Reduction, analysis and application of one‐way laser ranging data from ILRS ground station to LRO

Abstract

One-way laser ranging is being performed routinely from International Laser Ranging Service ground stations to the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter, an instrument onboard NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. We developed software to process this novel type of tracking data and gathered information e.g. on characteristics and distribution in a preliminary analysis. By incorporating the high accuracy spacecraft range measurements into orbit determination, one expects the positioning and thereby the accuracy of further derived data products to improve. We used the one-way laser ranging measurements within an estimation software based on the Tudat library for carrying out an orbit determination for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. Thereby the results from the preliminary analysis on tracking data coverage, quality and quantity were used for inputs into the estimation and for evaluation of the results.