, which are interpreted as a 20 m diameter crater surrounded by a 160 m diameter ejecta region. The images are registered to Lunar Reconnaisance Orbiter (LRO) topographical data which allows determination of the impact location. This location is compared with the impact location derived from ground-based tracking and propagation of the spacecraft's trajectory and with locations derived from two hybrid imagery/trajectory methods. The four methods give a weighted average Centaur impact location of -84.6796\circ, -48.7093\circ, with a 1σ un- certainty of 115 m along latitude, and 44 m along longitude, just 146 m from the target impact site. Meanwhile, the trajectory-derived SSC impact location is -84.719\circ, -49.61\circ, with a 1σ uncertainty of 3 m along the Earth vector and 75 m orthogonal to that, 766 m from the target location and 2.803 km south-west of the Centaur impact. We also detail the Centaur impact angle and SSC instrument pointing errors. Six high-level LCROSS mission requirements are shown to be met by wide margins. We hope that these results facilitate further analyses of the LCROSS experiment data and follow-up observations of the impact region. : Accepted for publication in Space Science Review. 24 pages, 9 figures Text South pole DataCite Metadata Store (German National Library of Science and Technology) South Pole |
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Space Physics physics.space-ph Geophysics physics.geo-ph FOS Physical sciences |
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Space Physics physics.space-ph Geophysics physics.geo-ph FOS Physical sciences Marshall, William Shirley, Mark Moratto, Zachary Colaprete, Anthony Neumann, Gregory Smith, David Hensley, Scott Wilson, Barbara Slade, Martin Kennedy, Brian Gurrola, Eric Harcke, Leif Locating the LCROSS Impact Craters |
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Space Physics physics.space-ph Geophysics physics.geo-ph FOS Physical sciences |
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The Lunar CRater Observations and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) mission impacted a spent Centaur rocket stage into a permanently shadowed region near the lunar south pole. The Sheperding Spacecraft (SSC) separated \sim9 hours before impact and performed a small braking maneuver in order to observe the Centaur impact plume, looking for evidence of water and other volatiles, before impacting itself. This paper describes the registration of imagery of the LCROSS impact region from the mid- and near-infrared cameras onboard the SSC, as well as from the Goldstone radar. We compare the Centaur impact features, positively identified in the first two, and with a consistent feature in the third, which are interpreted as a 20 m diameter crater surrounded by a 160 m diameter ejecta region. The images are registered to Lunar Reconnaisance Orbiter (LRO) topographical data which allows determination of the impact location. This location is compared with the impact location derived from ground-based tracking and propagation of the spacecraft's trajectory and with locations derived from two hybrid imagery/trajectory methods. The four methods give a weighted average Centaur impact location of -84.6796\circ, -48.7093\circ, with a 1σ un- certainty of 115 m along latitude, and 44 m along longitude, just 146 m from the target impact site. Meanwhile, the trajectory-derived SSC impact location is -84.719\circ, -49.61\circ, with a 1σ uncertainty of 3 m along the Earth vector and 75 m orthogonal to that, 766 m from the target location and 2.803 km south-west of the Centaur impact. We also detail the Centaur impact angle and SSC instrument pointing errors. Six high-level LCROSS mission requirements are shown to be met by wide margins. We hope that these results facilitate further analyses of the LCROSS experiment data and follow-up observations of the impact region. : Accepted for publication in Space Science Review. 24 pages, 9 figures |
format |
Text |
author |
Marshall, William Shirley, Mark Moratto, Zachary Colaprete, Anthony Neumann, Gregory Smith, David Hensley, Scott Wilson, Barbara Slade, Martin Kennedy, Brian Gurrola, Eric Harcke, Leif |
author_facet |
Marshall, William Shirley, Mark Moratto, Zachary Colaprete, Anthony Neumann, Gregory Smith, David Hensley, Scott Wilson, Barbara Slade, Martin Kennedy, Brian Gurrola, Eric Harcke, Leif |
author_sort |
Marshall, William |
title |
Locating the LCROSS Impact Craters |
title_short |
Locating the LCROSS Impact Craters |
title_full |
Locating the LCROSS Impact Craters |
title_fullStr |
Locating the LCROSS Impact Craters |
title_full_unstemmed |
Locating the LCROSS Impact Craters |
title_sort |
locating the lcross impact craters |
publisher |
arXiv |
publishDate |
2011 |
url |
https://dx.doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1103.1687 https://arxiv.org/abs/1103.1687 |
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South Pole |
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South Pole |
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South pole |
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South pole |
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https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11214-011-9765-0 |
op_rights |
arXiv.org perpetual, non-exclusive license http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1103.1687 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11214-011-9765-0 |
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