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 LRO orbit

Orbits of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter

Since 2009, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) explores the lunar surface by images and altimetric ranges. Referring these observations to a Moon-fixed reference frame requires highly accurate and consistent orbits. An independent set of such orbits was produced within the research  unit FOR 1503 "Space-Time Reference Systems for Monitoring Global Change and for Precise Navigation in Space" funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG).

The orbits are provided here as SPK kernels for use with the Spice software system (https://naif.jpl.nasa.gov/naif/).They are available in different flavours characterized by the arc length and the observation types used in the determination of the orbit. See the Readme file for further details.

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LRO2.jpg
© NASA

Reference

  • Löcher, A., Kusche, J. (2018) Assessment of the impact of one-way laser ranging on orbit determination of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, Journal of Geodesy, doi.org/10.1007/s00190-018-1200-9.
  • Löcher, A., Kusche, J. (2018) Precise orbits of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter from radiometric tracking data, Journal of Geodesy, 92(9), pp 989–1001, doi.org/10.1007/s00190-018-1124-4.

Contact

If you have any questions regarding these data please contact Anno Löcher.