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 approx. 9 hours before impact and performed a small braking maneuver in order to observe...

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Main Authors: Wilson, Barbara, Hensley, Scott, Slade, Martin, Harcke, Leif, Smith, David E., Neumann, Gregory A., Shirley, Mark, Moratto, Zachary, Marshall, William, Colaprete, Anthony, Kennedy, Brian, Gurrola, Eric
Format: Other/Unknown Material
Language:unknown
Published: 2012
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Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/2060/20140005563
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spelling ftnasantrs:oai:casi.ntrs.nasa.gov:20140005563 2023-05-15T18:23:12+02:00 Locating the LCROSS Impact Craters Wilson, Barbara Hensley, Scott Slade, Martin Harcke, Leif Smith, David E. Neumann, Gregory A. Shirley, Mark Moratto, Zachary Marshall, William Colaprete, Anthony Kennedy, Brian Gurrola, Eric Unclassified, Unlimited, Publicly available May 2012 application/pdf http://hdl.handle.net/2060/20140005563 unknown Document ID: 20140005563 http://hdl.handle.net/2060/20140005563 Copyright, Distribution as joint owner in the copyright CASI Geosciences (General) Lunar and Planetary Science and Exploration GSFC-E-DAA-TN9064 Space Science Reviews; 167; 4-Jan; 71-92 2012 ftnasantrs 2019-07-21T00:31:51Z 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 approx. 9 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 deg, 48.7093 deg, with a 1 uncertainty 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 deg, 49.61 deg, with a 1 alpha 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 Other/Unknown Material South pole NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS) South Pole
institution Open Polar
collection NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)
op_collection_id ftnasantrs
language unknown
topic Geosciences (General)
Lunar and Planetary Science and Exploration
spellingShingle Geosciences (General)
Lunar and Planetary Science and Exploration
Wilson, Barbara
Hensley, Scott
Slade, Martin
Harcke, Leif
Smith, David E.
Neumann, Gregory A.
Shirley, Mark
Moratto, Zachary
Marshall, William
Colaprete, Anthony
Kennedy, Brian
Gurrola, Eric
Locating the LCROSS Impact Craters
topic_facet Geosciences (General)
Lunar and Planetary Science and Exploration
description 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 approx. 9 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 deg, 48.7093 deg, with a 1 uncertainty 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 deg, 49.61 deg, with a 1 alpha 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
format Other/Unknown Material
author Wilson, Barbara
Hensley, Scott
Slade, Martin
Harcke, Leif
Smith, David E.
Neumann, Gregory A.
Shirley, Mark
Moratto, Zachary
Marshall, William
Colaprete, Anthony
Kennedy, Brian
Gurrola, Eric
author_facet Wilson, Barbara
Hensley, Scott
Slade, Martin
Harcke, Leif
Smith, David E.
Neumann, Gregory A.
Shirley, Mark
Moratto, Zachary
Marshall, William
Colaprete, Anthony
Kennedy, Brian
Gurrola, Eric
author_sort Wilson, Barbara
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
publishDate 2012
url http://hdl.handle.net/2060/20140005563
op_coverage Unclassified, Unlimited, Publicly available
geographic South Pole
geographic_facet South Pole
genre South pole
genre_facet South pole
op_source CASI
op_relation Document ID: 20140005563
http://hdl.handle.net/2060/20140005563
op_rights Copyright, Distribution as joint owner in the copyright
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