Related papers: The new lunar ephemeris INPOP17a and its applicati…
The Low-Frequency Radio Spectrometer (LFRS) is a scientific payload onboard the Chang'e-4 lunar lander launched in December 2018. The LFRS provides in-situ measurements of the low-frequency radio phenomena on the far-side of the Moon for…
We present data from the Apache Point Observatory Lunar Laser-ranging Operation (APOLLO) covering the 15-year span from April 2006 through the end of 2020. APOLLO measures the earth-moon separation by recording the round-trip travel time of…
LLR measures the distance between observatories on Earth and retro-reflectors on Moon since 1969. In this paper, we estimate the Earth Rotation Parameters (ERP; terrestrial pole offsets, $x_p$ and $y_p$, and Earth rotation phase,…
Lunar occultation, which occurs when the Moon crosses sight-lines to distant sources, has been studied extensively through apparent intensity pattern resulting from Fresnel diffraction, and has been successfully used to measure angular…
We present radio observations of the Moon between $35$ and $80$ MHz to demonstrate a novel technique of interferometrically measuring large-scale diffuse emission extending far beyond the primary beam (global signal) for the first time. In…
Chang'e-3(CE-3) has been the first spacecraft to soft-land on the Moon since the Soviet Union's Luna 24 in 1976. The spacecraft arrived at Mare Imbrium on December 14, 2013 and the same day, Yutu lunar rover separated from lander to start…
The passive retroreflector arrays placed on the moon by Apollo 11, 14 and 15 astronauts continue to produce valuable Earth-Moon range measurements that enable high-precision tests of gravitational physics, as well as studies of geo- and…
The Apache Point Lunar Laser-ranging Operation (APOLLO), in NM, can detect photon bounces from retro-reflectors on the moon surface to 0.1ns timing resolution. This facility enables not only the detection of light speed anisotropy, which…
The aim of this work is to combine the model of orbital and rotational motion of the Moon developed for DE430 with up-to-date astronomical, geodynamical, and geo- and selenophysical models. The parameters of the orbit and physical libration…
Planetary ephemerides are a very powerful tool to constrain deviations from the theory of General Relativity using orbital dynamics. The effective field theory framework called the Standard-Model Extension (SME) has been developed in order…
We use data from the Lunar Prospector Neutron Spectrometer to make the second space-based measurement of the free neutron lifetime finding $\tau_n=887 \pm 14_\text{stat}{\:^{+7}_{-3\:\text{syst}}}$ s, which is within 1$\sigma$ of the…
We analyze the dynamics of the Sun-Earth-Moon system in the context of a particular class of theories of gravity where curvature and matter are nonminimally coupled (NMC). These theories can potentially violate the Equivalence Principle as…
The Moon is generally thought to have formed from the debris ejected by the impact of a planet-sized object with the proto-Earth towards the end of planetary accretion. Modeling of the impact process predicts that the lunar material was…
Violations of Lorentz Invariance, a cornerstone of modern physics, are predicted by theories of quantum gravity and by extensions of General Relativity involving new vector or tensor fields. In the weak-field limit, such a violation would…
We present a fully analytical propagator for the orbits of lunar artificial satellites in a lunar gravity and third-body model sufficiently precise for a wide range of practical applications. The gravity model includes the twelve most…
The renewed interest in lunar exploration and the development of future lunar communication and navigation services highlight the need for a precise, stable, and interoperable geodetic and timing infrastructure on the Moon. NovaMoon,…
The leading-trailing asymmetry in lunar crater distribution provides a critical record of inner solar system dynamics, yet the long-standing discrepancy between the observed higher asymmetry and lower theoretical predictions indicates a gap…
Recent scientific and technological advances have enabled the detection of gravitational waves, autonomous driving, and the proposal of a communications network on the Moon (Lunar Internet or LunaNet). These efforts are based on the…
Phobos Laser Ranging (PLR) is a concept for a space mission designed to advance tests of relativistic gravity in the solar system. PLR's primary objective is to measure the curvature of space around the Sun, represented by the Eddington…
We describe for the first time in the scientific literature the Planetary Ephemeris Program (PEP), an open-source general-purpose astrometric data analysis program. We discuss, in particular, the implementation of pulsar timing analysis,…