Ten Cool Things Seen in the First Year of LRO

We waited a long time for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) to be launched to the Moon and now a year has gone by in orbit.  Back then we thought humans were going back to the Moon also.  Hopefully folks will use the LRO data to find interesting things about the Moon and be useful for planning other robotic missions that might take place on the surface of the Moon.

By the time it is alright to mention humans and the Moon in the same sentence we will have sufficient justification to profitable to develop the Lunar resources.
- LRK -

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http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/news/first-year.html
Ten Cool Things Seen in the First Year of LRO
06.23.10

Having officially reached lunar orbit on June 23rd, 2009, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has now marked one full year on its mission to scout the moon. Maps and datasets collected by LRO’s state-of-the-art instruments will form the foundation for all future lunar exploration plans, as well as be critical to scientists working to better understand the moon and its environment. In only the first year of the mission, LRO has gathered more digital information than any previous planetary mission in history. To celebrate one year in orbit, here are ten cool things already observed by LRO. Note that the stories here are just a small sample of what the LRO team has released and barely touch on the major scientific accomplishments of the mission. If you like these, visit the official LRO web site at www.nasa.gov/LRO to find out even more!

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And you saw it mentioned here.
- LRK -

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http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/overview/index.html
LRO Overview

On the moon we will develop technologies to survive in the infinite frontier of space, because the moon presents the same challenges we will encounter throughout the universe: harmful radiation, electrified dust, and extreme temperatures.

Just as a scout finds the safest way for expeditions on Earth, NASA will first send a robotic scout, called the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), to gather crucial data on the lunar environment that will help astronauts prepare for long-duration lunar expeditions.

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Images

- LRK -

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http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/multimedia/index.html
Moon Images from LRO

LRO Photographs

Images of the Moon

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Thanks for looking up with me.
- LRK -

Web Site: http://lkellogg.vttoth.com/LarryRussellKellogg/
BlogSpot: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/
Comments accepted here - http://lunar-update.blogspot.com/
RSS link: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Newsletter: https://news.altair.com/mailman/listinfo/lunar-update
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http://lro.gsfc.nasa.gov/
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter

Home site.
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http://wms.lroc.asu.edu/lroc_browse
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera

Browse images

Home
http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/
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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK

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Images of Surveyor 3, 5, and 6 and Luna 20 and 24 from LRO

Larry Klaes posted to fpspace this note:

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Sky & Telescope had a post on an impact crater made by the Saturn 5 boosterstage that got Apollo 13 sort of to the Moon imaged by LRO:

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/community/skyblog/newsblog/89359412.html

In the process the author also mentions that LRO has imaged some of theSurveyor and Luna landers too! Not sure how I missed these but they arelinked from the article.
They will definitely make you appreciate how tough it will be to find Luna 9.Hopefully the crashed landers left a noticable crater to help in IDing.
Larry
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http://www.skyandtelescope.com/community/skyblog/newsblog/89359412.html
A Blast from the Past
With the cancellation of plans to return Americans to the Moon, atleast anytime soon, you might think that NASA's Lunar ReconnaissanceOrbiter is a spacecraft without a mission. After all, LRO's two keyobjectives were to scan the lunar landscape for places where futurecrews could safely land and to assess how much water might be stashedin the Moon's polar regions. But don't worry: the global observationsbeing returned by this highly capable orbiter will keep lunarspecialists busy for decades. Here's a guide to the spacecraft's seveninstruments.

Much ado has been made of LRO's views of landing sites from previousmissions. Most famous among these is the revered Apollo 11 site,Tranquility Base, snapped a couple of times last year. The stunninglydetailed views are made possible by LRO's high-resolution cameras,dubbed LROC. The twin sets of 8-inch (195-mm) f/3.6 optics, viewingfrom an orbit only 30 miles (50 km) up, resolve the lunar terrain atabout 2 feet (0.5 m) per pixel.

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You will want to check out the link and the hot links on the web pagefor more images from LRO.
- LRK -

Also the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter web site.
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Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter
http://lunar.gsfc.nasa.gov/
LRO ObservationsView the full gallery of images gathered from LRO's instruments andthe associated information products derived from them. Thusinformation, including boulder distribution maps, slope maps anddigital terrain models will guide engineers and scientists as theydevelop their plans for how they will continue to explore the moon.

Photo Gallery
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/multimedia/lroimages/LROMoonImages_archive_1.html
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I guess for now this is as close to the Moon we are going to get.We can only hope that if it is Mars Direct that happens that we willhave the necessary developments in place to use on the Moon as well.

Eventually both places should show a human presence and not just rover tracks.It will probably happen after I quite talking to you but maybe therewill be an after life that will let me come back and bug you all. :-)
- LRK -

In the mean time feel free to let me know what interests you all.
- LRK -

I wish we could hold NASA to what is posted here.
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http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/home/index.html
At the core of NASA's future in space exploration is a return to themoon, where we will build a sustainable long term human presence.

As the space shuttle approaches retirement, NASA is building the nextfleet of vehicles to service the International Space Station andreturn humans to the moon, and possibly to Mars and beyond. In supportof these efforts, ESMD is performing field tests, designing surfacesystems and conducting advanced human research to ensure that futuremissions are safe, sustainable and affordable

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Will this continue? --- ESMD is performing field tests, designingsurface systems and conducting advanced human research to ensure thatfuture missions are safe, sustainable and affordable ---

Or will I have to go look at the Web Archive to see what was promised?
- LRK -

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Wayback Machine
http://www.archive.org/web/web.php
Browse through over 150 billion web pages archived from 1996 to a fewmonths ago. To start surfing the Wayback, type in the web address of asite or page where you would like to start, and press enter. Thenselect from the archived dates available. The resulting pages point toother archived pages at as close a date as possible. Keyword searchingis not currently supported.

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Thanks for looking up with me.- LRK -

Web Site: http://lkellogg.vttoth.com/LarryRussellKellogg/
BlogSpot: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/
RSS link: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Newsletter: https://news.altair.com/mailman/listinfo/lunar-update
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LRO Images
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/multimedia/lroimages/LROMoonImages_archive_1.html

The LRO Spacecraft, Instrument by Instrumenthttp://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/spacecraft/index.html

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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK
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NASA's LRO Spacecraft Sends First Lunar Images to Earth

Here it is July 2009 already. We are coming up on the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11 landing on the Moon,
http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/apollo11/index.html

and we finally have the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) orbiting the Moon and sending back its first images.
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/main/index.html

Several of you folks have been looking up and alerting me to these first images.
Thanks much.

Some have commented about their own blogs and I have added some to the Links I Like at the blog site.
http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/

It feels good to know that others are looking up as well.
- LRK -

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NASA's LRO Spacecraft Sends First Lunar Images to Earth
http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2009/jul/HQ_09-152_LROC_images.html
GREENBELT, Md. -- NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, has transmitted its first images since reaching lunar orbit June 23. The spacecraft has two cameras -- a low resolution Wide Angle Camera and a high resolution Narrow Angle Camera. Collectively known as the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera, or LROC, they were activated June 30. The cameras are working well and have returned images of a region a few kilometers east of Hell E crater in the lunar highlands south of Mare Nubium.

As the moon rotates beneath LRO, LROC gradually will build up photographic maps of the lunar surface. To view these first calibration images, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/lro

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[Copied the post below as well. - LRK -]

Some of you sent me this link from SpaceRef.com

First Moon Images From NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=31681

And from the NASA link:

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LRO's First Moon Images
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/multimedia/lroimages/lroc_20090702_a.html
NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has transmitted its first images since reaching the moon on June 23. The spacecraft's two cameras, collectively known as the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera, or LROC, were activated June 30. The cameras are working well and have returned images of a region in the lunar highlands south of Mare Nubium (Sea of Clouds).
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If you like looking at images and YouTube clips you might take a look at the blog:
Moon Base Omega
http://moonbaseomega.blogspot.com/

I wonder how long we will be able to use the data that is received from LRO?
Remember how the Pioneer Mission Master Data Record tapes were on degrading tapes, transcribed to magneto optical disks, which could only be read on SCSI drives for a DEC Micro Vax, then copied to a laptop and put on CDs, but who can read the CDs because no one has a program to read the old format (except maybe me and Viktor). Hardware changes, software changes. formats change, all really sad that the old passes out of our thoughts and can't be used with the new generation of computers.

Even when you store the data with information as to how it is formatted as was the Lunar Prospector spectrometer data, you would still find it hard to use the data without knowing how to expand the compressed binary numbers, and then you need information on how to convert the binary numbers to analog values you could read.
http://pds-geosciences.wustl.edu/missions/lunarp/

A link to an interesting interview on a POD Cast with Ray Kurzweil was sent to me by Geoff.
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January 23, 2008 - 12:26 P.M.
In this week's podcast episode, inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil discusses why DAISI -- the Document Image and Storage Invention -- wouldn't solve the long-term data archiving problem.
http://a1448.g.akamai.net/7/1448/25138/v0001/compworld.download.akamai.com/25137/stw/stw-daisi-012308b.mp3
Podcast duration: 6 minutes
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That said, let us hope there will be enough people interested in the data we get from the Moon and Mars to keep the data alive in a usable condition that will let new grad students do good work on helping us make use of these new celestial resources.

You may know someone that can "Make It So". :-)
- LRK -

Thanks for looking up with me.

Larry Kellogg

Web Site: http://lkellogg.vttoth.com/LarryRussellKellogg/
BlogSpot: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/
RSS link: http://kelloggserialreports.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Newsletter: https://news.altair.com/mailman/listinfo/lunar-update
Twitter: http://twitter.com/lrkellogg
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http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2009/jul/HQ_09-152_LROC_images.html
July 02, 2009

Grey Hautaluoma
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-0668
grey.hautaluoma-1@nasa.gov

Nancy Neal Jones
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
301-286-0039/5017
nancy.n.jones@nasa.gov

Nicole Staab
Arizona State University, Tempe
602-710-7169
nstaab@asu.edu

RELEASE: 09-152

NASA'S LRO SPACECRAFT SENDS FIRST LUNAR IMAGES TO EARTH

GREENBELT, Md. -- NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, has transmitted its first images since reaching lunar orbit June 23. The spacecraft has two cameras -- a low resolution Wide Angle Camera and a high resolution Narrow Angle Camera. Collectively known as the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera, or LROC, they were activated June 30. The cameras are working well and have returned images of a region a few kilometers east of Hell E crater in the lunar highlands south of Mare Nubium.

As the moon rotates beneath LRO, LROC gradually will build up photographic maps of the lunar surface. To view these first
calibration images, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/lro

"Our first images were taken along the moon's terminator -- the dividing line between day and night -- making us initially unsure of how they would turn out," said LROC Principal Investigator Mark Robinson of Arizona State University in Tempe. "Because of the deep shadowing, subtle topography is exaggerated, suggesting a craggy and inhospitable surface. In reality, the area is similar to the region where the Apollo 16 astronauts safely explored in 1972. While these are magnificent in their own right, the main message is that LROC is nearly ready to begin its mission."

LRO will help NASA identify safe landing sites for future explorers, locate potential resources, describe the moon's radiation environment and demonstrate new technologies.

The satellite also has started to activate its six other instruments. The Lunar Exploration Neutron Detector will look for regions with enriched hydrogen that potentially could have water ice deposits. The Cosmic Ray Telescope for the Effects of Radiation is designed to measure the moon's radiation environment. Both were activated on June 19 and are functioning normally.

Instruments expected to be activated during the next week and calibrated are the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter, designed to build 3-D topographic maps of the moon's landscape; the Diviner Lunar Radiometer Experiment, which will make temperature maps of the lunar surface; and the Miniature Radio Frequency, or Mini-RF, an experimental radar and radio transmitter that will search for subsurface ice and create detailed images of permanently-shaded craters.

The final instrument, the Lyman Alpha Mapping Project, will be activated after the other instruments have completed their calibrations, allowing more time for residual contaminants from the manufacture and launch of LRO to escape into the vacuum of space. This instrument is an ultraviolet-light imager that will use starlight to search for surface ice. It will take pictures of the
permanently-shaded areas in deep craters at the lunar poles.

"Accomplishing these significant milestones moves us closer to our goals of preparing for safe human return to the moon, mapping the moon in unprecedented detail, and searching for resources," said LRO Project Scientist Richard Vondrak of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

While its instruments are being activated and tested, the spacecraft is in a special elliptical commissioning orbit around the moon. The orbit takes less fuel to maintain than the mission's primary orbit. The commissioning orbit's closest point to the lunar surface is about 19 miles over the moon's south pole, and its farthest point is approximately 124 miles over the lunar north pole.

After the spacecraft and instruments have completed their initial calibrations, the spacecraft will be directed into its primary
mission orbit in August, a nearly-circular orbit about 31 miles above the lunar surface.

Goddard built and manages LRO, a NASA mission with international participation from the Institute for Space Research in Moscow. Russia provides the neutron detector aboard the spacecraft.

For more information about LRO's cameras and to view the first images, visit:
http://lroc.sese.asu.edu

For more information about the LRO mission, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/lro

The LRO mission is providing regular updates via Twitter. To follow the spacecraft, visit:
http://www.twitter.com/LRO_NASA

-end-

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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK

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