IMPROVED PRECISION ORBIT DETERMINATION OF LUNAR ORBITERS FROM THE GRAIL-DERIVED LUNAR GRAVITY MODELS

摘要

High-resolution global gravity field models of the Moon were obtained from precise Ka-band range-rate measurements between the twin Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) spacecraft. We assess the geodetic improvements in tracking data fit and orbit reconstruction quality for independent lunar orbiters, with the latest degree and order 660 spherical harmonics gravity field model developed at NASA GSFC from the primary mission data. We focus on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), but also discuss results for Lunar Prospector and the Japanese SELENE mission. In the case of LRO, in addition to radiometric tracking, we use altimetric data from the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA) to provide independent estimates of the position reconstruction accuracy.