ASU plays a key role in the new era of lunar exploration.
The next astronauts to go to the moon will know where to land, thanks to a powerful camera run by one of ASU's own.
ASU will play a key role in the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission. Mark Robinson, professor of geological sciences in ASUs School of Earth and Space Exploration, is the principal investigator for the imaging system on board, known as LROC (short for Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera).
These efforts are in preparation for human lunar flights beginning in 2020. The new moon program, named Project Constellation, isn't a rehash of Apollo. While the Orion manned lunar spacecraft being developed owes many elements to Apollo, it will carry four to six astronauts (compared with Apollo's three), and it is part of a much more ambitious program.
LRO Mission Overview
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) mission is scheduled to launch in the spring of 2009 as part of NASA's Lunar Precursor and Robotic Program (LPRP) and is the first spacecraft to be built as part of the Vision for Space Exploration.
The orbiter will be equipped with six instruments including the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC, see above), Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA), Lunar Exploration Neutron Detector (LEND), Diviner Lunar Radiometer Experiment, Lyman-Alpha Mapping Project (LAMP), and the Cosmic Ray Telescope for the Effects of Radiation (CRaTER), and one technology demonstration: Mini-REF. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) consists of two narrow angle heads (NACs) to provide 0.5 m-scale panchromatic images, and a wide angle camera head (WAC) to provide images at a scale of 100 meters.
The orbiter will have a one year primary mission in a ~50 km polar orbit. The measurements from LRO will uncover much needed information about potential landing sites and much more. For more details on LROC go to LROC webpage
New Apollo digital archive at ASU
For nearly 40 years, the complete photographic record from the Apollo project sat in a freezer at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, almost untouched, until now.
A new digital archive created through a collaboration between Arizona State University and Johnson Space Center is making available on the Internet high-resolution scans of original Apollo flight films. These startling images will be accessible to both researchers and the general public, to browse or download, at: apollo.sese.asu.edu.
The lunar images acquired by astronauts during NASAs Apollo program have never been seen in high resolution detail by the public, or even by most lunar scientists. Previous scanning projects have been limited in scope, and none have used the original films that came back from the Moon.
The project, directed by Mark Robinson, will take about three years to complete and will scan some 36,000 images. These include about 600 frames in 35 mm, roughly 20,000 Hasselblad 60 mm frames (color, and black and white), more than 10,000 mapping camera frames, and about 4,600 panoramic camera frames.
LROC SCIENCE TEAM
INSTITUTION
Mark Robinson (above), Principal Investigator
Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ
Eric Eliason, Co-Investigator
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ
Harald Hiesinger
Co-Investigator
Westfalische Wilhelms University
Munster, Germany
Brad Jolliff
Co-Investigator
Washington University
St. Louis, MO
Michael Malin
Malin Space Science Systems
Co-Investigator
San Diego, CA
Alfred McEwen
Co-Investigator
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ
Peter Thomas
Co-Investigator
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY
Elizabeth Turtle
Co-Investigator
John Hopkins Unversity
Applied Physics Lab, Laurel, MD
Sean Merritt, part of the LROC staff at ASU, stitches digital images scanned from originals in the LROC Science Operations Center (SOC). He started on the project as an undergraduate student. (Photo by Tom Story/ASU)
LROC Group, Arizona State University (Photo by Tom Story/ASU)
Click on the poster image to download the PDF version of this page. (Credits to images are given in the poster)
