Related papers: A clear case for dust obscuration of the lunar ret…
Forty years ago, Apollo astronauts placed the first of several retroreflector arrays on the lunar surface. Their continued usefulness for laser-ranging might suggest that the lunar environment does not damage optical devices. However, new…
Laser ranging measurements during the total lunar eclipse on 2010 December 21 verify previously suspected thermal lensing in the retroreflectors left on the lunar surface by the Apollo astronauts. Signal levels during the eclipse far…
Reliable energy delivery is a critical requirement for long-term lunar missions, particularly in regions with limited solar access, such as polar craters and during extended lunar nights. Optical Power Beaming (OPB) using high-power lasers…
Lunar laser ranging (LLR) to the Apollo retro-reflectors, which features the most long-lasting experiment in testing General Relativity theories, has remained operational over the past four decades. To date, with significant improvement of…
This paper provides an overview of the Lunar Laser Ranging (LLR) experiments. The measurement principle is explained and its theory is derived. Both contributions, the direct reflected light from retroreflectors as well as the scattered…
Because of lunar librations, the retroreflectors left on the moon do not, in general, face directly at the Earth. Usually this is regarded as a disadvantage. It results in a spread of arrival times, because each cube that comprises the…
In the companion paper ("Erosion rate of lunar soil under a landing rocket, part 1: identifying the rate-limiting physics", this issue) an equation was developed for the rate that lunar soil erodes under the exhaust of a landing rocket.…
Lunar laser ranging (LLR) has made major contributions to our understanding of the Moon's internal structure and the dynamics of the Earth-Moon system. Because of the recent improvements of the ground-based laser ranging facilities, the…
The Constellation Project's planned return to the moon requires numerous landings at the same site. Since the top few centimeters are loosely packed regolith, plume impingement from the Lander ejects the granular material at high…
Laser pulses fired at retroreflectors on the Moon provide very accurate ranges. Analysis yields information on Earth, Moon, and orbit. The highly accurate retroreflector positions have uncertainties less than a meter. Tides on the Moon show…
Lunar dust -- the sub-millimeter fraction of the regolith -- controls the optical, thermophysical, electrical, mechanical, and environmental behavior of the Moon's surface. These properties set the performance envelopes of remote-sensing…
The Earth-Moon-Sun system has traditionally provided the best laboratory for testing the strong equivalence principle. For a decade, the Apache Point Observatory Lunar Laser-ranging Operation (APOLLO) has been producing the world's best…
A technique to estimate mass erosion rate of surface soil during landing of the Apollo Lunar Module (LM) and total mass ejected due to the rocket plume interaction is proposed and tested. The erosion rate is proportional to the product of…
In 1970, the Soviet Lunokhod 1 rover delivered a French-built laser reflector to the Moon. Although a few range measurements were made within three months of its landing, these measurements---and any that may have followed---are unpublished…
Aims. An asymmetric dust cloud was detected around the Moon by the Lunar Dust Experiment on board the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer mission. We investigate the dynamics of the grains that escape the Moon and their…
The Lunar Laser Ranging (LLR) experiment has accumulated 50 years of range data of improving accuracy from ground stations to the laser retroreflector arrays (LRAs) on the lunar surface. The upcoming decade offers several opportunities to…
The Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) on board Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) made $> 10^{8}$ measurements of the reflectivity of Mars at 1064 nm ($R_{1064}$) by both active sounding and passive radiometry. Past studies of $R_{1064}$…
Precise measurements of the Earth-Moon distance by the lunar laser ranging (LLR), which begun in the early 1970's, contributed significantly to geodesy, geophysics, and lunar planetology, as well as enabled astrophysicists to perform…
Time-limited space missions may miss rare occurrences of very dense clouds of lunar dust. At the same time, the information provided by the Earth-based monitoring of the Moon during at least the last three centuries still remains unused. In…
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…