Lunar laser ranging (LLR) has been a workhorse for testing general relativity over the past four decades. The three retroreflector arrays put on the Moon by the Apollo astronauts and the French built arrays on the Soviet Lunokhod rovers continue to be useful targets, and have provided the most stringent tests of the Strong Equivalence Principle and the time variation of Newton’s gravitational constant. The relatively new ranging system at the Apache Point 3.5 meter telescope now routinely makes millimeter level range measurements. Incredibly, it has taken 40 years for ground station technology to advance to the point where characteristics of the lunar retroreflectors are limiting the precision of the range measurements. In this article, we review the gravitational science and technology of lunar laser ranging and discuss prospects for the future.
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机译：在过去的四十年中，月球激光测距（LLR）已成为测试广义相对论的主力军。阿波罗（Apollo）宇航员在月球上放置的三个后向反射器阵列和苏联Lunokhod漫游者在法国建造的阵列仍然是有用的目标，并且对强等效原理和牛顿引力常数的时间变化提供了最严格的检验。 Apache Point 3.5米望远镜上相对较新的测距系统现在可以进行毫米级范围的测量。令人难以置信的是，地面站技术已经用了40年的时间发展到月球后向反射器的特性限制测距精度的地步。在本文中，我们回顾了月球激光测距的引力科学和技术，并讨论了未来的前景。
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