Updates LRO/LCROSS News and Updates

I'm interested in seeing the S-IVB impact sites, and maybe the LM ascent stage wrecks, too, if there're any pieces big enough to spot. Maybe a gouge in the soil.
 
if we are lucky, with this resolution, we might even capture impact plumes from asteroids. :speakcool:
 
Ark said:
If we aim right we can blind him with science. :)
Click to expand...

I think they already are blind to science. Indeed, I can hear them now:

"NASA faked those pictures too! They're just another part in the conspiracy!"

And of course if any other country eventually does, they will probably say the US bribed them or something.
 
TSPenguin said:
Really great pictures!
This would shut up most conspiracy people if we hadn't shopped those... *sigh*

Do we get closer passes and better pictures?
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, NO. If it had been the Japanese, Chinese or Indian lunar probes that had released the images, MAYBE, it would have shut them all up. With LRO releasing them, the hoax believers will say it just reinforces their position ... "NASA coverup".

There has been more than enough data to defeat the hoax believers. Has anyone seen a response from FOX News (those ignorant bast....) regarding the images?

Can anyone see FOX releasing a retraction?
 
Fox will do it if it gets ratings.

BTW, why does everyone see things like this and immediately yell out, "This will prove it to the hoaxers!"?

The purpose of missions like this is not to silence those idiots. It's to gather data. The idiots don't count. It's not for them, it's for those of us who care and who may use the data for something useful later on.

Honestly, who gives a hang what those morons think? Think not of them; they are like the kid in school who thought it was cool to be a clown but who is now, ten years later, pumping gas for a living while you're making money with your engineering degree. Hoaxers are losers and deserve no further explanations. Let them figure it out on their own or continue to be left behind.
 
Andy44 said:
BTW, why does everyone see things like this and immediately yell out, "This will prove it to the hoaxers!"?

The purpose of missions like this is not to silence those idiots. It's to gather data. The idiots don't count. It's not for them, it's for those of us who care and who may use the data for something useful later on.

Honestly, who gives a hang what those morons think? Think not of them; they are like the kid in school who thought it was cool to be a clown but who is now, ten years later, pumping gas for a living while you're making money with your engineering degree. Hoaxers are losers and deserve no further explanations. Let them figure it out on their own or continue to be left behind.
Click to expand...

Andy, you said it better than I ever could. It's exactly the same here in the German media. It just ticks me off. I agree 110% with all you said above!
 
Anyone thought of or tried using brianj's LRO/LCROSS addon with AMSO, & maybe Telescope MFD, to try and reproduce NASA's images, or get an idea of how good future images might look?
 
You would need much better moon textures for that. That's why Brian put a
special "patch" at the pole, so there would be better resolution at the impact site. I think that was for when the impact was planned for the N. pole also,
so I don't think it's there anymore.
 
LCROSS is getting ready to perform what we call an Earthlook operation. We'll be slewing the spacecraft to point the payload instruments at Earth (and hopefully detect water...lol). We then swing the spacecraft in a cross pattern we call limb slews (4deg pitch, -8degpitch, 4deg pitch, 4deg yaw, -8deg yaw, 4deg yaw) and then return to steller inertial attitude. Our steller inertial attitude at the start is what we call pitch 180, (Z pointing don from ecliptic plan). We'll be returning after this manuever to view the Earth, to a pitch -130, 50deg difference in pitch. this helps our Omni comm angle to keep it from entering a interferometry region, and also keeps our star tracker from tripping due to bright field objects. In a week, we'll return to a pitch 0 position, z pointed up from the ecliptic. We are also continuing to use a -20 pitch in stellar inertial to keep sun on thrusters 1 and 7 which keeps them from freezing. If you head outside at 22:17:00 today (DOY 213), you can be part of our Earth spectral analyis, be sure to wave!

---------- Post added at 01:32 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:27 PM ----------
flying coffin said:
You would need much better moon textures for that. That's why Brian put a
special "patch" at the pole, so there would be better resolution at the impact site. I think that was for when the impact was planned for the N. pole also,
so I don't think it's there anymore.
Click to expand...

Impact currently is inside the Cabeus crater at the south pole, 9 oct at 11:30 UTC. We're getting updated maps from LRO, Chandryan, and DSN Goldstone radar analysis - I'll let you know where to get them when they become available.

---------- Post added at 01:50 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:32 PM ----------

Just a quick update on LCROSS. We have a nominal spacecraft, all systems working. Fuel reserve is just under 100kg, 30% margin on expected mission requirements (very good). We have performed two Centaur cold-side bakeouts (pointing the shaded side of the Centaur to the sun to bakeout any water and volitiles). This was originally an optional manuever, but after we did it the first time, we got 3.5 time the predicted offgassing (3.5cm/s orbital dispersion). It was so bad the cloud of offgassing tripped our star tracker into standby because it couldn't resolve a good star pattern. So we have decided to continue this operation every couple of weeks until dispersions are down to an acceptable level. Our second coldside bakeout a couple of days ago resulted in about 2cm/sec dispersion, so it is going down. We'll need to do at least one more of these, probably two. the concern being that after we release the centaur and it is drifting ballistically to the moon impact, this offgassing could cause significant impact targeting error (the 3.5cm/s if we hadn't done this would likely have resulted in just under a 2km impact targetting error). TCM 5a, our final targetting deterministic burn to set the lunar impact time at the South Pole was excellent (21.2M/sec), so we have waived a one of the two cleanup manuevers (TCM 5b on DOY218) since it would have been so small. Still planning TCM 5c. We plan on looking at the Earth again on DOY 228 when the Moon and Earth will be in view at the same time. We plan to use this opportunity when the Moon will be a point light source to help deconvolve our focus error on the MIR 2 camera - which was knocked slightly out of focus by launch vibration and/or separation shock.
 
Hi Likeshadow,
thanks for dropping by and giving us an update. Sounds like that Centaur stage thinks it's a comet.

Glad to hear the "Earthlook" operation went well and confirmed there is indeed water on Earth. Sadly, I was on the wrong side of the planet to add my spectral signature into the mix ;)

Cheers,
Brian
 
Does anyone know when LRO will be in its final orbit altitude, or if the LROC is now fully calibrated? Also is it publicly avaliable a storage of all the LRO surface pictures?
Thanks.
Ryan.
 
ryan said:
Does anyone know when LRO will be in its final orbit altitude, or if the LROC is now fully calibrated? Also is it publicly avaliable a storage of all the LRO surface pictures?
Click to expand...
The press kits states that the commissioning orbit is "up to 60 days", but no lower limit. So it should be in its "mission orbit" by around August 22.

LROC images here: http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/index.html
 
Interesting, do you know why are there two O3 signals marked?

N.
 
Notebook said:
Interesting, do you know why are there two O3 signals marked?

N.
Click to expand...

That are no signals, but the lack of it. Ozone absorbs light in two spectral bands.
 
It's a nice proof-of-concept for the idea that taking a spectrograph of a planet can tell us if there is aerobic life on it. Once we start getting direct images of Earth-sized planets around other stars, we'll want to check their spectra for such things.
 
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