HaveBlue From United States of America, joined Jan 2004, 2069 posts, RR: 1 Posted (3 years 11 months 1 week 3 days 5 hours ago) and read 2965 times:
Was a bit surprised it wasn't already posted but I think its a neat mission. At 5:12pm EDT if all goes well Atlas V with LRO and LCROSS satellites will take off from Kennedy Space Center. I live in Daytona Beach and hope to get a good view of it. LRO will crash into a moon crater on purpose to see if there's water there.
GST From United Kingdom, joined Jun 2008, 927 posts, RR: 0 Reply 2, posted (3 years 11 months 1 week 3 days 2 hours ago) and read 2870 times:
I suppose the height of the orbit will dictate if it can see the apollo aites in sufficient detail to see a lander. I understand that the reason for it is to pick out future landing sites so it would be safe to assume powerful cameras are onboard.
TheSonntag From Germany, joined Jun 2005, 3347 posts, RR: 30 Reply 3, posted (3 years 11 months 1 week 3 days ago) and read 2829 times:
Quoting GST (Reply 2): I suppose the height of the orbit will dictate if it can see the apollo aites in sufficient detail to see a lander. I understand that the reason for it is to pick out future landing sites so it would be safe to assume powerful cameras are onboard.
The capability is there. In any case, we might get much better pictures of the moon finally. Despite being so close, the pictures available are quite old, way before digital imaging became as great as it is today, and so many pictures are very old. I expect spectacular pictures.
GST From United Kingdom, joined Jun 2008, 927 posts, RR: 0 Reply 4, posted (3 years 11 months 1 week 1 day 23 hours ago) and read 2702 times:
Given that the moon has no atmosphere, you could theoretically give it an elliptical orbit getting 100ft from the surface at times, so any camera would do. Not gonna happen mind, but that would be cool.
TheSonntag From Germany, joined Jun 2005, 3347 posts, RR: 30 Reply 5, posted (3 years 10 months 3 weeks 5 days 1 hour ago) and read 2341 times:
Today, LRO has published its first pictures. I actually got an official answer from NASA that LRO will take pictures of the Apollo landing sites. In fact, the answer was so friendly, I would like to post it here. Thanks to the people of Nasa answering questions from interested enthusiasts, I did not expect that.
This is the answer:
Thank you for your interest in the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Mission. Nancy forwarded your email to me; I am the deputy project scientist. On board the spacecraft are the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Cameras (LROC), in particular the Narrow Angle Camera, which will have a resolution of 50 cm from a 50 km orbit. This resolution is sufficient to image the Apollo landing sites. We hope to have good images of these sites however we may have to wait until lighting conditions are ideal in order to have the best images. Looking directly above a target, it is often the shadows that help one to distinguish features below so a low sun angle will give us the best images. All images will be put into the Planetary Data System within 6 months of obtaining them. The PDS is open to the public. However high value targets such as the Apollo missions will be released as soon as possible through an image-of-the-day on the NASA or LROC web sites or through a press release.
You might be interested in knowing that the public can suggest imaging targets through the web site put together by the LROC team. You can find it at http://target.lroc.asu.edu/output/lroc/lroc_page.html. So if you think of a site that particularly interest you, be sure to submit it to the data base.
EBJ1248650 From United States of America, joined Jun 2005, 1932 posts, RR: 2 Reply 6, posted (3 years 10 months 3 weeks 3 days 2 hours ago) and read 2177 times:
It's obvious I'm behind the times. I thought the Atlas missile had gone the way of dinosaurs. Obviously I'm very wrong. I suspect this version is quite different from the Atlas missile of the cold war years.
TheSonntag From Germany, joined Jun 2005, 3347 posts, RR: 30 Reply 7, posted (3 years 10 months 3 weeks 3 days 1 hour ago) and read 2172 times:
Quoting EBJ1248650 (Reply 6): It's obvious I'm behind the times. I thought the Atlas missile had gone the way of dinosaurs. Obviously I'm very wrong. I suspect this version is quite different from the Atlas missile of the cold war years.
It is, in fact it is using a RUSSIAN engine... Quite unlikely in cold-war times
HaveBlue From United States of America, joined Jan 2004, 2069 posts, RR: 1 Reply 8, posted (3 years 10 months 3 weeks 1 day 5 hours ago) and read 2062 times:
That is awesome Sonntag, thank you for sharing. Very cool that they took the time to respond to your question.
TheSonntag From Germany, joined Jun 2005, 3347 posts, RR: 30 Reply 9, posted (3 years 10 months 3 weeks 1 day 3 hours ago) and read 2051 times:
Quoting HaveBlue (Reply 8): That is awesome Sonntag, thank you for sharing. Very cool that they took the time to respond to your question.
Yes, indeed. It took a while to answer, but they did answer it. You can, besides, see the first pictures of the camera (no apollo pictures yet, though), on
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