Apollo Images from LRO!

At this site--> http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/multimedia/lroimages/apollosites.html The one above is Apollo 14

Congratulations to the LROC Team and the entire LRO Team for making this possible!

First Mini-RF Images!

The first images from Mini-RF, the synthetic aperture radar on LRO, is posted here: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/Mini-RF/news/radar_tandem_searches.html

LRO Commisioning Orbit

For those interested in such things, LRO"s commissioning orbit remains very stable. The plot shows the phase-plot of the commissioning orbit for 90 days from the July 12th OD solution. The polar plot is Eccentricity (radial) vs Argument of Periapsis (angular). The orbit evolution remains bounded with AoP near 270 (periselene over south pole) and eccentricity is the neighborhood of 0.04. Eccentricity does very throughout each lunar cycle though.

LRO July 10-12 Status

The above STK image is of LRO on DOY 193

The LRO Spacecraft continues to perform nominally in its commissioning orbit.

On Friday, we updated the Safing tables and Safing RTSs as was planned prior to launch. Spacecraft ephemeris validation tables, ST and Gyro Cal tables were also uploaded.

With the Mini-RF data collection start on Sunday evening, all instruments have collected or are collecting data.

LRO Status

LRO continues in her commissioning phase in the 30x199km commissioning polar orbit about the Moon. Today was a relatively quiet day for LRO with activities limited to some spacecraft housekeeping activities and the as-planned operation of Diviner, LROC WAC, CRaTER, and LEND in data collection/observation mode. Mini-RF is off at present, LAMP is powered but not observing, and LOLA is on but not lasing.

Tomorrow we plan to upload updates to the spacecraft Safing tables and RTSs. An activity always planned for this juncture in the mission. Saturday NAC imaging is again planned with our first off-nadir slews to perform the requested targeting.

7 and 7!!!

Above is the STK image of LRO on DOY 189

Today we completed LAMP Activation Phase 1a. The LAMP team reports that they are “happy.” We set DLRE temperature set points to their requested values, the DLRE team reports that they are “happy, happy.” We also activated Mini-RF and they are “happy” as well.

The LRO Spacecraft continues to make the Ops and Engineering Teams "happy" too :-)

As of July 8, 2009, LRO has successfully turned-on all 7 instruments in its Payload Complement: CRaTER, LEND, LROC, LOLA, LAMP, DLRE and Mini-RF!!

Congratulations everyone!!

LAMP Activation Begun

Today we began the LAMP activation sequence and Diviner has begun its nominal scanning sequence.

LRO is in Orbit #150.

LRO's Great 4th of July Weekend

The above STK image is of LRO on DOY 186

LRO and it’s totally awesome team had a great 4th of July weekend!!

On July 4th, besides enjoying an awesome cookout at Building 32, we switched from Laser 1 to Laser 2 on LOLA and performed a HGA calibration.

On July 5th, we turned Diviner on, set LOLA to Flight Software Control, turned off Laser 2 on LOLA, and completed our last gyro calibration.

As of 12:50 pm EDT on July 5, 2009, LRO has 5 of its 7 instruments powered on - CRaTER, LEND, LROC, LOLA and DLRE. We are also on orbit 135 as of 3:30pm EDT.

Working hard for LRO,
Cathy and Rick